Editing Hermann Oberth (section)

== Tasks in World War II ==
From 1923 to 1938 Oberth worked with short breaks in 1929 and 1930 as a high school teacher for physics and mathematics in his home country [[Transylvania]] in Romania.<ref name="Barth"/> The Romanian Hermann Oberth, known worldwide in the professional world, with his many foreign contacts, was regarded as a security risk for the secrecy of the development work on [[Aggregate 4]] in Peenemünde.
Therefore, from June 1938 he was employed / sidelined from June 1938 by means of a two-year research contract with the German Research Institute for Aviation (DVL) at the Vienna University of Technology and then from July 1940 at the University of Technology Dresden in the Greater German Reich.<ref name="Rauschenbach">{{Cite book |last=Rauschenbach |first=Boris |title=Über die Erde hinaus, eine Biographie, Hermann Oberth (Beyond the Earth, a Biography, Hermann Oberth) |date=1995 |publisher=Böttinger, Wiesbaden, FRG}}</ref>
When he wanted to return to Transylvania in May 1941, he received German citizenship and was conscripted in August 1941 under the alias "Friedrich Hann"<ref name="Bode">{{Cite book |last=Bode |first=Volkhard |title=Raketenspuren, Waffenschmiede und Militärstandort Peenemünde (Rocket tracks, weaponsmiths and military base in Peenemünde) |date=1995 |publisher=Links, Berlin, FRG}}</ref>{{rp|58}} to the Army Research Institute Peenemünde, where the world's first large rocket, the Aggregat 4 – later called "Vergeltungswaffe V2" – was developed under the direction of [[Wernher von Braun]].
Oberth was not involved in this work,<ref name="Bode"/>{{rp|58}}<ref name="Brandau"/>{{rp|150}}<ref name="Rauschenbach"/>{{rp|157–164}}<ref name="Barber">{{Cite book |last=Barber |first=Murray |title=Die V2, Entwicklung-Technik-Einsatz (V2 - The A4 Rocket. From Peenemünde to Redstone) |date=2020 |publisher=Motorbuch, Stuttgart, FRG}}</ref>{{rp|101}} but placed in the patent review,<ref name="Fritz">{{Cite book |last=Fritz |first=Alfred |title=Der Weltraumprofessor Hermann Oberth (The space professor Hermann Oberth) |date=1969 |publisher=Ensslin & Laibling, Reutlingen, FRG}}</ref>{{rp|144}}<ref name="Brandau"/>{{rp|94}} and wrote various reports, for example "About the best outline of multi-stage rockets" and about "Defense against enemy planes with large, remote-controlled solid missile".<ref name="Fritz"/><ref name="Brandau"/>
(Oberth criticized the V2 design because, in his view, it was too complicated and too expensive for military purposes. He would have developed a solid fuel rocket for the V2's intended purposes.)<ref name="Barth"/> Around September 1943, he was awarded the ''[[War Merit Cross|Kriegsverdienstkreuz I Klasse mit Schwertern]]'' (War Merit Cross 1st Class, with Swords) for his "outstanding, courageous behavior ... during the attack" on 17./18. Aug 1943 on Peenemünde by [[Operation Hydra (1943)|Operation Hydra]], part of [[Operation Crossbow|Allied operations against the German rocket programme]].<ref name=":0">{{cite book |last=Ordway |first= Frederick I. III|title=The Rocket Team |series= Apogee Books Space Series 36|page=36}}</ref> In December 1943 Oberth asked for his transfer<ref name="Barber"/>{{rp|101}} to WASAG in Reinsdorf near Wittenberg/FRG to develop the anti-aircraft solid missile recommended by him.
He fled from there in April 1945, had to go to two different US internment camps, was released in August 1945 as a "person unaffected by the Nazi era" and came to live with his family in Feucht (Middle Franconia) FRG,<ref name ="Barth"/><ref name="Freeman"/><ref name="Brandau"/> where his family had already moved in 1943.<ref name="Barth"/>
Feucht is located near the regional capital of [[Nuremberg]], which became part of the [[Allied-occupied Germany|American Zone]] of occupied Germany, and also the location of the high-level [[Nuremberg trials|war-crimes trials]] of the surviving Nazi leaders.