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The Propagander ™
Wunderwaffen (1 of 2)
From Cosmos by Carl Sagan: Like organisms, machines also have their evolutions. The rocket began, like the gunpowder that first powered it, in China where it was used for ceremonial and aesthetic purposes. Imported to Europe around the fourteenth century, it was applied to warfare, discussed in the late nineteenth century as a means of transportation to the planets by the Russian schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, and first developed seriously for high-altitude flight by the American scientist Robert Goddard.
The German V-2 military rocket of World War II employed virtually all of Goddard’s innovations and culminated in 1948 in the two-stage launching of the V-2/WAC Corporal combination to the then unprecedented altitude of 400 kilometers. In the 1950s, engineering advances organized by Sergei Korolov in the Soviet Union and Wernher von Braun in the United States, funded as a delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction, led to the first artificial satellites.
The pace of progress has continued to be brisk: manned orbital flight, humans orbiting, then landing on the moon, and unmanned spacecraft outward bound throughout the solar system. Many other nations have now launched spacecraft, including Britain, France, Canada, Japan, and China--the society that invented the rocket to begin with.
1232 Battle of Kai-fung-fu: The Chinese use bamboo casings loaded with gun powder mixed with iron shrapnel, and aimed as projectiles against an invading Mongol army. From an eye-witness account: "When the rocket was lit, it made a noise that resembled thunder that could be heard for five leagues--about 15 miles. When it fell to Earth, the point of impact was devastated for 2,000 feet in all directions." Image by Charles Hubbell. (Needham)
December 25, 1241: After their experience at Kai-fung-fu, the Mongols develop rockets and other weapons of their own derived from gun-powder, and, on this day, use them for the first time against Magyar forces at the battle of Sejo. The technology is subsequently introduced in Europe. (Gruntman) We can, with saltpeter and other substances, compose artificially a fire that can be launched over long distances... By only using a very small quantity of this material much light can be created accompanied by a horrible fracas. It is possible with it to destroy a town or an army ... In order to produce this artificial lightning and thunder it is necessary to take saltpeter, sulfur, and Luru Vopo Vir Can Utriet. (Temple)
1264: A "ground-rat," a primitive type of firework and one of the earliest devices utilizing internal-combustion rocket propulsion, horribly frightens guests at a feast held by the Emperor Lizong. Reportedly, the Empress-Mother Kung Sheng, in whose honor the feast is being held, is the most frightened of all. (Needham)
1248: The first mention of gunpowder in Europe is in Roger Bacon's Epistola, De Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae et de Nullitate Magiae (Note: The last ingredient is either in code or the result of garbled text in the original document.):
February 15, 1258: Mongol invaders use rockets to capture Baghdad. (Crosby, Chase)
1268 Seventh Crusade: Arab forces use rockets against forces under the command of King Louis IX of France. (Chase)
1350: The first mention of a multi-stage rocket (in this case, a rocket launching-tube coupled with a fire lance) is in the Huolongjing, or Fire Dragon Manual, a military treatise compiled during the early Ming Dynasty. Note: The illustration above is from the Huolongjing.
One uses a bamboo stick 4 ft 2 in long, with an iron (or steel) arrow-head 4.5 in long...behind the feathering there is an iron weight 0.4 in long. At the front end there is a carton tube bound on to the stick, where the "rising gunpowder" is lit. When you want to fire it off, you use a frame shaped like a dragon, or else conveniently a tube of wood or bamboo to contain it. (Needham, Temple)
1429 Hundred Years War: The French Army uses rockets against the English at the siege of Orleans. (Chase, Norris)
1650: Polish artillery expert, Kazimierz Siemienowicz, publishes a series of drawings illustrating a multi-staged rocket. (Chase, Burrows)
July 5, 1687: The Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by English astronomer Sir Isaac Newton, first lays out the basic principles governing gravity and motion. (Gruntman)
1780 Battle of Guntur: Rockets are used by Indian troops against the British Army. Image by Charles Hubbell. (Civilization)
April–May 1799: Tippu Sultan, ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, uses rockets against the British East India Company during the battle of Seringapatam. (Crosby)
August 24, 1814: The British 85th Light Infantry uses rockets against an American rifle battalion during the Battle of Bladensburg. An eye-witness, British Lieutenant George R. Gleig, records: "Never did men with arms in their hands make better use of their legs." (Civilization, Glover)
September 7, 1814: 35-year-old amateur poet, Francis Scott Key, writes the poem "Defense of Fort McHenry" after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland, by the rockets and artillery of Royal Navy ships off Chesapeake Bay. The poem will later be set to music and renamed "The Star-Spangled Banner." (Glover)
December 4, 1846: The US Army's first battalion of rocketeers accompanies Major General Winfield Scott's expedition against Mexico. The battalion consists of 150 soldiers with about 50 rockets. (Gruntman)
March 24, 1847: At the siege of Veracruz, the new US rocket battery is used against the Mexican Army for the first time.
April 8, 1847: Captain Robert E. Lee fires off 30 rockets during the battle for Telegraph Hill. After the completion of the war against Mexico, the US rocketeer battalion is disbanded, and their rockets put in storage.
1861: With the outbreak of Civil War, the US rockets are removed from storage but found to be unusable. New models are soon developed and deployed. (Burrows)
July 3, 1862: Major General J.E.B. Stuart's Confederate cavalry fires rockets at Major General George B. McClellan's Union troops at Harrison's Landing, Va.
1864: Union troops defending Charleston, SC, record that their rockets are "especially practical in driving off Confederate picket boats, especially at night." (Crosby)
October 5, 1882: Rocket pioneer Robert Hutchings Goddard is born in Worcester, Massachusetts. (Goddard)
October 19, 1899: A 17-year-old Robert Goddard, climbing into a cherry tree to prune branches, finds himself daydreaming instead of pruning: "It was one of the quiet, colorful afternoons of sheer beauty which we have in October in New England, and as I looked toward the fields at the east, I imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars, and how it would look on a small scale, if sent up from the meadow at my feet." For the rest of his life Goddard will observe this day as "Anniversary Day." (Goddard)
1903: The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices is published by Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. (Harford, Riper)
1908: Robert Goddard receives a B.S. in physics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Note: Goddard will receive his M.A. from Clark University in 1910 and his Ph.D. at Clark in 1911. (Goddard)
March 23, 1912: Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun is born in Wirsitz.
May 15, 1914: US rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard receives two important patents; one for a multi-stage rocket and one for a rocket powered with liquid nitrous oxide and petrol. (Burrows, Riper, Gruntman)
Winston Churchill, 1917: It is improbable that any terrorization of the civil population which can be achieved by air attack could compel (force) the government of a nation to surrender. Air offensives should consistently be directed at military and communication centres.
1919: A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes by Robert Goddard is published. The book will heavily influence the work of German rocket pioneers Sergey Korolev, Hermann Oberth, and Wernher von Braun. (Gruntman, Riper, Piszkiewicz)
January 10, 1920: The Versailles Treaty takes effect, sharply limiting the ability of the defeated Germans to develop or deploy a whole range of weapons systems, from submarines to aircraft. However, the signers of the Treaty neglect to make any mention whatsoever of rockets. Research into missile technology thus by default gains a legal basis and will be vigorously explored during the ensuing Weimar Republic.
January 11, 1920: The Smithsonian Institution announces that Professor Robert H. Goddard of Clark College has invented and tested a new type of multiple-charge, high-efficiency rocket of entirely new design which opens up "the possibility of sending recording apparatus to moderate and extreme altitudes within the earth's atmosphere...the new rocket apparatus would go straight up and come straight down." The announcement goes a step further, however, and proposes to send "to the dark part of the new moon a sufficiently large amount of the most brilliant flash powder which, in being ignited on impact, would be plainly visible in a powerful telescope. This would be the only way of proving that the rocket had really left the attraction of the earth as the apparatus would never come back."
January 13, 1920: From The New York Times:
1923: By Rocket into Planetary Space by German rocket enthusiast Hermann Oberth is published. (Piszkiewicz, Burrows, Gruntman)
1924: The first Soviet rocket society, the "Society for Studies of Interplanetary Travel" (soon to be renamed "the Society for the Study of Interplanetary Communications") is established. (Crosby)
1924: Twelve year-old Wernher von Braun is arrested for causing a disturbance on a crowded street in Berlin. The boy had been apprehended after detonating a handful of fireworks that he had attached to a toy wagon. (Braun)
1925: Thirteen year-old Wernher von Braun is inspired when he reads Hermann Oberth's book By Rocket into Interplanetary Space. (Piszkiewicz, Braun)
March 16, 1926: The first US rocket program begins as Robert H. Goddard launches a 4-foot high rocket named "Nell," the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket, to an altitude of 41 feet, a speed of 60 miles per hour, and a distance of 152 feet. Goddard: "It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow." (Goddard, Gruntman)
1927: The Society for Space Travel (Verein fuer Raumschiffahrt—VfR) is formed in Germany. Such early German rocket pioneers as Johannes Winkler (above), Rudolf Nebel, Fritz von Opel, and Maximilian Valier are founding members. Wernher von Braun will join in 1930. (Piszkiewicz, Cornwell)
August 1928: Philip Francis Nowlan's novella, Armageddon 2419 A.D., published in the American pulp magazine Amazing Stories, introduces the iconic rocket-powered hero Buck Rogers to the universe. (Dille, Burrows)
1929: Fritz Lang’s monumental film, Woman in the Moon (Frau im Mond) is released to an enthusiastic public and rave reviews. One of Lang's theatrical effects, the creation of the cinematic devise of a backward countdown from ten to one to heighten suspense, will become a standard part of real rocket launches. (Piszkiewicz)
1929: The incredibly popular comic strip, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, written by John Flint Dille and drawn by Dick Calkins (based on Philip Nowlan's novella Armageddon 2419 A.D.), blasts off in America's newspapers. (Dille)
Ray Bradbury, from the Introduction to Buck Rogers, The First 60 Years in the 25th Century: What was the world like then? It was a world without one small rocket, or the promise of one. Oh, yes, later on we were to remember there were a few wild men like Professor Goddard stirring about. But no one gave him mind. He was a blathering idiot, a fool, a nothing. Von Braun? He was a teenager somewhere in Germany smitten with Fritz Lang's film Girl in the Moon, starting a cuckoo rocket society, standing out under the stars at night, a has-been who would never be. And, in 1929, think of it! Why, good grief, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins hadn't even been born yet!
In 1929 you would have found few decent roads and no really good cross-continental highways...The first streamlined trains were merely in blueprint stage. No one had broken the sound barrier. In fact, it was impossible of breakage, and anyone who dared to try his spunk against the gods of aerodynamics would be shattered like so much porcelain. That much was fact. That much was truly known. Passenger air service across the country? A few thousand people had the money. The other 120 million took the train, departed the color of milk, arrived the color of soot.
If you had a million dollars in those days you couldn't have bought, much less found, a tape recorder. Television? We would invent that in the year 1999, maybe. Radio? The merest infant, born only a few years before. Films, also, had begun to speak up, use sound, a few scant months before Dick Calkins sat down to draw Buck Rogers. .... In 1929, our thinking was so primitive we could scarcely imagine the years before a machine capable of ‘footprinting’ moon dust would be invented. And even that prediction was snorted at, declared impossible by 99 percent of the people. And Buck Rogers offered us more: a trip to the asteroids, a journey to Venus, Mercury, and, yes, Jupiter itself.
1929: Famed aviator Charles Lindbergh arranges for a $50,000 grant to rocket scientist Robert Goddard from the Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics.
December 30, 1930: Roswell, New Mexico, sees the first launch ever of a liquid-fueled rocket, courtesy of Robert Goddard. Goddard has moved his team to New Mexico, where he will work in near isolation and secrecy for a dozen years, at the insistence of the Massachusetts Fire Marshall. Note: After a 1929 test flight, a local Worcester newspaper had carried the mocking headline "Moon rocket misses target by 238,799 1/2 miles." (Gruntman, Burrows)
1930: Berlin's rocket launch station, Reinickendorf, is founded by Rudolf Nebel to test a series of Mirak's (Minimum Rockets) utilizing a solid rocket fuel invented by Hermann Oberth. (Cornwell)
March 14, 1931: Johannes Winkler launches Astris, Europe's first liquid-fuel rocket. (Burrows, Piszkiewicz)
September 26, 1931: The Assembly of the League of Nations adopts a General Convention to improve the Means of Preventing War.
April 19, 1932: Robert Goddard tests the first rocket to be equipped with a gyroscopic guidance system. (Gruntman)
June 1932: Wernher von Braun is recruited by the German Army’s Weapons Agency for its rocket research program located at Kummersdorf near Berlin. (Cornwell, Piszkiewicz, Braun)
July 1932: Captain Walter Dornberger, director of the rocket research group of the German Army, witnesses a test launch of a Mirak rocket. (Piszkiewicz, Burrows)
January 30, 1933 Machtergreifung: Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany.
1933: German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun begins work on the Aggregat 1 (A1) and Aggregat 2 (A2) programs with permanent, on-going funding; the first rocket program anywhere ever to be fully funded. (Braun, Burrows, Piszkiewicz)
1933: Von Braun joins the SS (Schutzstaffel) horseback riding school. (Braun)
April 6, 1934: Josef Goebbels, the Reich Propaganda Minister, decrees that the publication of any stories concerning rocket technology research be banned. (Piszkiewicz)
July 27, 1934: Wernher von Braun is awarded a doctorate in physics (aerospace engineering), but his doctoral thesis, Construction, Theoretical, and Experimental Solution to the Problem of the Liquid Propellant Rocket (dated April 16, 1934), is suppressed by the German military. It will not actually be published until 1960. (Braun)
December 1934: Wernher von Braun makes his first successful test launch of an A-2 rocket powered by liquid oxygen and ethanol. (Braun, Burrows)
March 1, 1935: Goering is appointed Commander-in-Chief of the German Air Force.
March 28, 1935: Goddard's A-5 successfully achieves supersonic velocity and an altitude of 1.46 km, using his new guidance system.
August 1935 Wehchaftmachung: Hitler begins rearmament in earnest.
November 7, 1936: Wernher von Braun's team tests the first clustered liquid-fueled rocket with mixed results. (Braun, Piszkiewicz)
1936–1937: Peenemuende, located on the Baltic island of Usedom, is taken over by the German army and the air force, and developed as a secret test range and research base for von Braun's team. Note: This location is chosen partly on the recommendation of von Braun's mother, who had recalled her father's duck-hunting expeditions there. (Braun) May 1, 1937: Von Braun joins the Nazi Party. (Piszkiewicz) Wernher von Braun: It was officially demanded that I join the National Socialist Party. At this time (1937) I was already technical director of the Army Rocket Center at Peenemunde ... My refusal to join the party would have meant that I would have to abandon the work of my life. Therefore, I decided to join. My membership in the party did not involve any political activities ... in Spring 1940, one SS-Standartenfuehrer (SS Colonel) Mueller ... looked me up in my office at Peenemunde and told me that Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler had sent him with the order to urge me to join the SS. I called immediately on my military superior ... Major-General W. Dornberger. He informed me that ... if I wanted to continue our mutual work, I had no alternative but to join. March 12, 1938 Anschluss: The German Army marches unopposed into Vienna.
January 3, 1937: Hitler speaks before the Reichstag:
The Four-Year Plan will give permanent employment to those workmen who are now being released from the armament industry. It is significant for the gigantic economic development of our people that there is today a lack of trained workmen in many industries. There will be no strikes or lockouts in Germany, because everyone has to serve the interests of the entire nation. Education of the people will never come to an end, and this education includes the Hitler Youth, the Labor Service, the Party, and the Army...
June 1938: The GAU (Main Artillery Directorate) of the Red Army founds the RNII (Soviet Jet Propulsion Research Institute) in Leningrad. Its mission is to develop a multiple rocket launcher weapons system.
September 29, 1938 Muenchen Konferenz: The Munich Conference concludes.
April 1939 Projekt P.1065: Plans are laid down for what will become the Me 262, the world's first operational turbojet fighter aircraft.
September 3, 1939 Der zweite Weltkrieg: WW2 begins as Britain, Australia, New Zealand and France declare war on Nazi Germany.
From the post-war, pre-trial interview of Hermann Goering by the US Strategic Bombing Survey Team (SBS): To quite an extent (we were suffering from fuel shortages) already in June 1944, when we finally managed to get the "bugs" out of the HE 177, which gave us a little trouble. This aircraft was put in operation on the Russian front after it had been used against England. I had to ground that aircraft because it consumed too much gasoline and we just didn't have enough for it.
From the summary of the post-war interview of Professor William Messerschmitt by the SBS in London: Professor Messerschmitt was not aware that Britain's fighters out-classed German fighters during the Battle of Britain. The plan for the Battle of Britain was first to knock out the RAF and then to make a landing. .... No attempt was made after the battle of Britain to increase the number or effectiveness of German aircraft. This was a great mistake as the Luftwaffe had been a decisive weapon in all other campaigns. Professor Messerschmitt could not understand the reason why no such action had been taken. He always claimed that the war would be won by the nation which could control the air over its own territory and over the battlefield.
From The Blast of War 1939–1945 by Harold Macmillan: The "Blitz" now came to an end, at least till the summer of 1944, when Hitler's "secret weapons"—V-1 and V-2—were at last revealed. It is indeed fortunate that they were not perfected sooner. Meanwhile, although our casualties—43,000 killed and 51,000 dangerously wounded—were grievous, Hitler's assaults on Britain had failed in their main purpose. Hitler—although we did not know it—was soon to turn to other projects. Alone, we had won the Battle of Britain; alone, we had withstood the Blitz; alone, we were facing the renewed U-boat menace. Other trials were still ahead of us.
From the summary of Messerschmitt's SBS interview: On November 10, 1940, Professor Messerschmitt completed the drawings for a glider capable of carrying a 21-ton tank which was then Germany's heaviest model. This glider, known as the ME 321, was to be towed by three ME 110s and was to be assisted in its takeoff by eight rockets, four under each wing. On November 7, 1940, Professor Messerschmitt saw Hitler and proposed to him that construction of these gliders be undertaken. He stated that he did not wish to take the matter up through the Air Ministry and preferred to negotiate directly with Todt. Hitler agreed. Messerschmitt saw Todt in Stuttgart two days later and enlisted his help in obtaining the necessary steel and fabrics. The first glider was ready for flight on 28 February 1941 and proved successful. Two hundred were completed by June 1941. They were eventually used in the Russian campaign, specifically in occupying the Orel pocket.
From the summary of Messerschmitt's SBS Interview
: Professor Messerschmitt believed that the reason that no attempt was made to invade England was that Germany was afraid that Russia would seize the opportunity to stab her in the back. In this connection, he stated that he had...been told once in 1941 by Dr. Todt that Germany had information that Russia had intended to attack her and that it was therefore necessary for Germany to attack first to obtain the advantage of surprise. He reported having heard that Russia had notified Germany that she demanded the following territory: Finland, The Baltic States, One-half of Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, European Turkey, The Dardanelles. 4. German intelligence was unaware of the degree of Russian armament. Russia had better tanks and artillery.
From the summary of Messerschmitt's SBS Interview: The ME 163, which used the rocket principle, was of interest only as an experiment. Work had been done on this aircraft prior to the war. Its flight duration—10 minutes—was too short for operational purposes. It had tremendous speed and had achieved as high as 625 miles an hour at level flight, both altitude and near the ground. The stability of the aircraft, however, was not great enough for its speed.
November 7, 1941: Sir Richard Peirse, head of RAF Bomber Command, sends over 160 bombers to raid Berlin. More than 20 are lost, and again little damage is done.
December 11, 1941: Hitler declares war on the United States.
1942: From a report by Lord Cherwell, a senior scientific adviser to the British government:
From Speers' testimony before the IMT: One of the most important tasks was the development of new weapons and their serial production...From the point of view of their technical production the rockets were a very expensive affair for us, and their effect, compared to the cost of their output, was negligible. In consequence we had no particular interest in developing the affair on a bigger scale. The person who kept urging it was Himmler, in this case. He gave one Obergruppenfuehrer Kammler the task of firing off these rockets over England. In Army circles they were of the same opinion as I, namely, that the rockets were too expensive; and in Air Force circles, the opinion was the same, since for the equivalent of one rocket one could almost build a fighter. It is quite clear that it would have been much better for us if we had not gone in for this nonsense.
From Exploring Space by William E. Burrows: And the fertile German imagination ranged quite a bit beyond the vengeance weapons as rocketry made the transition from theory to well-established fact. Even as the engineers and technicians were working on the V-2 at Peenemuende in the early 1940s, a Stuttgart professor named Eugene Saenger laid out plans for a giant winged rocket plane, called an antipodal bomber, that would be able to skip along the top of the atmosphere like a flat stone on water and reach all the way to North America with ten tons of bombs. Plans called for the craft to be launched on a highly lubricated rail, its engine generating a fantastic 1.2 million pounds of thrust, and then carry its weapons load to New York, Washington, and Pittsburgh. (Note: Saenger's post-war work for the US will serve as the basis for the development of the X-15 and, ultimately, the Space Shuttle.) Another project, this one coming out of von Braun's shop, involved a monster ballistic missile that would be capable of producing four hundred thousand pounds of thrust and whose booster would have air brakes and a parachute so that it could be reused.
From Bomber Command by Arthur "Bomber" Harris: Whenever the fact that our aircraft occasionally killed women and children is cast in my teeth I always produce this example of the blockade, although there are endless others to be got from the wars of the past. I never forget, as so many do, that in all normal warfare of the past, and of the not distant past, it was the common practice to besiege cities and, if they refused to surrender when called upon with due formality to do so, every living thing in them was in the end put to the sword. Even in the more civilized times of today the siege of cities, accompanied by the bombardment of the city as a whole, is still a normal practice; in no circumstances were women and children allowed to pass out of the city, because their presence in it and their consumption of food would inevitably hasten the end of the siege. And as to bombardment, what city in what war has ever failed to receive the maximum bombardment from all enemy artillery within range so long as it has continued resistance?
From Hermann Goering's testimony before the IMT: I knew of the subterranean works which were near Nordhausen, though I never was there myself. But they had been established at a rather early period. Nordhausen produced mainly V-1s and V-2s. With the conditions in Camp Dora, as they have been described, I am not familiar. I also believe that they are exaggerated. Of course, I knew that subterranean factories were being built. I was also interested in the construction of further plants for the Luftwaffe. I cannot see why the construction of subterranean works should be something particularly wicked or destructive. I had ordered construction of an important subterranean work at Kahla in Thuringia for airplane production in which, to a large extent, German workers and, for the rest, Russian workers and prisoners of war were employed. I personally went there to look over the work being done and on that day found everyone in good spirits.
On the occasion of my visit I brought the people some additional rations of beverages, cigarettes, and other things, for Germans and foreigners alike. The other subterranean works for which I requested concentration camp internees were not built any more. That I requested inmates of concentration camps for the aviation industry is correct, and it is in my opinion quite natural because I was, at that time, not familiar with the details of the concentration camps. I knew only that many Germans also were in concentration camps—people who had refused to join the Army, who were politically unreliable, or who had been punished for other things, as also happens in other countries in time of war. At that time everyone had to work in Germany. Women were taken into the ranks of labor, including those who had never worked before. In my own home parachute production was started, in which everyone had to participate. I could not see why, if the entire people had to take part in work, the inmates of prisons, concentration camps, or wherever they might be, should not also be put to use for work essential to the war.
Moreover I am of the opinion, from what I know today, that it certainly was better for them to work and to be billeted in some plane factory than in their concentration camps. The fact per se that they worked, is to be taken as a matter of course, and also that they worked for war production. But that work meant destruction is a new idea. It is possible that it was strenuous here or there. I for my part was interested that these people should not be destroyed, but that they should work and thereby produce. The work itself was the same as done by German workers—that is, plane and motor production—no destruction was intended thereby.
From the summary of Messerschmitt's SBS Interview: The ME 262 had a maximum speed of 560 miles an hour at level flight, both at altitude and near the ground. Its normal speed was approximately 500 miles an hour. The individual motors supplied for this aircraft varied markedly in efficiency. Due to difficulties with workmen and machines the airframes were inferior. Professor Messerschmitt was working on a specially built 262 with which he expected to achieve a speed of 575 miles an hour. The aircraft was capable of two hours flight at 27,000 feet without belly tanks. Professor Messerschmitt believed that conventional motors and propellers were satisfactory for designs involving speeds up to 500 miles an hour. Beyond that and until the speed of sound had been achieved, he believed a turbo-jet was the best type. For speeds in excess of sound, he had no definite opinion.
May 17, 1943 Operation Chastise: Using a specially developed bouncing bomb, Royal Air Force Squadron No. 617 (subsequently known as "the Dambusters") attack the Moehne and Eder dams in Germany's Ruhr valley. A catastrophic flooding of the Ruhr valley results. 53 of the 133 aircrew who participate in the attack are killed in action and three bail out to be made prisoners of war. This represents a casualty rate of almost 40%.
June 1943: The Anglo-American Combined Bomber Offensive is officially launched as Operation Pointblank.
From the summary of Messerschmitt's SBS Interview: In June 1943, Professor Messerschmitt took the matter up personally with Hitler. He was then disturbed about the program for production of V-weapons. Messerschmitt explained to Hitler that, in his opinion, unless a production of 80,000–100,000 V-weapons per month could be achieved, the entire program should be scrapped. He argued that 50 per cent of the V-weapons would be ineffective. Messerschmitt felt that it would be possible for Germany to build 100,000 V-weapons a month when the US was capable of building 4,000,000 automobiles a year. He urged Hitler that one thing or the other should be done; either V-weapons should be produced in overwhelming quantities or everything should be done to build up the Luftwaffe. In Messerschmitt's personal opinion, if the Luftwaffe were not strengthened the war would be lost. .... As a result of his insistence upon increased aircraft production in many Air Ministry meetings...several of Messerschmitt's friends warned him to be careful or he might be sent to a concentration camp.
July 7, 1943: Hitler is enthusiastic when Wernher von Braun shows him a color movie of an A-4 blast off. Hitler, anxious for a way to retaliate against Allied air strikes in kind, puts the A-4 on the top-priority list. He will soon personally award the 31 year old scientist the title of honorary "Research Professor." (Cornwell, Piszkiewicz, Braun)
July 24, 1943: The large port city of Hamburg is hit by a large raid of 740 aircraft killing about 1,500 people. Only 12 aircraft are lost, 1.5% of the force.
August 2, 1943: The large port city of Hamburg is hit again by a large raid, this time of 791 aircraft. 30 aircraft are lost, 4.1% of the force.
From The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer: In May 1943, an RAF reconnaissance plane had photographed the Peenemunde installation following a tip to London from the Polish underground that both a pilotless jet-propelled aircraft (later known as the V-1, or Buzz Bomb) and a rocket (the V-2) were being developed there. In August British bombers attacked Peenemunde, badly damaging the installation and setting back research and tests by several months. By November, the British and American air forces had located sixty-three launching sites for the V-1 on the Channel and between December and the following February bombed and destroyed seventy-three of the sites, which by that time had increased to ninety-six. The terms "V-1" and "V-2" came from the German word Vergeltungswaffen, or weapons of reprisal, of which Dr Goebbels' propaganda was to make so much of in the dark year of 1944.
From Speer's SBS Interview: (The "only" effect of the August 1944 attack was that) one of the foremost collaborators of Braun was killed. We had tremendous luck in so far you completely destroyed the living quarters, however, you did not do any damage to a large laboratory hanger close by. Besides, at that time the development was already completed and we were already preparing for production. This was done at other locations. The V-1 was developed at Fieseler, Kassel. ....
From Bodyguard of Lies by Anthony Cave Brown: For many nights in the past, the C-in-C of Bomber Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, had been sending a few fast high-flying bombers to raid Berlin. Each night the bombers—Mosquitoes...flew the same northerly track to the capital, dropped a few bombs, and then departed. The track took the Mosquitoes near Peenemuende and air-raid sirens there always sent the scientists and their work forces to the shelters, but after a time the Peenemuende defenses became more relaxed. The Reich air defense commander also considered Peenemuende an unlikely target; he thought these pinprick raids were the prologue to some devastating main raid on the capital. But Bomber Command had other plans...The raid was one of the most decisive air operations of the war...The effect of the raid on Hitler and Goering was such that the full brunt of their rage fell upon General Hans Jeschonnek, the Chief of the Air Staff. Jeschonnek shot himself in his office the morning after the raid.
August 22, 1943: Alarmed at the destruction of the rocket facilities at Peenemuende, Speer and Himmler confer at Rastenburg with their Fuehrer. Heinrich Himmler offers to use concentration camp workers for A-4 production, and Hitler takes him up on it, ordering that some prisoners from Buchenwald be shifted to Nordhausen. Speer’s ministry will pay all the bills. Himmler places SS Brigadefuehrer Hans Kammler, a ruthless Nazi of the worst sort, in change of what will become known as Camp Dora. Note: 60,000 prisoners will be funneled into the camp, half will perish. (Sereney, Sellier, Cornwell, Piszkiewicz)
From Hermann Goering's testimony before the IMT: I knew of the subterranean works which were near Nordhausen, though I never was there myself. But they had been established at a rather early period. Nordhausen produced mainly V-1s and V-2s. With the conditions in Camp Dora, as they have been described, I am not familiar. I also believe that they are exaggerated. Of course, I knew that subterranean factories were being built. I was also interested in the construction of further plants for the Luftwaffe. I cannot see why the construction of subterranean works should be something particularly wicked or destructive. I had ordered construction of an important subterranean work at Kahla in Thuringia for airplane production in which, to a large extent, German workers and, for the rest, Russian workers and prisoners of war were employed. I personally went there to look over the work being done and on that day found everyone in good spirits. On the occasion of my visit I brought the people some additional rations of beverages, cigarettes, and other things, for Germans and foreigners alike. The other subterranean works for which I requested concentration camp internees were not built any more.
From The Devil's Disciples by Anthony Read: To save his reputation—and Germany—Goering needed the "wonder weapons" that Goebbels regularly hinted at in his efforts to raise public moral. There was a host of ideas, many of them hare-brained, but three were viable, genuinely effective, and in an advanced state. One, a long-range rocket with a one-ton warhead, code-named A-4, was being developed by the young scientist Wernher von Braun under the aegis of the army. The second, effectively the first cruise missile, was a small, pilotless aircraft with a range of up to 100 kilometer (125 miles), powered by a simple pulse-jet engine and also carrying a one-ton warhead, which became known as the Flying Bomb, or V-1—the V standing for Vergeltungswaffen, reprisal weapon.
The V-1 was the Luftwaffe's weapon. It was well advanced before the raid on Peenemunde (August 8, 1943), which only delayed its final development by a few weeks, and by the beginning of November the first sixty-three concrete launching ramps were being built near the Channel coast, pointing towards London. Goering issued a contract to the Fieseler company to start mass production of the bombs in January 1944. The delays caused by the Peenemunde raid to Braun's rocket, soon to be known as the V-2, which was in any case much more complex and expensive to produce than the flying bomb, were more serious.
Himmler and the SS came to the rescue, with Pohl's Works Department creating a huge underground factory in a cave complex near Nordhausen in the Hartz Mountains, complete with the most basic living quarters for prisoners who had until then been producing components in the secrecy of Buchenwald concentration camp. Code-named "Dora," the new workshops were prepared and equipped in the remarkably short time of two months, but large-scale production did not begin until May 1944, and it was September before the first operational rockets were fired.
August 22, 1943: On the island of Bornholm, mid-way between Germany and Sweden, a UFO crashes in a turnip field. From an account by R V Jones, the chief British technical intelligence expert at the time: From The Holocaust Chronicle by Harran, Kuntz, etc.: Constructed as a sub-camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, Dora-Mittelbau, located near the town of Nordhausen in Eastern Germany, became an independent camp in the fall of 1944. Beginning in 1943, thousands of prisoners were assigned to Dora to expand the tunnels of an old salt mine buried deep in the Hartz Mountains. They built an underground factory that produced the secret V-1 and V-2 rockets. Human life meant nothing in the Nazis' quest to turn the tide of war and avoid defeat. From Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis by Ian Kershaw: Hitler's instincts, as always, veered towards attack as the best form of defense. He looked, as did—impatiently and more and more disbelievingly—large numbers of ordinary Germans, to the chance to launch devastating weapons of destruction against Great Britain, giving the British a taste of their own medicine and forcing the Allies to rethink their strategy in the air-war. Here, too, his illusions about the speed with which the "wonder-weapons" could be made ready for deployment, and their likely impact on British war strategy, were shored up by the optimistic prognoses of his advisors.
At first, we were not sure what he had found...it was about 4 meters long, and it might have been a rather larger version of the HS 293 glider bomb that KG100 was now using against our warships in the Mediterranean. Indeed, it turned out that this particular bomb had been released from a Heinkel III, but it was in fact a research model (the "V" probably stood for "Versuchs" i.e. research) of the flying bomb about which we were going to hear so much in the next few months. (Kilzer)
August 23, 1943: The first 107 inmates arrive at Nordhausen from Buchenwald to begin work on the underground rocket facility soon to be known as Camp Dora. (Sereney)
Even by concentration camp standards, prisoners in Dora were treated brutally by their captors. They spent their lives with no glimpse of the sun and with no sanitary facilities, laboring until they dropped. Bodies, covered with lice and often weighing only eighty pounds, were returned to Buchenwald for burning at the rate of 1,000 a month. Once completed, the factory that manufactured the rockets—the state-owned Mittelwerk GmbH—used thousands of prisoners as laborers, including many Jews. They too labored under dismal conditions, drinking their water from leaks in the pipes. Fear of sabotage provided the pretext for guards to employ extraordinary sadism, hanging prisoners or torturing them on a whim. Untold thousands died at Dora and on death marches from the camp in the closing days of the war.
September 2, 1943: 1,223 inmates arrive at Nordhausen from Buchenwald. (Sellier)
Speer had persuaded Hitler as long ago as October 1942, after witnessing trials at Peenemunde earlier in the year, of the destructive potential of a long-range rocket, the A4 (later known as the V-2) able to enter the stratosphere en route to delivering its bombs—and unstoppable devastation—on England. Hitler had immediately ordered their mass-production on a huge scale. When Wernher von Braun, the genius behind the construction, had explained some months later what the rocket was capable of, and shown a color film of it in trials, Hitler's enthusiasm was unbounded. It was, he told Speer, "the decisive weapon of the war," which would lift the burden on Germany when unleashed on the British. Production was to be advanced with all speed—if need be at the expense of tank production. By autumn 1943 it had already become plain that any expectation of early deployment was wildly optimistic.
October 8, 1943: This day’s Magic summary, a compilation of decoded Japanese and German communications presented to FDR daily, contains a dispatch from Baron Oshima, Japans representative in Berlin, informing his home office of developments. Oshima tells of a new "terror-weapon." long-range rocket guns, due to be deployed in mid-December, and opines that the effect of the weapon as a "means of military retaliation will be equaled only by the political reverberations." (Lee)
November 15, 1943: The remains of a German A-4 are found at Utlaengan in Karlskrona, Sweden. (Kilzer)
November 18, 1943: Berlin is attacked by 440 Avro Lancasters and four de Havilland Mosquitoes, but suffers little damage.
From the summary of Messerschmitt's SBS Interview: It was Professor Messerschmitt's opinion that area attacks on cities did no critical damage to war production and that they resulted in a stiffening of morale.
From Speer's SBS Interview: Later on I had an opportunity to witness the effects of numerous night attacks on Berlin for the period from about June, July 1943 until February 1944. Those, though they always had considerable effect, speedily hardened the population. They did not mind air attacks very much any longer. The effects of industry were indirect only in that labor first remained absent for a few days in those plants not directly hit. But one must say that the German worker possesses an extraordinary resistance and up to the end, and in spite of air attacks, returned to the plants and worked again. I for my part had always to underline that we owe our achievements almost exclusively to our German Workers. Attacks against towns or city centers can only make sense if the nations do not have the necessary resistance.
December 5, 1943 Operation Crossbow: "CROSSBOW Operations Against Ski Sites" begins in the Nord-Pas de Calais region.
December 10, 1943: Albert Speer visits the Nordhausen plant at Camp Dora. (Sellier, IMT)
From Dora by Jean Michel: The missile slaves...from France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Russia, Poland and Germany...toiled eighteen hours a day...for many weeks without tools, just with their bare hands...ammonia dust burnt their lungs...they slept in the tunnels in cavities which were hollowed out: 1,024 prisoners in hollows on four levels which stretched for 1000 yards. .... No heat, no ventilation, not the smallest pail to wash in: death touched us with the cold, the sensation of choking, the filth that impregnated us...The latrines were barrels cut in half with planks laid across. They stood at each exit from the rows of sleeping cubicles .... The deportees saw daylight only once a week at the Sunday roll-call. The cubicles were permanently occupied, the day team following the night team and then vice versa...no drinkable water...you lapped up liquid and mud as soon as the SS had their backs turned. .... It was not until March 1944 that the barracks were completed. At Dora, the work was as terrible as ever, but we could at least leave the tunnel for the six hours of rest allowed.
January 2, 1944: Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defence of Great Britain, Air Chief Marshal Roderic Hill, submits a plan to deploy 1,332 guns to defend London, Bristol, and the Solent against the V-1 "Robot Blitz." (Collier)
January 7, 1944: Speer and Milch meet with Hitler at his headquarters. The Fuehrer informs them that analysis of English periodicals reveals that the English are near to achieving success in the testing of experimental jet aircraft. Hitler demands that production of the Me 262, the Germans' turbojet fighter aircraft, be put on top priority.
January 25, 1944: Wernher von Braun visits Camp Dora. A friend of von Braun records that he said the following after this visit: "It is hellish. My spontaneous reaction was to talk to one of the SS guards, only to be told with unmistakable harshness that I should mind my own business, or find myself in the same striped fatigues!... I realized that any attempt of reasoning on humane grounds would be utterly futile." This flies in the face of von Braun's future denials that he was aware of the horrific conditions. (Sellier, Stuhlinger, IMT)
Adam Cabala: ...the German scientists led by Professor Wernher von Braun also saw everything that went on every day. When they walked along the corridors, they saw the prisoners' drudgery, their exhausting work and their ordeal. During his frequent attendance in Dora, Professor Wernher von Braun never once protested against this cruelty and brutality...On a little area beside the clinic shack you could see piles of prisoners every day who had not survived the workload and had been tortured to death by the vindictive guards...But Prof. Wernher von Braun just walked past them, so close that he almost touched the bodies.
February 28, 1944: Famed test pilot Hanna Reitsch arrives at the Berghof to meet with Hitler. The V-1 is too inaccurate, she tells him. She urges him to begin a piloted suicide rocket (Reichenbergs) program and volunteers for it. Hitler immediately rejects the notion, saying that it is not the right psychological moment for such an idea to be presented to the German people. When Hitler changes the subject to jets, Reitsch interrupts him: "Mein Fuehrer, you are speaking of the grandchild of an embryo." Pressing him, she eventually gets his reluctant consent to begin experimental work on the piloted rocket as long as he is not pestered about it during its development. (Toland)
March 15, 1944: Reports that von Braun and a few of his colleagues had expressed regret that they were working on weapons instead of spaceships, and that they also had expressed opinions that the war was going against Germany, prompt the Gestapo to arrest him. He is taken to a Gestapo cell in Stettin, Poland, where he will be held without any charges being filed against him. (Braun)
April 19, 1944 Operation Crossbow: At the request of the British War Cabinet, Eisenhower orders that Crossbow attacks be given absolute priority over all other air operations, including attacks directed at the "wearing down (of) German industry" and civilian morale (terror attacks) "for the time being." (Eisenhower II)
May 1944: Hitler decides to produce the ME 262 as a fighter-bomber. Erprobungskommando 262 is formed at Lechfeld in Bavaria as a test unit to introduce the Me 262 turbojet fighter aircraft into service and train a core of pilots to fly it. In the end, slightly over 1,400 Me 262s of all versions will be produced. As few as 200 Me 262s will make it into combat units due to fuel shortages, pilot shortages, and the lack of airfields capable of supporting the Me 262.
From Goering's SBS Interview: The first aircraft were primarily experimental ships and their engines had a lifetime of about four to five hours. Then again, they were completely new machines of which a great number had to be used for the training of pilots. Furthermore, we had to shake out the "bugs" from the engines. So that a lot of the first machines were lost through forced landings. Another thing, the ship had a kind of brake which had to be applied very carefully, otherwise it would roll off the runway and until we had corrected that, we lost a number of machines this way. It was hard to throttle it back because it was very fast. A lot of other things came into it. It was just a completely new ship and a completely new type of engine. But toward the end, everything was under control, and what was needed was a little more experience for the pilots, so that they might know how to fly this ship at its high speeds...The Fuehrer had originally directed that it be produced as a fighter, but in May, 1944, he ordered that it be converted into a fighter-bomber. This conversion was one of the main reasons for the delay in getting this plane into action in any quantity.
