Science Fiction Inspires Space Travel

German scientists were already exploring the possibilities of humans traveling to space long before World War 2 even started. Science fiction had strong appeal in Germany, just as it did in American, which really helped fuel the passion for early rocketry. One of the most inspiring science fiction productions of that time and place was a film titled Wunder Der Schöpfung (Wonders of Creation.) released in 1925. This film featured a story of a team of German scientist, traveling through the universe in a spacecraft. One notable quote from this film was “Now Germany belongs to us, tomorrow the whole solar system.” Which some may say still even rein true today for them.

This film was a huge success and served as the symbol of progress and an age of new technologies. Perhaps because this fil featured a look at a brighter future for the people of Germany, after the humiliation loss of World War 1. Another famous film like this was Frau im Mond (The Girl in the Moon), which showed a team of Germans utilizing a rocket to get to the moon. The magic from it must have been incredible, since it helped inspire a lasting influence that would begin space travel. Even the famous countdowns before each launch were originally from this movie.

Many of the German youth were inspired by this film, including Wernher von Braun. There were also many technical publications as well that Germans had access too about rocketry as well. These included books like Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums — der Raketen-Motor (The Problem of Space Travel — the Rocket Motor) or Die Rakete zu den Planetenräume (The Rocket Into Interpanetary Space) by Hermann Oberth, which were both books about early rocket propulsion. There was also a magazine called Die Rakete (The Rocket) which would be published by the Society for Space Travel (VereinfürRaumschiffahrt. These piece of literature gave German engineers guides on how to build and launch these new propulsion systems.

Alongside rocketry another type of technology was developed as well, by the Thule Soceity. These would be disk-shaped craft powered by motors whose revolutionary design blended science. This would allow them great speed and acceleration that defied conventional physics, still to this day. While rockets laid the foundations of both US and Soviet space flight programs it was the saucers that became vital to the Nazis space program along with the escape, and ultimately their return.