has quite celebrity status. Also "nearly everybody" in East Germany knows the Siegmund Jähn from the article and because of the movie "Good Bye, Lenin!", he also became quite well-known in West Germany (see my post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18268728). I openly admit that I had to look up the first West German and second German in space (Ulf Merbold; he is also mentioned in the Zeit article). In my defense, this was before my time. On the other hand, I can immediately additionally name Gerhard Thiele (SRTM - Shuttle Radar Topography Mission)
At least in Germany, Alexander Gerst
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alexander_Gerst&o...
who is currently on the ISS
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Internati...
has quite celebrity status. Also "nearly everybody" in East Germany knows the Siegmund Jähn from the article and because of the movie "Good Bye, Lenin!", he also became quite well-known in West Germany (see my post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18268728). I openly admit that I had to look up the first West German and second German in space (Ulf Merbold; he is also mentioned in the Zeit article). In my defense, this was before my time. On the other hand, I can immediately additionally name Gerhard Thiele (SRTM - Shuttle Radar Topography Mission)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gerhard_Thiele&ol...
and Thomas Reiter (ISS)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_Reiter&old...
So from my "sister posts" seems to me that in Germany, astronauts have more appreciation from fellow-countrymen than in many other countries.