Willy Otto Oscar Ley

Willy Ley was one of the driving forces of early German rocket experiments in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In 1935 he left Germany and began a new life in New York City. After the Second World War he was reunited with German rocket specialists, most of whom had worked for the Nazi regime. A close associate of Wernher von Braun, he became, together with von Braun, one of the leading public advocates for the American effort that put men on the Moon. 

What's in the name?

Birth Willy

You’ll see it written everywhere that Willy was born on 2 October 1906 in Berlin. The date is correct, but that is not the full story. Despite what NASA and countless biographers have repeated, he was not born under the surname Ley. Professional biographers have simply passed along the same details without checking the original civil registers.

Civil Registration

Willy Ley never mentioned the earlier name in his own writings, and it is quite possible he did not know about it himself. His birth name was not Ley. He was originally registered under a different surname. His mother was unmarried at the time of his birth, so he came into the world as an illegitimate child and was registered under her surname as Willy Otto Oskar May. That was standard practice then: unmarried mothers registered their children under their own names. It was up to the father to acknowledge the child, after which the child was re-registered under the father’s surname. Willy Ley’s parents married on 20 March 1909, and it is most likely that Willy May officially became Willy Ley around that time.

May Becomes Ley

The 1906 birth index of Standesamt Berlin XI records him as Willy Otto Oskar, entry 2453, with the annotation “legitimiert, früher May” (legitimated, formerly May). The corresponding entry under May shows the surname crossed out and carries the note “legitimiert jetzt Ley” (now legitimated as Ley). All the published biographies fail to mention this, which makes one wonder what else we do not know about Willy Ley.

Ley - Willy Otto Oscar - 2453 legitimiert, früher May

May - Willy otto Oscar - 2453 - legitimiert jetzt Ley

Sources: Landesarchiv Berlin