Michael Neufeld - The Rocket and the Reich

Dubbed “Operation Hydra” by the RAF, that raid was the opening of what was soon called “Crossbow,” the Allied campaign against the German secret weapons sites. Ever since the close of 1942 London had received an increasing number of reports about rocket development from inside Germany. The Propaganda Ministry’s growing threats of “vengeance” and “wonder” weapons had encouraged careless talk by knowledgeable Germans and had frightened opponents of the regime. The greatly expanded foreign labor force at Peenemünde was a further source of information to the Allies. British intelligence had dismissed earlier reports as too fantastic or as German disinformation, but as evidence mounted in the spring of 1943 that Peenemünde really was the center of some kind of rocket work, high-altitude RAF reconnaissance planes had repeatedly photographed the complex. 4

On the German side, the growing Allied air raids had made those responsible for the program increasingly concerned about the possibility of espionage and air attack. After discussions with the A-4 Special Committee, the Army had given its facility a cover name as of June 1, “Home Artillery Park 11,” and use of the word “Peenemünde” was banned from documents. Karlshagen, a small hamlet near the Settlement, became the new postal address. On May 21 Himmler had ordered that SS guard posts be erected at checkpoints a few kilometers south of the base gate at Karlshagen, probably because of the approaching arrival of concentration camp prisoners. With the support of Speer and Milch, the Luftwaffe also reinforced the local flak batteries protecting the facility. Nonetheless, when the British attacked, the center was “woefully unprepared” for almost six hundred RAF bombers carrying 1.5 million kilograms of explosives. Except for the unfortunate foreign laborers, Peenemünde had been lucky. The center had been saved more than anything else by the technical difficulty of a precision night raid against a series of relatively small targets. It was fortunate also that the damage appeared so devastating the next day that the RAF canceled plans for follow-up raids by itself or the Americans. 5

Inevitably, the attack set off a whirlwind of activity in Berlin, the Wolfsschanze, and elswhere. It was a powerful reminder of the A-4 program’s increasing vulnerability to air attack. On June 21 at Friedrichshafen, and on August 13 at Wiener Neustadt, Allied bombers had unknowingly damaged the other two missile assembly sites in raids on neighboring facilities. Something obviously had to be done. What was done would result in fundamental changes to the character of Peenemünde and the roles of the various groups vying for control of the rocket program. The center’s personnel would decrease in numbers and would be dispersed over a much wider area. More important, A-4 production would depart from Peenemünde altogether and would move underground—to the benefit of the SS and at the cost of thousands of prisoner lives.

Not long after dawn Dornberger and von Braun took a light plane aloft to survey the destruction. Later that morning, Speer flew into Peenemünde, “where General Dornberger , still covered with dust and lacking sleep, reported on the damage.” The Minister then took off to inspect the results of the first of the daring and costly American daylight raids on the ball bearing factories at Schweinfurt, which had occurred the previous afternoon. The next day, the nineteenth, Speer flew on to East Prussia to discuss the latest raids with Hitler. 6

It was Heinrich Himmler, however, who first had the Führer’s ear regarding the future of the rocket program. The Reichsführer-SS had arrived at his nearby Hochwald (High Forest) headquarters on August 15 and thus could offer his solution to Hitler when he went to Wolfsschanze on the eighteenth and nineteenth. Eager to gain as much control over the program as he could—in part because he considered the SS the most zealous and competent organization for carrying out the Führer’s wishes—Himmler proposed that the A-4 be produced underground “with the increased use of workers from his concentration camps.” Arguing that spies must have betrayed the location of Peenemünde, the Reichsführer-SS told an enthusiastic Hitler that using prisoners underground promised complete secrecy, because they could be cut off from the outside world. The SS could also send skilled workers and engineers to the factory from the jails and camps, thus easing the manpower problem. He further convinced the Führer that development work at Peenemünde should be moved to a Waffen-SS training area in Poland. 7

At Hitler’s request, Speer and Saur went to Hochwald on August 20 to discuss the details with Himmler, who had just received a surprise appointment as Minister of the Interior. Himmler followed up the visit with an arrogant missive to the Armaments Minister. It opened: “With this letter I hereby inform you that, in my capacity as Reichsführer-SS, I am taking over the production of the A-4 device in line with our conversation of yesterday.” He thought the moment had come to seize a large piece of the ballistic missile program for the SS. 8

In his discussions and letter, Himmler mentioned the man who would construct the new facilities: Brigadeführer (Brigadier General) Dr. Hans Kammler. An architect and civil engineer by training, the forty-two-year-old Kammler had been a party member since the end of 1931 and and an SS member since 1933. He had risen quickly as a construction expert in the Agriculture and Air ministries before being taken full-time into the SS leadership in 1941. There he played a prominent role in the building of the ultrasecret extermination camps and gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Maidenek, and Belzec. In early 1942 he became head of Division C (Construction) of the newly created SS Economic and Administrative Main Office. To Dornberger and Speer, Kammler at first sight cut an impressively handsome, energetic, “Nordic” figure, but they would soon learn that his energy and decisiveness barely concealed overweening arrogance and absolute ruthlessness. 9

While discussions proceeded at the highest level in East Prussia, Dornberger and his subordinates concentrated on restoring Peenemünde’s ability to function. To convince the Allies that the center was wrecked, many burned-out buildings were left as they were, while others, like House 4, were repaired in a way that left them looking unusable in reconnaissance photographs. On Saturday, August 21, the first 333 victims were buried, provoking a conflict that brought into the open some of the tensions between conservatives and extremists in the National Socialist ruling elite. The Nazi Gauleiter for Pomerania tried to withdraw all soldiers from the funeral rites when the Catholic and Protestant pastors began to preach but was overruled by the Commanding Admiral for the Baltic. Dornberger later claimed credit as well for having permitted a church service to go ahead over the objections of the Gauleiter, who departed in a huff. 10

With the initial postraid tasks finished, the leadership of the rocket program considered its next moves. On August 22 Dornberger merged the Production Plant into the Development Works and shunted Schubert into the repair of Peenemünde; it was clear that A-4 production would be evacuated to a less vulnerable location. The next day one of his staff officers sent a memorandum to General Fromm asking that Dornberger be appointed “sole responsible leader [Führer]” of the A-4 program, thereby subordinating Degenkolb to the Army. Apparently Dornberger too thought that his moment had come. 11

At a meeting on August 25 in Degenkolb’s Berlin office, however, Dornberger first learned of Hitler’s decisions about underground production. Later that day he phoned Peenemünde, precipitating a meeting chaired by von Braun. That gathering discussed the evacuation of production, along with the concentration camp prisoners and some German employees, to subterranean sites in the Saar area of western Germany. It was the first time that von Braun was involved in decisionmaking about the SS prisoners, although he certainly must have been aware of their role in the program. Prior to the raid decisions about the prisoners had been handled solely on the production side, through Rudolph to Schubert and Dornberger. 12