Engelbrecht Funten (11 August 1922 – 16 September 1999) was an astronaut of Nazi Germany.
Biography[]
Engelbrecht Funten was born on 11 August 1922 in Berlin, Nazi Germany. He was drafted into the Luftwaffe in 1940 during World War II and he fought in the Battle of Britain, shooting down 2 British Mosquito fighters. Funten was later picked along with Gabriel Eschenbach and Agidius Taubman to aid in a September 1944 German space project called Operation Fury. The operation involved the development of a V-2 rocket into a space shuttle, and it was launched from Braunau-am-Inn in Austria. It made it to the Mesosphere before it disintegrated, but the mission inspired future tests. Unfortunately, the three were captured separately by Allied forces in May 1945. Funten was used by the Soviet Union to assist in their space project from Baikonur in the Kazakh SSR, and he died in Kaluga Oblast on 16 September 1999.