Question: Who was at the head of the Ballistics and Munitions Branch of the German Army during WWII?
About the article "Space Race", section "World War II".

Candidate passages:
World War II.
The Space Race can trace its origins to Germany, beginning in the 1930s and continuing during World War II when Nazi Germany researched and built operational ballistic missiles.
Starting in the early 1930s, during the last stages of the Weimar Republic, German aerospace engineers experimented with liquid-fueled rockets, with the goal that one day they would be capable of reaching high altitudes and traversing long distances.
The head of the German Army's Ballistics and Munitions Branch, Lieutenant Colonel Karl Emil Becker, gathered a small team of engineers that included Walter Dornberger and Leo Zanssen, to figure out how to use rockets as long-range artillery in order to get around the Treaty of Versailles' ban on research and development of long-range cannons.
Wernher von Braun, a young engineering prodigy, was recruited by Becker and Dornberger to join their secret army program at Kummersdorf-West in 1932.
Von Braun had dreams about conquering outer space with rockets, and did not initially see the military value in missile technology.
During the Second World War, General Dornberger was the military head of the army's rocket program, Zanssen became the commandant of the Peenemünde army rocket centre, and von Braun was the technical director of the ballistic missile program.
They would lead the team that built the Aggregate-4 (A-4) rocket, which became the first vehicle to reach outer space during its test flight program in 1942 and 1943.
By 1943, Germany began mass-producing the A-4 as the Vergeltungswaffe 2 ("Vengeance Weapon" 2, or more commonly, V2), a ballistic missile with a range carrying a warhead at .
Its supersonic speed meant there was no defense against it, and radar detection provided little warning.
Germany used the weapon to bombard southern England and parts of Allied-liberated western Europe from 1944 until 1945.
After the war, the V-2 became the basis of early American and Soviet rocket designs.
At war's end, American, British, and Soviet scientific intelligence teams competed to capture Germany's rocket engineers along with the German rockets themselves and the designs on which they were based.
Each of the Allies captured a share of the available members of the German rocket team, but the United States benefited the most with Operation Paperclip, recruiting von Braun and most of his engineering team, who later helped develop the American missile and space exploration programs.
The United States also acquired a large number of complete V2 rockets.
Internal ballistics (also interior ballistics), a subfield of ballistics, is the study of the propulsion of a projectile.
In guns internal ballistics covers the time from the propellant's ignition until the projectile exits the gun barrel.
The study of internal ballistics is important to designers and users of firearms of all types, from small-bore rifles and pistols, to high-tech artillery.
For rocket propelled projectiles, internal ballistics covers the period during which a rocket motor is providing thrust. 
Transitional ballistics, also known as intermediate ballistics, is the study of a projectile's behavior from the time it leaves the muzzle until the pressure behind the projectile is equalized, so it lies between internal ballistics and external ballistics. 
Internal ballistics (also interior ballistics), a subfield of ballistics, is the study of the propulsion of a projectile.
In guns internal ballistics covers the time from the propellant's ignition until the projectile exits the gun barrel.
The study of internal ballistics is important to designers and users of firearms of all types, from small-bore rifles and pistols, to high-tech artillery.
For rocket propelled projectiles, internal ballistics covers the period during which a rocket motor is providing thrust. 
From 1898, Becker was a military engineer.
From 1901 to 1903, Becker studied at the Munich Artillery and Engineering School.
From 1906 to 1911, he studied at the Berlin Military Engineering Academy, specializing in ballistics under Carl Julius Cranz; from 1908 to 1911, he was a teaching assistant at the Ballistics Laboratory there.
From 1911 to 1914, he was a member of the Artillery Examining Board.
In 1913, Becker co-authored a revision of Cranz' classic text, "Lehrbuch der Ballistik".
During World War I, Becker held two positions.
From 1914 to 1916, he commanded a 42-cm mortar battery.
From 1917 to 1919, he was an advisor on artillery ballistics at the Weapons and Equipment Inspection ("Inspektion für Waffen und Gerät"), which later became the "Heereswaffenamt" (HWA, Army Ordnance Office).
From 1919 to 1923, Becker studied chemistry and metallurgy.
He was awarded a doctorate of engineering in 1922, with a thesis on cathodic change of phenol.
From 1922, Major Becker was an advisor to the HWA inspections office.
Becker was aware of the advantages of a close relationship between the military and science in the development of future weapons technology.
As early as 1924, he recommended the establishment of a central laboratory of chemistry and physics.
But only when he was director of the Ballistics and Ammunition Department of the Weapons and Equipment Inspection ("Inspektion für Waffen und Gerät") was he able to implement his recommendation.
The Central Office of Army Physics and Army Chemistry ("Zentralstelle für Heeresphysik und Heereschemie") was formed in 1926 and recognized as an Armed Forces department in 1929.
When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, this department took on greater importance and received generous funding from the Reich.
Its Research Department established top-quality facilities, one of them was the "Heeresversuchsanstalt" (Armed Forces testing station) in "Gottow"; it was under the direction Kurt Diebner and played a central role in the German nuclear energy project, also known as the "Uranverein" (Uranium Club).
Col. Dr. Ing.
Karl Becker, head of the ballistics and munitions section of the HWA Weapons Testing Division, was a key early supporter of Germany’s development of the rocket as a weapon.
In 1929, Becker got permission of the "Reichswehrministerium" (RWM, Reich Ministry of Defense) to do so.
He was interested in the development of both solid-fuel and liquid-fuel rockets.
Later, one of his subordinates, Walter Dornberger became important as leader of the V-2 rocket program.
Wernher von Braun was hired in 1932.
From 1932, Becker was an Honorary Professor of military sciences at the "Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität" (later, the "Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin", i.e.
University of Berlin).
From autumn 1933, he was an "ordentlicher Professor" (ordinarius professor) of technical physics at the "Technische Hochschule Berlin" in Berlin Charlottenburg (later, the Technical University of Berlin).
From 1935, he was "ordentlicher Professor" of defense technology, physics, and ballistics, as well as dean of the military engineering department ("Wehrtechnische Fakultät"), which had been newly created in 1933, at the "Technische Hochschule Berlin".
He was on the supervisory board of the "Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft", the umbrella organization for numerous technical institutes.
From 1935, he was the first general officer to be a member of the "Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften" (PAW, Prussian Academy of Sciences).
In 1937, Becker significantly expanded the "Wehrtechnische Fakultät".
From November 1933, General of the Artillery Becker was head of the research department and the Weapons Testing Office, and from February 4, 1938 head of the HWA, in addition to his positions at the "Technische Hochschule Berlin" and the University of Berlin.
From 1937, he was also first president of the "Reichsforschungsrat" (RFR, Reich Research Council), appointed by Bernhard Rust, Minister of the "Reichserziehungsministerium" (REM, Reich Ministry of Education).
On 8 April 1940, just one day before the invasion of Denmark and Norway (Operation "Weserübung"), Becker, in the presence of the "Gestapo", committed suicide.
Becker had been depressed for months, as he had been heavily criticized by Hitler and others for shortfalls in munitions production.
Becker’s suicide was covered up by a State funeral on 12 April 1940.