Karl Heimburg

Karl Ludwig Heimburg (1910-1997) was a German-American engineer who specialized in the test stands on which rocket engines and missiles were proved. Educated at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt, he travelled through the Soviet Union in 1936 and 1937 to Japan, worked there, and in 1941 was drafted and sent to Peenemünde. He worked in the project office on the A7, then on Test Stand VII, then on test stands and a floating launch platform for the Wasserfall missile, and in late 1944 on the crash program for the winged A4b. He was sent to Lehesten to coordinate testing of production V-2 engines, took part in Operation Backfire with the British, and agreed to go to the United States, where he was at Fort Bliss by January 1947. He stayed with the rocket team through Huntsville and by 1960 was Director of the Test Division at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. He died in Huntsville.