Walter Riedel

Walter Riedel (5 December 1902 to 15 May 1968), nicknamed Papa Riedel, was a German-British engineer and rocket scientist who headed the Technical Design Office at the Peenemuende Army Research Center and was chief designer of the A4 (V-2) ballistic rocket. From 1928 he worked at the Heylandt company, where he took over liquid-propellant rocket motor development after Max Valier died in a test explosion, and in 1934 that work was absorbed into the army group around Wernher von Braun. After the 1943 air raid on Peenemuende he supervised moving development to Ebensee in Austria. Held briefly after the war, he emigrated to England in 1947 and worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment and then the Rocket Propulsion Establishment at Westcott until his death. A lunar crater is named for him and for the unrelated Klaus Riedel.