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America Rocket’ – Only a Myth? A

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America Rocket’ – Only a Myth? A PA R T I Was the V-2 the End of the German Rocket Programme? The Germans were preparing rocket surprises for England in particular and the whole world in general which would have, it is believed, changed the course of the war if the Invasion had been postponed for so short a time as half a year. Col D Leander Putt, Chief, Air Technical Services 10/1944-8/1945, Deputy Commanding- General USAAF Intelligence, Air Technical services Command1 The mystery of the missing design files Modern historians writing on the subject of German rocketry At the end of the war, 15 tonnes of paperwork was in the Second World War assert that sixty years after the spirited away. By September 1988, only 462 kilos(!) had been war’s end, everything worth knowing about the Peenemünde returned to the Federal Republic of Germany.1 Even if one Development and Test Centre has been known for years. In accepts that these documents exist in triplicate, one wonders this regard it is therefore all the more curious that the major why the tonnes remaining have not been declassified after so part of the confiscated Peenemünde project and design long. The obvious answer can only be that the papers contain documents seized at Dörnten by the Americans remain developments and secret designs which even today must on no classified. account ever be disclosed. Peenemünde’s “hibernation” after 1942 The published history of Peenmünde and its work had a issues requiring the attentions of individual departments or notable parallel in the “official” explanations regarding the engineers. German atomic weapons project. What the historians insist is The logical question which ensues therefore enquires what that the leading scientists of both projects slipped into a lasting the ever-expanding technological plant at Peenemünde did inactivity from about the mid-point of the war, and so much between September 1943 and May 1945 in its development so that one gains the impression of as little being accomplished works, test laboratories and wind tunnels once the A-4 in the last three years or so of the war as had previously been project was finished. Apparently, the highly skilled scientific possible in a few months. At Peenemünde, the important workforce of this gigantic modern organisation occupied the elements of the A-4 (V-2 rocket) development phase were time from 1943 onwards exclusively in rectifying faults for concluded in 1939. On 10 October 1942, Wernher von Braun the Nordhausen V-2 assembly plant, contributing a few ordered development work on the A-4 discontinued, for from minor improvements; built the Wasserfall flak rocket and the this point on a start was to be made with mass production. Pfeilgeschoss (the concrete-piercing arrow-shaped grenade) and Peenemünde was thus deprived of its primary technological worked on some drawing board projects. task. The halt enabled Wernher von Braun to report to the All the more strange therefore that Peenemünde in Kommission für Fernschiessen (Commission for Long-Range hibernation should retain the highest category of priority for Bombardment) on 9 September 1943 that to all intents and its endeavours (3 October 1943) and continue thus after the purposes the development of the A-4 rocket was terminated. SS took it over in July 1944. A brief glance at the Peenemünde Shortly beforehand, on 26 August 1943, SS- story reveals to the impartial observer that something is amiss Gruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS Dr (Ing) Hans with its history, and in view of the pall of silence which Kammler had ordered the creation of the new underground shrouds German rocket research during the last 18 months factory at Nordhausen for the mass production of the V-2 of the war, one is forced to conclude that rather than doing rocket. Obviously a series of technical difficulties had to not very much, the scientists at Peenemünde must have been be resolved before the rocket would be operational (e.g. the devoting their energies on a massive scale to the realization of problems of breaking up in the air and the fitting of the ready other schemes with far greater dimensions than the V-2. warhead in the rocket nose), but these were mere structural 7 8 HITLER’S MIRACLE WEAPONS Dr Wernher von Braun’s hypersonic wind tunnel In December 1943 at the Walchensee Hydro-Power Station (WVA), Kochel, work began to build a gigantic hypersonic wind tunnel. Of enormous diameter for the time, it was designed to provide speeds of Mach 7 (seven times the speed of sound), with a later increase to Mach 10. The energy required to drive such a structure was not available at Peenemünde and it was for this reason that WVA in Upper Bavaria had been selected. The plant’s production capacity of 120 Megawatts was to be greatly increased for the desired windspeeds. Management of the new test facility was the responsibility of the Peenmünde Aerodynamic Institute, which was relocated in Upper Bavaria for the purpose.In the meantime scientist Siegfried Erdmann had achieved a windspeed of Mach 9 using an inexpensive invention at the old Peenemünde wind tunnel. Following the transfer of the Peenemünde Institute, the large wind tunnel at Kochel was in routine operation from the summer of 1944. A Supersonic section of the wind tunnel at Kochel. (Source: Simon) question never previously asked in this connection is why this enormously expensive project was necessary when at this stage the war a leading US aero-dynamicist and later founder of the the V-2 and Wasserfall rockets had reached the limits of their Chinese rocketry and space programmes. 2, 3 developments. Was this not an unnecessary waste of valuable The hypersonic wind tunnel is evidence that after personnel and materials which the Third Reich war economy completing the A-4 project, Peenemünde did not go into could barely afford unless something crucial to the war effort hibernation as is asserted by historians today. Former was to be attempted? Peenemünde scientist and member of the US ‘Paperclip’ team On account of its great capacity for energy production, Peter W Wegener, to whom the author is indebted for many Kochel had been selected some years before, and to requisition of the details regarding Third Reich wind tunnel research, it in 1944 can only have been linked to plans for long-range was at pains to point out however that he was “only” directly rockets such as the A9/10 and other such EMW projects which involved personally in the development of rocket control required these very high test speeds. The Peenemünde wind surfaces and rudders and therefore knew nothing about tunnel had been perfectly adequate for the Mach 4.4 needed the “hot projects”. Was Wegener being careful not to give to test the V-2 and all foreseeable jet aircraft designs. One away too much in order to preserve the Peenemünde myth? wonders at the “coincidence” in May 1945 when Kochel Without any evident necessity to do so, he was quick to state, wind tunnel scientists Hermann and Kurzweg knew so much as is their custom, and in much the same word order as other about space satellites, space stations and the conditions for former Peenemünde staff, that during all the time he spent interplanetary flight that they were able to brief the Americans at Peenemünde and Kochel, nobody mentioned even once on the subject at their interrogations. An American expert anything about an atomic bomb. Had he been coached at present was the Chinese-American Dr Hsue-Shen Tsien, after some time or was he plagued by conscience? The V-3 During the war all informed offices on both sides were aware In his table conference with Rumanian Minister- that other V-Weapons were to follow the V-2. The term ‘V- President Antonescu in August 1944, Hitler promised the 3’ has long been current coinage in the literature. Nowadays operational introduction of the third and fourth V-Weapons it is generally considered to have been Dr Coender’s multi- without specifying what they were.4 The radius of annihilation chamber high-pressure gun Fleissiges Lieschen (Busy Lizzie). which he attributed to one of them suggests the plan to use a The question is here, was this next or was it a mere front for WMD.1 One cannot be definite as to which weapons, if any, other weapons developments? The designation ‘V-3’ is also were officially designated ‘V-3’ and ‘V-4’ before the war’s end. applied to a multitude of weapons systems under development More intriguing still is what the ‘V-Weapons of the second or suspected to be in the pipeline during the end phase of the generation’ were to be and what stage had been reached in Second World War. This goes as much for the A9/10 ‘America their development. The path leads back to Peenemünde, the Rocket’ as for the German atom bomb, the piloted V-1, the forge for the first generation of V-Weapons. U-boat V-1, the Henschel Hs 117H air-to-air missile and the German isotope weapon. PART II ‘Thor’s Hammer’ – Hitler’s Intercontinental Rocket Projects When I left the rocket airport at Berlin, I knew that these young enthusiasts were preparing those weapons in order to aim them across the Atlantic to hit us in America some day. Journalist Lady Drummond-Hay, after her visit to Berlin-Reinickendorf, Autumn 1930 Section 1: The EMW A-10 ‘America Rocket’ – only a myth? A. Development & technology The A9/10 Intercontinental Rocket – Peenemünde’s Great Secret? Did anything similar to the Peenemünde ‘hibernation’ – the fist while he explains what would have happened had the war expansion of the centre and the setting up of hyper-modern lasted only a few more months – massive attacks with ICBM research units – occur elsewhere in Germany? For decades it America-Rockets and intercontinental jet bombers striking at has been accepted as fact that the intention to build a two- targets on American soil from Europe.
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