Nixies in films/movies

[astroschmidt]

Just saw the first episode of season 4 of "Babylon-Berlin".

It plays in the years directly before the Nazis took over, this season is in 1931.

Near the end of the episode a crazy German industrian announces on a New Years Eve party that he will be the first man on the moon. As a showpiece for the party guests a rocket similar in size and shape to the V2 "flying bomb" (or "buss bomb") is launched from a control panel with a Nixie tube as countdown display:

The lettering means "thrust" ("Schubkraft"), time-control ("Zeitkontrolle") and ignition ("Zündung"). 

In fact famous Austrian-German director Fritz Lang made a movie called "Frau im Mond" ("Woman in the moon") in 1929 where the first documented countdown is shown.

One of the technicaladvisors for the movie was Hermann Oberth, the "godfather of spaceflight", who was to build a working large rocket the size of the one in the movie to be fired at the opening night. During the time of the movie and the "Babylon-Berlin" episode the "Verein für Raumschiffahrt" ("Association for Spaceflight") was already active with Wernher von Braun and many others that would later build the core of the "Peenemünde team" where the A4/V2 was developed during Nazi-time and WW II.

Of course the use of NiXie tubes in 1931 in Germany is completely fictitious :-)

Roger