Page 62 - All About History - Issue 08-14

Hitler’s astronauts

Hitler’s rocket obsession Von Braun and his team had unwittingly become
one of the most sought-after post-war trophies.
Under Operation Paperclip, the Americans drew
up a ‘Black List’ of top scientists they considered
At first, Hitler was not enamoured with von Braun’s
rocket technology. On 23 March 1939, the Führer of the utmost importance. Among them, of course,
visited a rocket facility for the first time, and it is was Wernher von Braun.
reported that he was thoroughly unimpressed by “There is evidence that von Braun knew toward
the static rocket engine tests he was shown and the end of the war that rockets were the way of
von Braun’s research at Peenemünde was allowed
to continue only on the insistence of other high- the future,” says Teitel. “He used his vision and
ranking Third Reich officials. expertise as a bargaining chip to get himself
It was not until July 1943, when Germany somewhere where he could keep working and
had definitively lost the Battle of Britain and the ultimately launch satellites and men.” Von Braun
Luftwaffe was faltering, that Hitler began to show and his team had heard the horror stories of Soviet
interest in rocket technology. Having been shown prisoners, and they did not want to be subjected
footage of an A-4 (later the V-2) rocket launch, to that sort of brutality. They had a decision to
Hitler moved the missile research at Peenemünde
to the top of the Third Reich’s military agenda. make; see out the war and await almost certain
Perhaps, too, it was the prospect of these capture by the Soviets, or make a daring escape
rockets firing further than any weapon in existence and try to find Americans to whom they could
that enticed Hitler. Toward the end of the war, surrender. They chose the latter, and in doing so
despite defeat staring Nazi Germany bleakly in the perhaps created the balance that would enable the
face, he was still pining for strikes against the US space race between the US and Soviet Union of the
to begin his global conquest in earnest. Here was
a device that could be launched into space from Fifties and Sixties to play out on a level playing
Western Europe before dropping on the United field, as the Soviets were first to Peenemünde,
States’ east coast with devastating effects. acquiring the wealth of information the scientists
Hitler ordered mass production of the V-2 to had left behind there.
strike targets such as London, but it is likely that In April 1945, von Braun was sitting on as
he allowed research into some of the more fanciful many as ten separate orders from German High
technologies such as the Silbervogel in the hope
one of them would have the means necessary Command, who in turn were unsure what to do
to attack the US. Nicknaming the Silbervogel the with their prized rocket scientists. Some of the
Amerika Bomber seemed to play exactly on this directives ordered them to the front line to join
particular obsession. the battle against the invading Soviet forces.
Others urged them to retreat further into Germany.
Von Braun used the latter option as an excuse to
transfer himself and hundreds of his staff towards
Mittelverk, a factory used to manufacture the V-2
“ There is evidence that von Braun knew rocket in the state of Thuringia, Germany. They
made their way to the village Oberammergau,
toward the end of the war that rockets where they came across US troops. Von Braun
were the way of the future” sent his younger brother Magnus to offer their
surrender. As news of von Braun’s surrender
filtered through, the Americans put Operation
rockets and potential ventures into space were heat. Had a flight of the Silbervogel ever been Paperclip into full effect. Despite the efforts of
only useful if it helped them reap mass destruction attempted, it is more than likely it would have British intelligence to interrogate von Braun
on their enemies and win the war. perished on its first attempt at re-entering Earth’s and his team themselves to learn some of the
The Silbervogel was a flattened plane that atmosphere. Still, the Silbervogel was hugely information they carried, the Americans swiftly
used a rocket engine to reach heights beyond 145 influential in the future of space exploration. Its transported the Peenemünde rocket scientists to
kilometres (90 miles), well beyond the boundary lifting body design, the first of its kind, directly Texas in the United States.
of space. It would have been by far the highest- inspired some of the space planes researched and The US now possessed the most brilliant
reaching man-made object in existence at the time the developed by the US, including the hugely rocket scientists of the 20th century, the men
had it ever flown. Once reaching its maximum successful space shuttles. who had dreamed of sending astronauts into
altitude, the plane was intended to ‘bounce’ along By 1945, the Americans and the Soviets were space but found themselves building weapons
the atmosphere before descending, dropping both abundantly aware of the genius of the of war. Despite their ties to the Nazi party, the
its carried bomb on a target as much as 23,500 scientists at Peenemünde creating machines no US realised their importance and many of the
kilometres (15,000 miles) away. Inside would one in the world could match. By the spring of Peenemünde scientists were imperative to the US
have been another of Hitler’s astronauts, flying 1945, however, it became clear that the Soviets space programme. Most notably, from July 1960
the plane to its target in the US before heading would almost certainly be the first to reach to February 1970 von Braun was the first director
to a landing site, most likely in the Japanese-held Peenemünde and thus enlist the scientists for the newly established National Aeronautics
Pacific Ocean, as it would be unable to return into their own programmes. This terrified the and Space Administration, NASA. Among a string
directly to Germany. Americans; they did not want the Soviet Union of successes in the Sixties using the rocketry © Alamy; NASA; Spike78; Adrian Mann; Jan B.H.A. Vervloedt
However, like so many ambitious plans of the having access to technologies that far exceeded expertise of the Peenemünde scientists, they
Nazi space programme, it never saw the light of anything they were able to replicate. SO in 1945, would achieve the dream they had never thought
day. Like the rockets designed and built by those the US executed Operation Paperclip, a programme possible three decades earlier on 21 July 1969,
at Peenemünde, the Silbervogel highlighted the to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany that had when mankind walked on the surface of the Moon
rocket scientists’ poor understanding of re-entry researched and developed the ‘miracle weapons’. for the first time.
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