From Mauthausen to the Moon

About the Book

This extraordinarily thrilling and captivating story is a fictionalized account of real-life experience and actual historical events that occurred before, during, and after WWII.

The principal character, Alfred Hammer, becomes the chief scientist for NASA’s Apollo lunar landing missions after he has endured incredible torture as a slave laborer in Mauthausen, a savage Nazi extermination camp.

Alfred, the young Jewish scientist, is a pioneer and visionary whose interest in space leads him to work and interact with prominent Nazi German rocket scientists during WWII. By hiding his real identity and successfully disguising his background, he contributes to the development of the deadly V1 and V2 rockets at the German Rocket Research Center (GRRC) in Peenemünde, Germany, while spying for the Allies.

Alfred nurtures a close, intimate relationship with Gertrud, the daughter of Dr. Wernick von Brown, the Nazi SS major and director of the GRRC. She becomes his spying accomplice by revealing secret scientific rocket developmental information to the British Secret Intelligence Service in London.

Subsequently, both are discovered and arrested by the German secret police. Alfred masterfully avoids the Nazi SS execution squad but ultimately is deported to Mauthausen (Vernichtungslager) Extermination Camp, where he faces sure death, while Gertrud is interned to Dachau Concentration Camp for her complicity.

Unbeknownst to Alfred, Gertrud is pregnant and delivers a baby boy in Dachau. The child is kidnapped, and raised by a sadistic female Nazi concentration-camp guard. Alfred escapes, managing to survive by his wits and courage. After the war, he ultimately makes his way back to his homeland but realizes the life he knew there no longer exists. He eventually finds safe haven in the United States where he plays a major role as a rocket scientist in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and contributes to the effort of landing an American on the moon.

While working at NASA, Alfred once again interacts with the same German team of scientists he worked with during the war. The scientists, under the leadership of Dr. Wernick von Brown, were commanded into custody and brought to the United States by the U.S. government. With his life no longer in turmoil, Alfred has one remaining goal—to track down and gain custody of his son. After a worldwide search that ends in a small village in the Azores, Alfred joyously reunites with his son and returns to the United States.

Alfred’s remarkable survival of Nazi atrocities and triumph over evil makes From Mauthausen to the Moon an intriguing, riveting emotional thriller filled with a suspenseful mixture of love, intrigue, and espionage.

About the Author

Following a ten years NASA service as manager of the Apollo Service and Command Modules reliability effort, Dr. Armand Lakner, was invited by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to implement the corrective actions resulting from the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. Subsequently, he joined The American Technology, Inc. as president and CEO. He is an internationally published scientist, a co- author with a Nobel Prize Laureate and a survivor of Nazi concentration camps, including Mauthausen Dr. Lakner lives with his wife, an accomplished artist, in Potomac Maryland, and Fenwick Island, Delaware.