Hitler’s Terror Weapons: The Price of Vengeance. Richard Overy

Unge, had patented an ‘air torpedo’, which had been tested by Rheinmetall and the great armament firm of Krupp in 1909–10. This rocket had secured more accuracy by a means of rotation and a primitive sight. It nevertheless had a higher dispersal than a comparable howitzer.⁸

      Becker reported on the status of rocket research in Germany, listing Oberth’s Raketenflugplatz, Ing. Sander (line carrying rockets for sea rescue), Prof. Wiegand (meteorological), Nebel (who had worked with Oberth and who the army did not trust), Tiling (a winged target rocket), Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft (stratospheric research up to 24.8 miles.) and Prof. Goddard in America, who had published ‘A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes’ in 1919–1920.⁹

      It was decided to pursue rocket research with all vigour, flak (anti-aircraft), smoke and long-range ground to ground rockets being planned. The main object of research was into the propulsion method, looking into black powder (used by Sander and Unge), other solids, then gases and liquids. The stability of the rocket would also form a major investigation, with ‘firework’ rods, wings and ailerons, rotation, wireless control and gyroscopes all being considered. A civilian research into fuels and jets had been instituted, and Siemens (who had devised wartime wire guided rockets to attack British ships) would be approached about controls. The army was also to set up its own research facility at Kummersdorf, near Berlin. A sum of 200,000 reichsmarks was allotted for the first year’s research, in which Lt.Col Karlewski considered ‘revolutionary discoveries may one day be made, [Karlewski also mentioned ultra violet and infra red rays, and remote control], discoveries of the kind for which Germany is longing’ in order to ‘achieve rapid liberation.’ ‘We must keep in touch with rockets, so as to be as far ahead of the other powers as possible’, reported Karlewski; ‘the rocket offers great possibilities for area shoot with gas or HE [high explosive].’

      Becker commented that the rocket was intended first as a gas weapon. Karlewski asked that the whole question be kept strictly secret, both at home and abroad.¹⁰

      A follow up meeting of the Heereswaffenamt (the Army Ordnance Directorate) on January 30^th 1932 heard that Unge’s son had made such ‘vast’ financial demands that it was decided to proceed with their own black powder rocket. Paul Heylandt’s liquid fuel rocket was described as taking 75 times the weight of propellant as black powder for the same performance, and Heylandt had therefore been commissioned to try to improve its performance. Gyro stabilised, remote control rockets had to be ‘left in abeyance for want of an economical propulsion unit with adequate burning time.’

      Nevertheless, the grant was renewed, the enthusiastic Karlewski envisaging hundreds of rockets being launched simultaneously by electricity. Karlewski saw the rocket as ‘a good supplementary [my italics] weapon to air bombardment.’ A good working basis for further development having been established, ‘we must therefore make rocket development our main effort,’ he concluded.

      Dornberger hoped to utilise the results of the liquid fuel rocket research already carried out at the Raketenflugplatz, but he was unable to secure any chart or log of performance and consumption. He did, however, secure the services of the most talented members of that organisation and the Heylandt company, Wernher Von Braun, Klaus Riedel and Arthur Rudolph. Liquid fuel development had not advanced a great deal, but on August 1^st 1932 Dornberger, the enthusiast for this method of propulsion, was put in charge of research at the new testing ground at Kummersdorf, some 17 miles west of Berlin, assisted by Von Braun, Riedel and Rudolph, with the help of five mechanics. Dornberger’s work on powder rockets continued in Berlin.

      But the Weimar republic, which had survived the immediate aftermath of the Great War and which, for all its bitter divisions, was entering the modern world in seemingly growing prosperity, was doomed. The great crash of 1929, and the slide into economic ruin which followed, inflicted mortal wounds. Borrowed American money, on which the growing prosperity had been based, was withdrawn. Extremist, radical parties, which appeared to offer a complete solution to the utter woe of the people, prospered. By 1932 the Nazis, amazingly, were the largest single party in the Reichstag, the German parliament, having cleverly secured the support of Germany’s devastated agriculture, as well as of a fair proportion of industry. The communists also made large gains. The German conservatives, again fearing the extreme left, invited Hitler to the chancellorship, despite the beginnings of a decline in his electoral support, believing him to be a usable ‘solution to the government crisis’.¹¹ It was like a fly seeking the co-operation of the spider to secure its release. Within months they were entangled irrecoverably, and the left consumed.

      Now came a change! Giant hatreds and resentments became cold policy. Rearmament for vengeance was begun, although it was a little circumspect at first, since even the antiquated Polish army appeared to threaten a preventive war. But a Polish – German non-aggression treaty quieted the Poles, and as Hitler became more certain that the victorious western powers would not intervene, rearmament became more open, and its pace quickened. There followed ‘the most rigorous rejection of cultural modernism that the century has witnessed.’¹²

      But rocket research continued and expanded. In 1934, following the machtergreifung, the Nazi seizure of power, all rocket research work was conducted by the army itself in the utmost secrecy. All discussion was banned. The Racketenflugplatz and other rocket groups were shut down, and the most brilliant of its members were now employed by the army. The rocket would be an instrument of war, not of Weimar modernism and space travel. Strange paradox, that the weapon which would be most associated with Nazi revenge had its origin in the Weimar modernism which they hated.

      Curiously, Fritz Lang, the director of ‘Frau im Mond’ and also of the futuristic ‘Metropolis’, was invited by Dr Goebbels, the national socialist propaganda chief, to co-operate in the presentation of national socialism to the nation and to the world. Lang, an honourably wounded ex-soldier in the Austrian army, fled to America the next day. He was half Jewish.

      Research continued apace under the army’s auspices. But the problems of liquid fuel rocketry were great. Liquid oxygen itself boils at – 183 degrees centigrade, and therefore problems occur with freezing pipes and valves. It explodes on contact with organic chemicals, including grease. But when in combustion, it melts metal. A liquid fuel rocket cannot be rotated for accuracy like a shell, because of the centrifugal forces on the fuel tanks and pipes.¹³ These problems were gradually solved; ‘regenerative cooling’ exchanged the heat of combustion with the cold of the liquid fuel; the temperature of combustion was controlled by the use of alcohol (with which water can be mixed) as the oxidiser and a film of alcohol fuel on the walls of the combustion chamber and nozzle¹⁴; fuel feed problems were solved by the use of an immensely powerful turbopump powered by steam generated by hydrogen peroxide and a catalyst, calcium permanganate.

      In December 1934 the first two A2 rockets, with 300Kg thrust engines, were successfully launched. A political alliance with the powerful new national socialist Luftwaffe, headed by Reichsfuhrer Hermann Goering, was instituted in 1935. The Luftwaffe were interested mainly in rocket assisted take off for conventional aircraft, a pulse jet ‘cruise missile’ and a rocket aeroplane at the time. Resulting from the pulse jet cruise missile experiments was the FZG 76 (V1) flyingbomb, and from the rocket plane idea the Messerschmitt ME163B ‘Komet’, powered by a mixture of hydrogen peroxide with hydrazine-hydrate in methanol. These different weapons and fuels were later to complicate the intelligence picture in Britain.

      Walter Dornberger and the rocket team felt that a new experimental site was needed; ‘we wanted to build, and to build on a grand scale’, he wrote.^l5 In order to extract extra funds from his superiors, he invited them to a demonstration of his wares. In a world used to biplanes and steam engines, the vast power, the noise, the spectacular flaming rocket motors would subvert the hardest and most practical of