Member of the German Rocket Team

Born:

August 4, 1915, Chemnitz, Germany

Died:

June 3, 1989, Huntsville, Alabama

Buried:

Maple Hill Cemetery, Huntsville, Alabama

Notes:

•  "German expert in guided missiles during World War II. Member of the German rocket team, arrived in America under Project Paperclip on 16 November 1945 aboard the Argentina from La Havre. As of January 1947, working at Fort Bliss, Texas. Worked his entire life with the rocket team, at Fort Bliss, White Stands, and then at Huntsville. As of 1960, Director, Aeroballistics Division, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center." - Encyclopedia Astronautica

•  Came to the USA on the SS Argentina arrived 11/16/1945
Marshall Space Flight Center Research, Director of Aero-Astrodynamics Lab 4200 - Woodard

•  In his memoir, Wegener told of the following conversation with Dr. Geissler during rocket testing:
     "A second set of experiments was performed in eastern Poland, though I only heard about them. The local German authorities were asked by the army to remove the residents of a village and its surrounding area in a relatively sparsely populated target zone. While the test missile was set up to fly its entire trajectory over populated stretches of land, it was aimed at the steeple of a church in the selected village. Since one instinctively did not believe that the A4 would exactly hit its target, von Braun and his associates took the unscientific step of locating their observation point in the steeple. Ernst Geissler, the cool-headed leader of the mathematics group in charge of trajectory calculations, pointed out to me that the church tower was still the most likely point to be hit. Several missiles were fired; some exploded before they hit the ground, and the explosions were observed from the steeple. Again nothing much was accomplished. Nobody got hurt in the process, and further work was done in the laboratories and by calculations. I believe Lehnert's aerodynamics group performed new experiments in the wind tunnel, even later at Kochel. Unfortunately, however, in supersonic wind tunnels of the Peenemiinde type the temperature effects of real supersonic flight could not be simulated. Nevertheless, since many other factors may have contributed to the strange explosions, the work was useful. The decision to add additional heat insulation on the inside of the A4 resulted in a substantial improvement but not in a cure for the exploding rockets" - Wegener

•  "The decade of the 1950s brought a population explosion to the development of Monte Sano. It was not like the two previous efforts, as a summer resort for tourists as well as local residents with summer homes, but as a suburban neighborhood that would attract families that were headed by young to middleage professionals. They were permanent, year-round residents that built or bought homes in all areas of the mountain. Among these new residents were German families headed by scientists and rocket engineers." Dr. Geissler purchased one of these lots. - Hill

•  Husband of Gerda Kaethe Grete Greissler, married August 18, 1941 at Varzin, Pomerania Germany. She was born October 17, 1921 and died Dec. 24, 1998. They had two daughters at the time the Naturalization papers were submitted. - Petition for Naturalization


Related Links:

•  Encyclopedia Astronautica - Short Bio

•  Find A Grave - Page created by Ray.

•  Hill - Article titled "History of the Development of Monte Sano" by James B. Hill, Jr. in the Huntsville Historical Review, Volume 34, #1, Winter-Spring 2009, Huntsville-Madison County Historical Society page 80.

•  Petition for Naturalization - Viewed through an Ancestry.com paid subscription.

•  UAH - University of Alabama in Huntsville has on file a series of audio interviews related to Marshall Space Flight Center's Saturn History Project. Dr. Geissler's interviews are presented here in five parts.

•  Wegener - The Peenemunde Wind Tunnels: A Memoir by Peter P. Wegener, 1996, page 52.

•  Wicks - Images of Aviation: Huntsville Air and Space, by T. Gary Wicks, 2010, page 63.

•  Woodard - Article titled "Rocket Pioneers, Schemers and Dreamers" by Grady Woodard for Lunarpedia.

The Following Pages Link to this Page:
•  Hill