Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

OperatION paperCLIp IN hUNtSVILLe, aLaBaMa
105
as Germans in the United States, the German rocket engineers and
their families did not have to contend with the same issues as Germans in
postwar Germany who were forced to confront the past as a nation for decades.
however, in the United States, these immigrants were and are confronted
with the histories of other immigrants, including refugees from Germany who
had fed Nazi Germany during and after the war, as well as Germans of the
following generations, like myself, who came to the United States at a later
point in time and who are accustomed to a more honest approach to dealing
with the German past. 42 When discussing the rocket engineers’ signifcance to
the nation, we cannot aford to distort history to such an extent that we ignore
the histories of other immigrants or of those who were already part of the
american fabric. the controversies provoked by the rudolph case alluded to at
the beginning of this chapter make that abundantly clear.
By discussing the impact of historical events on members of the huntsville
community not typically consulted, I aim to disturb the notion of unanimity
and create a more complex and complete picture. I believe this is as important
for narratives about the “creation of the rocket city” as it is to the “history of
rocketry” and, therefore, “space history” that should include the impact of
the changes on diferent social groups of the huntsville community just as
much as the use and abuse of forced laborers from concentration camps for the
production of Saturn V’s forerunners and its implications.
this is a frst attempt to listen to those often unheard voices within
the huntsville community as they tell the story of their German neighbors.
however, listening to these voices alone would be a distortion as well, which
is why I will continue the interview-based research weaving these and other
voices into the fabric of my dissertation.
as stated earlier, the main issue with which I grapple is how narrations
of the past refect changing power structures and sometimes create new and
unexpected alliances. In this case, it seems that despite their marginalization
in huntsville, voices from the african-american community may be more
refective of the larger national community, which often contrasts with the
common idealization of the German rocket engineers in huntsville. how these
and other voices in huntsville contest each other and interact with national
narratives will be at the center of my dissertation where I take the concept of
42. For references on how Germans in Germany have been grappling with the Nazi past, see, for
example, Michael Kohlstruck, Zwischen Erinnerung und Geschichte: Der Nationalsozialismus und
die jungen Deutschen (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 1997); Claudia Fröhlich and Michael Kohlstruck,
Engagierte Demokraten: Vergangenheitspolitik in kritischer Absicht (Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot,
1999); Charles S. Maier, The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity
(Cambridge, Ma: harvard University press 1997); Jens Fabian pyper. “Uns Hat Keiner Gefragt”:
Positionen der dritten Generation zur Bedeutung des Holocaust (Berlin: philo, 2002); and philipp
Gassert and alan e. Steinweis, Coping With the Nazi Past: West German Debates on Nazism and
Generational Confict, 1955-1975 (New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 2006).