 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert Goddard, Hermann Oberth, and Reinhold Tiling laid the groundwork of rocketry in the early years of the 20th century.Wernher von Braun was the lead rocket engineer for Nazi Germany's World War II V-2 rocket project.In the last days of the war he led a caravan of workers in the German rocket program to the American lines, where they surrendered and were brought to the United States to work on their rocket development ("Operation Paperclip").