Eberhard Rees

Biography Rees was born in Trossingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. After studying engineering at the University of Stuttgart, and graduating from the Dresden University of Technology in 1934 with his master's degree, Rees arrived at the Army Research Center Peenemünde in the spring of 1939 and managed V-2 rocket fabrication and assembly. He served as Wernher von Braun's deputy from World War II through the Apollo program. and in 1950, at the Redstone Arsenal. In August 1957, his team developed the ablative heat shield.

After serving as Deputy Director of Development Operations for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency,

On March 1, 1970, Rees was appointed as the Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Alabama, as von Braun's handpicked successor, from which he managed the Skylab space station development and construction. He retired from NASA in 1973.

On April 2, 1998, Rees died in a DeLand, Florida, hospital at the age of 89.