Helmut Gröttrup

Helmut Gröttrup ( born February 12, 1916 in Cologne, † 5 July 1981 in Munich) was a German engineer. He worked as a missile expert at the German V-2 project and the Soviet rocket development, then as a computer scientist at the development of electronic identification systems.

V2 Project

As assistant of Wernher von Braun Gröttrup was involved in the construction of V2 at the Army Research Center Peenemünde. Gröttrup developed the guidance and control systems of the V2.

On March 13, 1944 Gröttrup was arrested along with Wernher von Braun and Magnus, and Klaus Riedel by the Gestapo and taken to the prison to Stettin. They were accused, to do more for human spaceflight as relevant for war rockets.

Soviet missile program

After the Second World War Gröttrup lived first in the Western occupation zones. He refused to work for the Americans, because he did not want to be separated from his family. The Soviet Union allowed him to continue his work in Germany and, to stay with his family. He was the greatest rocket specialist, which the Soviet Union was able to secure for their missile program.

September 9, 1945 to October 22, 1946 Gröttrup worked under the direction of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev in Bleicherode in the Soviet occupation zone from starting the production of the A -4 and individual components of the missile complex again. Since this acted to a defense good, this was a clear violation of the Potsdam Agreement. They formed the basis for the large Soviet missile program and was a template for the first rocket types R-1 and R -2.

On October 22, 1946, therefore, were all scientists and engineers who worked for the Soviet Union deported under secrecy and brought by train to the Soviet Union to study conducting under the direction of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, the efforts to get production and operational procedures for running. Until November 13, 1947, there were eleven starting attempts, five of which had been successful. The Soviet Union decided henceforth to refrain from German specialists and pulled it off of the projects.

First, the people around Gröttrup still had to remain on the island Gorodomlia in Seliger. On November 22, 1953 Gröttrup allowed to return to Germany with his family.

Computer science

Back in Germany, he worked at Standard Elektrik AG (see C. Lorenz AG / G. Schaub apparatus ) in Stuttgart busy ( 1955-1958 ). Gröttrup in 1957 (together with Prof. Karl Steinbuch ) known as co-founder of computer science and then dealt with the first batches of electrically coded access systems. 1966 reported a Gröttrup " identification switch " ( DE1524695 ) to identify the customer and release of the tapping process in a gas station for a patent. He tried the information first electro-mechanical or hold in sequentially read out electronic stores. Together with Jürgen Dethloff in 1968 he reported to the smart card patent DE 1945777 C3, but which was not granted until 1982. According to this application identification data on an integrated circuit are stored so that the information is " not imitable by discrete elements" which also audited because of the dimensions. Even wireless transmission by inductive coupling, which led to the RFID technology was already provided. From 1970 he headed the Siegfried Otto, the owner of Giesecke & Devrient, established company for organization and automation ( GAO mbH) and laid the basis for later very successful areas of smart cards and banknote processing systems.

Publications

• About rockets Ullsteinhaus, Berlin, Frankfurt and Vienna, 1959
• ( As ed. together with Hans Bolewski ) The Space in human hands, cross -Verlag, Stuttgart 1959