Walter J.H. Riedel

From The Space Library

Walter "Papa" Riedel was born in 1903 in Berlin Germany. In 1927 he joined the A.G. Fuer Industriegaswertung as a designer and engineer. He worked as an assistant to the early rocket pioneer Max Valier until Valier's death in 1930. In 1931 or 1932 he and his partner Arthur Rudolph proposed and then built regenerative cooling for rocket engines. In 1934 his rocket group was amalgamated with that of Wernher von Braun at Kummersdorf. In 1937 Riedel became chief designer of the V-2 missile. In October 1942 he became Chief engineer on the V-2 production.

On May 14th 1945 Riedel was located in a jail cell in Saalfeld where he was being held by U.S. Counter Intelligence. Some local people had directed the Americans to Riedel and accused him of making a bacteriological weapon. When Riedel tried to explain to his interrogators that what they were looking at was a valve for a surface to air missile they didn't believe him. When he lost his temper he was roughed up.

In March 1947 he was relocated to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough England before moving to the associated Rocket Propulsion Establishment at Westcott in Buckinghamshire. He remained working there until his death in 1968. He died in Berlin on May 15th 1968. It is believed that Riedel never travelled to the United States but he was often mistaken for Walther Riedel, another rocket pioneer who also worked on the V-2 before moving to California to work for North American Aviation.