Michael Neufeld - The Rocket and the Reich

Hitler’s backing allowed von Brauchitsch to alleviate many of Peenemünde’s manpower problems. The Commander-in-Chief ordered the founding of a unit with active duty status that could pull engineers and craftsmen from the regular Army. When the formation of the “Northern Experimental Command” was completed in November, it had 641 officers and men, plus fifteen others for administrative supervision. Because rank was ignored and the men were placed in jobs and paid civilian salaries according to their training, if they wished, some rather unusual situations arose. Privates could be supervising captains in the laboratory. Helmut Hoelzer, head of the guide beam division, solved this problem by ordering everyone to wear white lab coats buttoned up to the neck. The placement of the soldiers in line with their civilian accomplishments worked very well. The only problems arose from the narrow-mindedness of the unit’s commander and the NCOs, who found the situation discomforting. In later years the Command expanded considerably and rescued not a few talented engineers and skilled workers from bullets and frostbite on the Eastern Front. The fact that they had been there at all indicates both the shortsightedness of the Reich’s original draft policy and the increasingly desperate manpower shortages faced by the Germans. 11

The formation of the Northern Experimental Command and the top priority rating for the whole facility clearly were important gains from the Peenemünders’ audience with the Führer. But even while that was going on, Todt was still fighting with Ordnance for a cut in the center’s construction budget. In a September 13 letter to Dornberger, he threatened to recommend a complete construction stoppage to Hitler if Ordnance did not accept his budget figure of 20 million marks. Leeb was amazed; Todt did not even appear to know about the Führer’s order! In fact, the Minister did refer in passing to that order, but his lack of knowledge about it speaks volumes about the disorganized and competitive character of the war economy before 1942 and about the ability of the Army, however much its power was in decline, to exploit the situation. Dornberger, backed by the OKW priority order issued on September 15, wrote to Todt discussing the visit to Wolfsschanze. In his letter, the chief of Wa Prüf 11 indicated his belief in the “decisive importance of this weapon for the war” and his fear of “the progressive development of this same area by the USA. We must maintain our lead if we want to beat the Americans.” (He had made a similar comment to Keitel on August 20.) There is no record of the Minister’s reaction to those assertions, but the two sides soon worked out a compromise budget of 25 million marks. The Army also managed to rebuff Todt’s attempt to take over Peenemünde construction by emphasizing that this was Speer’s responsibility. Speer had indicated his opposition too but had otherwise kept a low profile throughout the conflict. 12

The net effect of all maneuvering was to give the rocket program new impetus while at the same time forcing construction shortcuts on the production facility. The problem now confronting Peenemünde was to prepare for the mass production of the A-4, contingent upon Hitler’s order. In the first rush of enthusiasm after August 20, numbers in the range of 50,000 to 150,000 a year were bandied about, and the Peenemünde factory received its Pilot Production Plant label. The idea of building an A-4 “test series” or “zero series” to ease the transition to mass production was not new. Dornberger had mentioned it as early as August 1940 but had mostly invoked it as an excuse to keep the factory going. For a few weeks in the fall of 1941 the facility’s new name actually corresponded with its intended purpose. But in short order feverish studies at Peenemünde and in the OKW Economics Office showed the absurdity of manufacturing 150,000 missiles annually. For one thing, the entire aircraft manufacturing capacity of Germany would have to be taken over! The Führer’s huge numbers had to be given as inconspicuous a burial as possible, and the Production Plant returned to its original purpose as the main assembly facility, notwithstanding a test series of 585 missiles it was to construct first (the development shops were to build fifteen). Based on the limited supply of liquid oxygen, Dornberger set an annual production goal of 5,000—without anyone telling Hitler. 13

Only on the margins did the idea of producing tens of thousands of missiles live on. For nearly a year in 1941–42, Dornberger’s preferred solution was the A-8, a simplified, longer-range or heavier-payload A-4 with a 30-ton-thrust engine powered by nitric acid and diesel oil. The propulsion chief, Thiel, had begun investigating this propellant combination in the spring of 1941 and favored it as a way of getting rid of the problems of handling and manufacturing liquid oxygen. In 1942, however, the A-8 fell out of favor because of questions about its aerodynamic stability at higher cutoff velocities, the pressing need to concentrate on the A-4, and Hitler’s lack of interest in the concept. The Führer’s reasons are unknown, but it is possible that Germany’s oil supply problems were a factor. 14

The figure of 5,000 missiles a year therefore remained the operative one. Although this was at least within the bounds of feasibility, it was about triple the 1939 target for the Peenemünde factory and ten times the goal set after the cutbacks of 1940. The new urgency of the program also seemed to demand a faster transition to production. Beginning in late October, Dornberger launched an Army Ordnance “Working Staff” to plan the process; it was most noteworthy for ignoring the Armaments Ministry altogether. After the confrontation with Todt, that is not surprising, but the decision also reflected the continuing divisions in the war economy. The Minister had power over Army munitions and armored vehicles, but Ordnance fought to exclude him from further gains. Throughout the budget conflict it had been Todt’s power as construction czar in the Four-Year Plan that had counted, not his title of Minister. Dornberger’s Working Committee therefore included only Development and Testing personnel (including Peenemünders), plus representatives of other Ordnance divisions. 15

In order to speed up production of both the planned test series and regular manufacturing, further factory capacity was needed. The Production Plant could assemble more missiles only by manufacturing less in-house. The rocket group therefore moved quickly in the fall of 1941 to find new subcontractors in private industry for the steam generator, the fuel tanks, and large sections of the fuselage. 16

The most important new subcontractor was Zeppelin Airship Construction Ltd. At Stegmaier’s instigation, he, von Braun, design bureau chief “Papa” Riedel, and Eberhard Rees, von Braun’s deputy for the development shops, had traveled down to Friedrichshafen in early September to see the firm’s management, headed by Dr. Hugo Eckener. Eckener was the spiritual heir of Count Zeppelin and the world-famous captain of the airship voyages of the 1920s and early 1930s. Because Eckener’s company had appropriate experience with lightweight aluminum manufacturing and its capacity was underutilized by the Air Ministry, it had been only too happy to accept contracts for propellant tanks and various fuselage sections. During the visit, the Peenemünders had also raised the idea of using empty Zeppelin hangars to assemble A-4s. In early December the rocket group revived that idea, because the Peenemünde plant did not have the capacity to assemble all 5,000 missiles a year. The Friedrichshafen company was designated as the second missile factory at the end of 1941. 17

As the winter set in, however, it became clear that the troubles of Peenemünde were far from over. There was a crisis situation in the war economy. In many categories production was falling below the already unsatisfactory levels of the summer because of to shortages, military callups of workers, and inefficiency. The failure of Operation Barbarossa to knock the Soviet Union out of the war became apparent in November as well. A new sense of desperation gripped the German leadership; as if to confirm the urgency of the situation, the Soviet counteroffensive before Moscow and Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States occurred within days of each other in the first half of December. Confronted with a terrible situation on the Russian front, Hitler dismissed von Brauchitsch on the nineteenth and appointed himself Army Commander-in-Chief. The public excuse was heart trouble, but in reality the field marshal was the scapegoat for the disastrous effects of the Führer’s own megalomania. Von Brauchitsch nonetheless deserves no sympathy, because he and the Army were deeply implicated in Hitler’s race war of mass extermination in the East. 18