Georg Rickey under arrest in June, 1947
Georg Johannes Rickhey (25 August 1898, Hildesheim – 1966) was a German engineer and the general director of Mittelwerk GmbH in Dora-Mittelbau.
Rickhey, a doctor of engineering, joined the Nazi Party in October 1931 as member number 664,050. During the Second World War he held a number of positions with the Reichsministerium für Bewaffnung und Munition (Reich Ministry for Armament and Munitions) before becoming manager of Demag, a tank production company, in 1942.[1]
He became head of Mittelwerk GmbH in Dora-Mittelbau from April 1944, overseeing production of the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket.[2] His work on these weapons saw him awarded the Knights Cross of the War Merit Cross along with Walter Dornberger and Wernher von Braun.[3]
Arrested in 1945, he was taken by the U.S. Army to live at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio where he worked under the terms of Operation Paperclip.[1] He was subsequently indicted as part of the Dachau Trials of 1947 under accusations that he had worked closely with the SS and Gestapo and witnessed executions. A lack of evidence however saw Rickhey acquitted.[4] He did not return to his work in the United States.[5]
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References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor und nach 1945., Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 496
- ↑ Jens-Christian Wagner: Produktion des Todes: Das KZ Mittelbau-Dora, Göttingen 2001, p. 198f
- ↑ Peenemünde in 1944
- ↑ Vgl. Robert Sigel: Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit. Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945-48., Frankfurt am Main 1992, pp. 16 ff., pp. 99f.
- ↑ Piszkiewicz, Dennis (2007). The Nazi Rocketeers: Dreams of Space and Crimes of War. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books. p. 232. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SnAMx8A7k68C&pg=PA232&lpg=PA232&dq=georg+rickhey&source=bl&ots=lcmToaiTTX&sig=6RRwEew8cZt_R2AKk6APD8wXsSQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=AxNiU_GqPO3Y0QXn3YCYBg&ved=0CFAQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=georg%20rickhey&f=false. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
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