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Werner Kuers Collection

 Collection
Identifier: MC-74

Content Description

This collection contains four different items. It contains one handwritten memoir and a typed transcript of the memoir of Werner Kuers from 1907-1970. A book, titled Operation paperclip at Fort Bliss: 1945-1950. Newspaper clippings that reference Werner Kuers, and three hand drawn maps of Germany.

Dates

  • Creation: 1907 - 1992

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research in the Archives & Special Collections reading room. Handling guidelines and use restrictions will be communicated and enforced by archives staff members.

Conditions Governing Use

This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections.

Biographical / Historical

Werner Richard Kuers was born on April 18, 1907 in Berlin, Germany. He attended Berlin Institute of Technology, and graduated December 1930 with a Master of Science in Engineering, (machine construction). He worked at Peenemunde, Germany in 1938 and worked with Werner Von Braun. As Nazi Germany began to break down, he and the rest of the Paperclip scientists surrendered to the Allies; he came to the United States in 1945 and began working at Fort Bliss, Texas, assembling, testing, and launching V-2 rockets created from German components acquired by the U.S. Army.

Kuers moved to Huntsville in 1950 with Werner von Braun. He served first as deputy, then director of the Marshall Space Flight Center’s Manufacturing and Engineer Division. By late 1964, he became the Director of Marshall Space Flight Center’s Manufacturing and Engineer Division. Kuers helped develop a new way to weld large parts of the Saturn II rocket and suggested astronauts should use water tanks to simulate weightlessness. He retired in 1969 and moved to Mexico.

Werner Kuers was also an avid musician and was one of the original founders and a concert master of the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra.

He died of cancer on May 14, 1983 at Bethesda, Maryland.

Information derived from contents of collection and Lundquist’s “Transplanted Rocket Pioneers.”

Extent

0.5 Linear foot (1 box.)

Language of Materials

English

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of John F. Silton, 2013.

Existence and Location of Copies

Processing Information

Collections are processed to a variety of levels, depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived research value, the availability of staff, and competing priorities. The library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections as they are acquired, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit.

Author
David Hatfield
Date
2018-04-13
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the The University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives & Special Collections Repository

Contact:
M. Louis Salmon Library
301 Sparkman Drive
Huntsville Alabama 35899 United States of America
256-824-6523