Dieter Grau

Who is Dieter Grau?

Dieter Grau is a retired rocket scientist and member of the "von Braun rocket group", at Peenemünde working on the V-2 rockets in World War II. He was among the scientists that surrendered to the United States and traveled there, providing rocketry expertise via Operation Paperclip, which took them first to Fort Bliss, Texas. Grau was sent by the U.S. Army to White Sands in 1946 to work on the assemblage and testing of the V-2. His wife joined him there in 1947. While von Braun was on standby at Fort Bliss, Grau and other German rocket scientists busily launched V-2s for U.S. scientists to analyze. A total of 67 V-2s were launched at White Sands.

He continued his work with the team when they moved to the Redstone Arsenal, and then joined the Marshall Space Flight Center to work for NASA in 1950. Grau served as the director of quality in all of those assignments, including the Saturn V program which took mankind to the moon.

Grau said that von Braun worked closely with then-Colonel Holger Toftoy to develop the kind of team he wanted in the U.S.

"One of my main jobs at that time was to get information to the scientists and see what kind of projects they would like to have and then, of course, we had to accommodate them," Grau recalled. "Even though we were busy, we were more used to much overtime. But that was not the case. There we had a normal workday."