Gerhard Zucker (1908–1985) was a German businessman and rocket engineer.

Biography

Born in

Hasselfelde Hasselfelde is a town in the district of Harz, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated in the eastern Harz, approximately 17 km south of Wernigerode. Since 1 January 2010, it is part of the town Oberharz am Brocken. Hasselfelde has 2,390 i ...

, he first came to public notice in 1931, when he began to work on the problem of transporting mail by rocket. In 1933 he performed several experiments in the

Harz The Harz () is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' derives from the Middle High German ...

and at

Cuxhaven Cuxhaven (; ) is an independent town and seat of the Cuxhaven district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town includes the northernmost point of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the shore of the North Sea at the mouth of the Elbe River. Cuxhaven has ...

. In 1934, he emigrated to the UK, where he attempted to interest the British government in his rocket. After a failed rocket demonstration for officials of the British

Royal Mail , kw, Postya Riel, ga, An Post Ríoga , logo = Royal Mail.svg , logo_size = 250px , type = Public limited company , traded_as = , foundation = , founder = Henry VIII , location = London, England, UK , key_people = * Keith Williams ...

on 31 July 1934, he was deported to Germany, where he was arrested on suspicion of cooperating with the British. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he served in the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

. After World War II, he moved across the border to

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

, to the part of the

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

, where he became a furniture dealer. He continued his rocket experiments until, at a rocket demonstration on 7 May 1964 on the

Hasselkopf Hasselkopf is a mountain on the southern periphery of Braunlage, Germany. It is 612 m high. The hill is mostly covered in grass and undeveloped, but its northern slope has a short ski lift and can be used for downhill skiing in the winter m ...

Mountain near

Braunlage Braunlage () is a town and health resort in the Goslar district of Lower Saxony in Germany. Situated within the Harz mountain range, south of the Brocken massif, Braunlage's main business is tourism, particularly skiing. Nearby ski resorts includ ...

, an accident occurred which killed three people. This accident led to a ban on civilian rocket research in

, ending the rocket experiments of the

Hermann-Oberth-Gesellschaft The Hermann Oberth Society is an association named after Hermann Oberth, the German astronautics pioneer and the authoritative expert on rocketry outside the United States, which develops and builds rockets and trains engineers in space technology. ...

(Hermann Oberth Society) and the

Berthold Seliger Forschungs- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH The Berthold Seliger Forschungs- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH (BSFEGmbH) was a company founded by West German rocket technical designer Berthold Seliger in 1961. Seliger was a former assistant theoretician professor Dr. Eugen Sänger. The comp ...

(Berhold Seliger Research and Development Society). In the 1970s Gerhard Zucker once again began launching mail rockets.

Zucker in popular culture

A film based on Zucker's attempts with mail rockets at Scarp was made in 2004, called

The Rocket Post ''The Rocket Post'' is a 2004 British drama film directed by Stephen Whittaker and starring Ulrich Thomsen, Shauna Macdonald, Kevin McKidd and Patrick Malahide. It is set on a remote Scottish island during the late 1930s. The arrival of Germ ...

, starring

Ulrich Thomsen Ulrich Thomsen (born 6 December 1963) is a Danish actor and filmmaker, known for his role of Kai Proctor in the Cinemax original series ''Banshee'' (2013-2016). Biography Ulrich Thomsen was born in (Næsby) Odense, Denmark and graduated from th ...

as Zucker. In October 2011, Canadian Wilfred Ashley McIsaac resurrected the Zucker legacy in eastern Ontario, Canada after launching a scale solid fuel ARCAS rocket with Gerhard Zucker 'First Canadian Rocket-Flight' stamps on board. Zucker himself produced the postal stamps for a May 1936 exhibit in New York City. The stamps were never used until McIsaac launched them 75 years later on41 October 2011.

External links

Encyclopedia Astronautica - Gerhard Zucker

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zucker, Gerhard 1908 births 1985 deaths People from Oberharz am Brocken German aerospace engineers German spaceflight pioneers Businesspeople from Saxony-Anhalt Engineers from Saxony-Anhalt