Apr 2 1998
From The Space Library
Eberhard R. M. Rees, deputy and later successor to Wernher von Braun as "chief of American rocketry efforts," died at age 89, after suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Rees, born in Germany, had graduated from the Dresden Institute of Technology in 1934 with an advanced degree in mechanical engineering. He had worked as a technical plant manager with the German Guided Missile Center beginning in 1940, but after Germany's defeat in World War II, Rees became one of 118 scientists who surrendered to the West under the so-called Project Paperclip, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1954. In the United States, he had first worked at White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico, "where he shared his expertise on the V-2, a German rocket-propelled bomb, and on guided missile projects." In 1950 Rees had moved to Huntsville, Alabama, to serve as Deputy Chief of the Guided Missile Development Division at Redstone Arsenal. Among the projects Rees had managed were the Hermes II Project, the Redstone and Jupiter missile programs, the Explorer satellite project, and the Saturn program. Between 1956 and 1960, Rees had been Deputy Director of the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency's Development Operations Division. He had received a Distinguished Service Medal from NASA for his role in the Apollo 11 Mission. Rees had succeeded Wernher von Braun as Director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in 1970, retiring in 1973.
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