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Obituary for Sigmund Jähn: The quiet hero

2019-09-22T20:28:35.276Z


Sigmund Jähn was the first German in space. His flight initially caused a sensation, especially in the East. He became known in the West through an unusual friendship and a movie. Now he died at the age of 82 years.



There are people, not so few, who met Sigmund Jähn when he was not himself. Literally. These people were probably born in the west of Germany - or after the turn. Instead of Jähn, you saw actor Stefan Walz playing him. And in Wolfgang Becker's film "Good Bye, Lenin!" from the year 2003.

There, a man who was supposed to be Jähn, as a fictional head of state of the GDR, proclaims on television the fall of the wall: "Socialism, that means approaching the other, living with the other, not just dreaming of a better world, but her true, "he says. Only that in the film, for dramaturgical reasons, people do not storm from the east to the west, but vice versa. So the West is joining the East here.

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Sigmund Jähn: The modest cosmonaut

People who have already heard the name Sigmund Jähn know that it was the other way around. That the first German in space, a laborer son from the Saxon Vogtland, was traveling for the German state, which was disposed of in 1989/90 by its citizens - because they deeply distrust exactly this state. It was the land where Jähn had been something of a socialist superhero for a good ten years - while virtually no one knew him on the other side of the wall.

"I dedicate my flight to the 30th anniversary of the founding of the German Democratic Republic, my socialist fatherland," said the NVA lieutenant colonel in August 1978 immediately before the start with "Soyuz 31", next to him Soviet commander Waleri Bykowski. And for exactly this socialist fatherland, Jahn's flight to the space station "Saljut 6" with its two dozen scientific experiments was also a propagandistic triumphal procession.

AP

Commander Bykowski (left) and colleague Jähn (right): "Thank you very much"

There were not only his 7 days, 20 hours and 49 minutes in space, which should prove the superiority over the class enemy. Equally valuable were the countless PR appointments of the down-to-earth and humble astronaut on his return. And modest is actually the wrong word. The ever-soft-talking, somewhat saxing Jahn was more than that. He was cautious, often phrased apologetically-and in a warm-hearted way, had so incredibly fascinating things to tell.

"Many thanks," he wrote after landing on the space capsule, which incidentally today in the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr in Dresden can be seen. And many saw it that way. Of course, some people joked behind the scenes: Jähn was predestined for leadership tasks in the SED state or its lack of a trading system. Because he knew his way behind the moon (although he was not even there) and with empty rooms, as they were to be found again and again in the department stores of the country.

Spine damage brought on landing

But the unpretentious and likable Jähn was for many, especially young people, a perfect identification figure and role model. For him there were not only the official honors, above all the medals as "hero of the GDR" and "hero of the Soviet Union", the honorary citizenship of Berlin, the promotion first to the colonel and later to the major general of the NVA, but what state and Party upper otherwise rarely got: affection from the people.

"You do not start with a rocket every day, because anyone who claims that the heart rate does not get faster is lying," Jähn once said in an interview with SPIEGEL. And: "When you sit in the rocket, you can no longer think philosophically, and anyone who is too scared is an astronaut in the wrong profession anyway."

Modest and fearless, that was Jähn. So modest that he almost never spoke about the spine damage he had suffered when landing in the Kazakh steppe, because a parachute had not come off as intended - and the capsule had rudely dragged across the ground in the wind.

Unusual friendship with a colleague

He had his flight, if you will, thanks to the combine VEB Carl Zeiss Jena. Its engineers had developed such a powerful device with the MKF 6 multi-spectral camera that the Soviet Union was interested in it - for the search for mineral resources, the monitoring of forest and agricultural land and, of course, for the military.

Jähn's flight for the camera, that was the deal. Ticket Technique - Appointments of this kind are common in space today. And it was also such a business that gave Ulf Merbold, the first West German in space, five years after Jähn his first flight. With the Space Shuttle "Columbia" of the Americans that was, with the European "Spacelab" on board.

From the archive

With Sigmund Jähn by Baikonur "Bit out of bounds"

Where "West German" in the case of Merbold is not quite true - after all, the birthplace of Jähn and its capitalist counterpart are only about 40 kilometers apart. But while Jähn had made a career in the GDR, fighter pilot at the NVA, graduated as a graduate military scientist in Moscow, had Merbold in the East for ideological reasons not even allowed to study - and fled in 1960 over the still open border in Berlin in the West ,

The two still combined an unusual friendship. Incidentally, Jähn and Merbold experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall together: at a scientific conference in Saudi Arabia.

Gerst invited him to Baikonur

In the last days of the GDR, Jähn was one of the last generals to be released from the National People's Army. And at this point his career could have ended. He could have sat down with his pension on a dacha outside the gates of Berlin - and grumble, to the new times, to the new masters.

But Jähn did something else, also thanks to Merbold's mediation. After the reunification, he advised German and European space managers on joint projects with Russia. In the so-called star city near Moscow, he worked in the training of Western astronauts. With Klaus-Dietrich Flade in 1992 the first West German flew to the Russian "Mir". Meanwhile, the international cooperation in the All Standard - also because people like Sigmund Jähn have quickly established after the turnaround.

The example of Alexander Gerst shows that even current spacemen know about these merits. In his two spacewalks in May 2014 and June 2018, Jähn was on-site in Kazakhstan. What he did not know the first time: The Esa astronaut had once bought a badge of the mission of Jähn and Bykowski on a trip to a flea market in Irkutsk and took it in 2014 to the International Space Station. After landing, Gerst Jähn donated the memorabilia and accepted an invitation to his birthplace Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz. There a museum reminds of the first Germans in space.

After his load on September 3, 1978, still in the spacesuit, Jahn had said: "And if tomorrow I would be asked again, if I would fly again: Anytime!" Of course, this never happened - even though it was negotiated. However, the Soviets demanded for this case no Zeiss camera more, but hard Western money. And the GDR did not have that anymore. That's why Sigmund Jähn's first flight was his last. Now, at the age of 82, he died in his house in Strausberg, Brandenburg.

Source: spiegel

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