Was Robert Goddard's research vital to the V-2 program?

I remember reading here that Werner Von Braun helped Robert Goddard's widow get royalties for patents that NASA used. However I was wondering if maybe I'm mis-understanding one issue which is did the Germans actually use some of Goddard's work in developing the V-2? Any good sources?

 

Goddard, Von Braun, and a Russian whose name I can't remember were the worlds leading researchers in the area of rockets and missiles in the 30's and exchanged considerable amounts of information. I believe Goddard was consdidered the leader in the practicle design area particularly rocket motors. A web search should turn up a wealth of information and the titles of quite a few references.

 

I think you're thinking of Tsiolkovsky. I recall reading that von Braun was puzzled to be so eagerly interrogated by the Americans and said essentially, why are you asking me, it's all from your man Goddard.

 

Before my time.

 

Yes, von Braun was unaware that Goddard had passed away before war's end and couldn't be questioned. He and his first supervisor (Oberth), recognized Goddard's work. I personally think that the information exchanges between Oberth (von Braun’s supervisor), Goddard, and the Russian theorist Tsilokofsky (sp?) was pretty extensive before the friction between nations the mid thirties came to the fore and the Russian had passed away.

There was the example of Goddard being publicly secretive even while filing his patents, and open with other rocket scientists in his correspondence with them. All three of these men were fans of Jules Verne’s science fiction stories, and their original letters were based on that shared enthusiasm for the tales.

I wouldn’t doubt that even though Goddard’s original published work preceded Oberth’s very similar publication, Oberth’s contention that Goddard’s 1919 book “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes” didn’t influence his own work; “Die Rakete Zu Den Plantenraumen (A Rocket Into Planetary Space). Goddard’s work wasn’t translated into German, so Oberth may never have seen or read it. His own work which was published using the money of his wealthy wife years after Goddard’s publication seems rather understandable. Could be an instance of two men coming to the same conclusions independently, just as easily as von Oheim and Frank Whittle both coming up with the turbo jet engine independently, and are recognized today as "co-inventors".

It was after Oberth’s work was published in English that Goddard got in touch with him and they discovered their common admiration for Verne. Of course in the twenties and thirties communication between like mined scientists wasn’t as strictly monitored as during later years. It does seem likely that Goddard had told Oberth of his advances in the use of high-speed centrifugal liquid pumps, gyroscopic stabilizing systems, coupled with vanes in the exhaust stream between 1935 and 1937. Three of the unique parts of the V-2 which made it work.

Goddard used gasoline and liquid oxygen, while the cost of high quality gasoline in Germany was prohibitive at that time and even more so later, so Oberth (and von Braun) used diluted alcohol instead of gasoline. Konstantine Tsilokofsky was a pure theorist, and never built any engines or rockets before his demise. In my opinion (just an opinion of course), it seems unlikely that Goddard's work didn't influence the work of Oberth and von Braun.

They may have taken Goddard's ideas and fully developed them with Nazi government money, while Goddard did his own work with private support from both The Smithsonian grants and Guggenheim money. No government support for Robert Goddard.