Friedrich Christian Anton Lang, better known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian-born German-American film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States. One of the best-known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute. He has been cited as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time.
Hermann Julius Oberth was an Austro-Hungarian-born German physicist and rocket pioneer of Transylvanian Saxon descent. Oberth supported Nazi Germany's war effort and received the War Merit Cross in 1943.
The Opel RAK.1 was the world's first purpose-built rocket-powered aircraft. It was designed and built by Julius Hatry under commission from Fritz von Opel, who flew it on September 30, 1929 in front of a large crowd at Rebstock airport near Frankfurt am Main. The RAK.1 plane was part of a series of rocket-powered vehicles that were developed and demonstrated within the Opel RAK program, the world's first large-scale rocket program.
Fritz Adam Hermann von Opel, known as Fritz Adam Hermann Opel until his father was ennobled in 1917, was the only son of Wilhelm von Opel and a grandson of Adam Opel, founder of the Opel company. He is remembered mostly for his Opel RAK demonstrations of the world's first manned rocket-powered ground and air vehicles that earned him the nickname "Rocket Fritz" and which were also highly effective as publicity stunts for his family's automotive business.
The Verein für Raumschiffahrt was a German amateur rocket association prior to World War II that included members outside Germany. The first successful VfR test firing with liquid fuel was conducted by Max Valier at the Heylandt Works on January 25, 1930; and additional rocket experiments were conducted at a farm near Bernstadt, Saxony.
Willy Otto Oskar Ley was a German and American science writer and proponent of cryptozoology. The crater Ley on the far side of the Moon is named in his honor.
Rudolf Nebel was a spaceflight advocate active in Germany's amateur rocket group, the Verein für Raumschiffahrt in the 1930s and in rebuilding German rocketry following World War II.
A countdown is a sequence of backward counting to indicate the time remaining before an event is scheduled to occur. NASA commonly employs the terms "L-minus" and "T-minus" during the preparation for and anticipation of a rocket launch, and even "E-minus" for events that involve spacecraft that are already in space, where the "T" could stand for "Test" or "Time", and the "E" stands for "Encounter", as with a comet or some other space object, like a spacecraft.
Thea Gabriele von Harbou was a German screenwriter, novelist, film director, and actress. She is remembered as the screenwriter of the science fiction film classic Metropolis (1927) and for the 1925 novel on which it was based. von Harbou collaborated as a screenwriter with film director Fritz Lang, her husband, during the period of transition from silent to sound films.
Gustav von Wangenheim was a German actor, screenwriter and director.
The Rocket to the Moon is a 1928 science fiction novel by the German writer Thea von Harbou. Its German title is Die Frau im Mond, which means "The Woman in the Moon". It is about a fictitious Moon mission. The book was translated into English by Baroness von Hutten and published in 1930 as The Girl in the Moon. It was republished in 1977 as The Rocket to the Moon.
Spione is a 1928 German silent espionage thriller directed by Fritz Lang and co-written with his wife, Thea von Harbou, who also wrote a novel of the same name, published a year later. The film was Lang's penultimate silent film and the first for his own production company; Fritz Lang-Film GmbH. As in Lang's Mabuse films, Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922) and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), Rudolf Klein-Rogge plays a master criminal aiming for world domination.
Otto Willi Gail was a German science journalist and author.
Gustl Gstettenbaur was a German stage, film and television actor.
Robert and Bertram is a 1939 German musical comedy film directed by Hans H. Zerlett and starring Rudi Godden, Kurt Seifert, and Carla Rust. It premiered in Hamburg on 7 July 1939. It was based on the 1856 play Robert and Bertram by Gustav Räder about two wandering vagrants which had been adapted into several film versions including a Polish film of the same title the previous year. It was set in 1839.
The Mistress and Her Servant is a 1929 German silent drama film directed by Richard Oswald and starring Henny Porten, Mary Kid and Fritz Kampers. It was based on the novel of the same title by Georg Engel. It was shot at the EFA Studios in Berlin. The film's sets were designed by the art director Franz Schroedter.
Heinrich Gotho was an Austrian film actor. Born in Dolina, he started his acting career at some provincial theatres until he found an engagement at the Neues Volkstheater in Berlin. The character actor appeared in over 50 films between 1922 and 1933, mostly in smaller roles. He notably appeared in numerous films by director Fritz Lang, among them Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922), Metropolis (1927) and M (1931). Gotho was forced to retire from film acting in 1933; as a Jew he could no longer work in Nazi Germany. He died in 1938 in the Jewish Hospital of Berlin-Wedding.
The year 1929 was marked, in science fiction, by the following events.
The House on the Moon is a 1921 German silent science fiction film directed by Karlheinz Martin and starring Leontine Kühnberg, Erich Pabst and Fritz Kortner. Shot at the Johannisthal Studios in an expressionist style, it is now considered a lost film.
