Hermann Oberth completed a doctoral dissertation on spaceflight and rocketry and submitted it at the University of Heidelberg. The work was rejected as too speculative, but the manuscript became the basis for his later book and helped launch serious public debate about space travel.
Oberth published Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen ("The Rocket into Interplanetary Space"). The book argued—using mathematics and engineering reasoning—that rockets could work in a vacuum, reach very high speeds, and make space travel physically possible.
Oberth released a much-expanded revision of his earlier book under the new title Wege zur Raumschiffahrt ("Ways to Spaceflight"). It developed his technical ideas in more detail and became a key reference for German-speaking rocketry enthusiasts and early engineers.
In 1929, the Société astronomique de France awarded Oberth the first Prix REP-Hirsch (later the Prix international d’astronautique). The prize signaled that spaceflight research was being taken seriously in scientific circles, not only as fiction or publicity.
During 1929, Oberth constructed and tested an early liquid-fuel rocket engine in UFA workshops at Neubabelsberg. This was a shift from theory toward hardware, and it helped inspire and train the small community of experimenters forming around him.
Oberth served as a technical advisor for Fritz Lang’s film Frau im Mond ("Woman in the Moon"). The project linked popular culture to real rocketry work: Oberth and others hoped a real rocket demonstration could accompany the film’s release, boosting public interest and funding.
Oberth became an influential member and mentor within the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR), a German spaceflight society founded in 1927. The VfR connected Oberth’s ideas to a new generation of experimenters, including Wernher von Braun, and helped turn spaceflight into an organized technical movement.
Oberth’s team carried out a major engine test at Berlin’s Chemisch-Technische Reichsanstalt, with official verification of the results. The successful firing helped restore credibility after earlier, highly publicized setbacks and showed that liquid-propellant work could be measured and repeated in a laboratory setting.
As Europe moved toward rearmament, Oberth received a research contract connected to the German Research Institute for Aviation (DVL) at the Vienna University of Technology. The contract shifted his work from mostly private or club-based efforts toward state-linked research structures.
Oberth continued under German research arrangements, working from July 1940 at the Technical University in Dresden. This period shows how rocketry and related aeronautics research increasingly became tied to wartime institutions and priorities.
After receiving German citizenship, Oberth was conscripted in August 1941 and sent to the Peenemünde Army Research Center under the alias "Friedrich Hann." He was kept away from the core V-2 development work and instead handled tasks such as patent review and technical reports, reflecting security concerns about his foreign contacts.
In 1948, with limited opportunities in postwar Germany, Oberth went to Switzerland. He worked as a scientific consultant and wrote for the aerospace trade journal Interavia, marking a shift from wartime institutions back toward public-facing technical communication.
Hermann Oberth's Publications and Rocket Activities (1922–1948)