Analysis of Gravity's Rainbow, Part 3 - Chapter 11.1: Pökler Sees Alpdrücken, Pökler Waits at the Zwölfkinder, Pökler and Weissmann, Mondaugen in Südwest, Moving to Peenemünde, Ilse's First Appearance
Kadavergehorsamkeit -- cadaver obedience, ie "But really he did not obey like a corpse. He was political, up to a point"...
verein für Raumschiffahrt -- "spaceflight society" -- as it says, a group of amateur rocketeers who wanted to get to space. Their founders met on the set of Fritz Lang's early science fiction film Frau im Mond (The Woman in the Moon), where they all three were acting as technical advisers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verein_f%C3%BCr_Raumschiffahrt. One of the founders was Max Valier who worked with Opel on his rocket cars, referenced in the Rocketman scene where he's running across the street. Valier was killed by one of his alcohol-fueled rockets in 1930. But the vfR continued and got absorbed into the German military with the rise of the third reich. Young Werner von Braun was a member of the vfR. So to, we learn, was Pökler, whose sci-fi nerdiness got him into the vfR and began his tragic cooption by the Rocketenstadt. "he also knew at firrst hand what happens to dreams with no money to support them. So, presently, Pölker found that by refusing to take sides, he'd become Weismann's best ally."
Why is he trying to fish lumps of coal out of the river Spree? Why are there lumps of coal floating down the river for him to fish out?
Hinterhof -- backyard
Kummersdorf was indeed where the Weapons Department of the German army was headquartered. Not that P. would have gotten it wrong or anything but I checked.
Halbmodelle solution...Manometer: a manometer is an instrument for measuring pressure of a flued (fluid also known as a Solution). Halbmodelle means "half model" ... so he was testing the pressure inside the model of the rocket by mounting it to the wall so that he could run tubes out to the manometers outside... very confusing with the pun on solution.
Dr. Wahmke was a real person who did die in 1934 in that manner described in the text. Kurt Wahmke. (Kurt is the fictional Mondaugen's first name, mentioned in the next sentence. coincidence? Because Kurt Mondaugen is also a character in Pynchon's V., so unless he was planning this very scene from his earliest days as a novelist ... In V. there's a section called Mondaugen's Story where we meet Lady V. who is actually Weismann/Blicero according to the pynchon wiki https://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_145-154#Page_152)
Folgsamkeit translates again to obedience, as in corpse obedience above, now Rocket obedience which is much tricker... in this bit which is all about Zen and the art of Archery.
Kadavergehorsamkeit -- cadaver obedience, ie "But really he did not obey like a corpse. He was political, up to a point"...
verein für Raumschiffahrt -- "spaceflight society" -- as it says, a group of amateur rocketeers who wanted to get to space. Their founders met on the set of Fritz Lang's early science fiction film Frau im Mond (The Woman in the Moon), where they all three were acting as technical advisers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verein_f%C3%BCr_Raumschiffahrt. One of the founders was Max Valier who worked with Opel on his rocket cars, referenced in the Rocketman scene where he's running across the street. Valier was killed by one of his alcohol-fueled rockets in 1930. But the vfR continued and got absorbed into the German military with the rise of the third reich. Young Werner von Braun was a member of the vfR. So to, we learn, was Pökler, whose sci-fi nerdiness got him into the vfR and began his tragic cooption by the Rocketenstadt. "he also knew at firrst hand what happens to dreams with no money to support them. So, presently, Pölker found that by refusing to take sides, he'd become Weismann's best ally."
Why is he trying to fish lumps of coal out of the river Spree? Why are there lumps of coal floating down the river for him to fish out?
Hinterhof -- backyard
Kummersdorf was indeed where the Weapons Department of the German army was headquartered. Not that P. would have gotten it wrong or anything but I checked.
Halbmodelle solution...Manometer: a manometer is an instrument for measuring pressure of a flued (fluid also known as a Solution). Halbmodelle means "half model" ... so he was testing the pressure inside the model of the rocket by mounting it to the wall so that he could run tubes out to the manometers outside... very confusing with the pun on solution.
Dr. Wahmke was a real person who did die in 1934 in that manner described in the text. Kurt Wahmke. (Kurt is the fictional Mondaugen's first name, mentioned in the next sentence. coincidence? Because Kurt Mondaugen is also a character in Pynchon's V., so unless he was planning this very scene from his earliest days as a novelist ... In V. there's a section called Mondaugen's Story where we meet Lady V. who is actually Weismann/Blicero according to the pynchon wiki https://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_145-154#Page_152)
Folgsamkeit translates again to obedience, as in corpse obedience above, now Rocket obedience which is much tricker... in this bit which is all about Zen and the art of Archery.
I'm going to go look at that part of V....
I am reading that part of V., and to clarify Weismann is the "companion" of Vera Meroving, (lady V)