Michael Neufeld - The Rocket and the Reich

The obvious failure of the program to meet its original objectives nonetheless resulted in some true desperation projects. Among the ideas floated was fitting the Wasserfall with small A-4b-type wings to create a scaled-down glider missile. But the most important desperation project was initiated earlier by the Luftwaffe officer responsible for Wasserfall test stands, Lieutenant Klaus Scheufeien. Taifun (Typhoon), a small unguided anti-aircraft rocket, is first mentioned in the documents in August 1944. The pencil-thin missile had a diameter of about 10 cm (4 inches) and a height of approximately 2 meters (6 feet). In Scheufelen’s first version, it would be powered by the same hypergolic propellants as Wasserfall and would be fired off a launch rail, burning out in only three seconds. Taifun could potentially reach altitude faster than an artillery shell and would save gunpowder production, but its warhead was very small (around a kilogram), and its accuracy would have been poor. Essentially, this project was an admission of defeat; the guided anti-aircraft missile was coming along too slowly to alter the overpowering air superiority of the Allies. 33

In September the Luftwaffe gave Taifun a higher priority than Wasserfall, but there are indications that Electromechanical Industries paid only lip service to the project. At the beginning of December von Braun told Rees and the shop managers to treat the new contract for ten thousand Taifuns as filler work, except for the first hundred test vehicles. It is unknown whether Scheufelen and the Flak Experimental Center were informed of that order, but Taifun continued to expand as a project, at least on paper. The first liquid-fueled missiles had already been launched in November, and by January a second, solid-fuel version was proposed. As of New Year’s Day 1945, 135 people were assigned to Taifun, a total dwarfed by the 1,940 staff members of the A-4 project, the 1,220 of Wasserfall, and the 270 working on A-4b (660 other employees were listed as “general” or “administrative”). Although the Taifun project did not entail a substantial diversion of resources, it surely expressed the catastrophic character of the military situation. 34

A project that even more clearly embodied the mood of desperation was “Test Stand XII.” That code-name was applied in late November 1944 to the idea for a U-boat-towed launch canister for a V-2. It might generously be described as a forerunner of the ballistic-missile submarine, but in its own context “Test Stand XII” was merely ludicrous. The rationale was that the United States might be given pause by the bombardment of New York, although it is hard to see how a few such shots would have done anything but make Americans more determined to take revenge on German cities. In any case, the practical difficulties were overwhelming. To launch, the U-boat would have to surface, then the crew would have to erect the canister by flooding its ballast, fuel the missile, and send it on its way. Accuracy would have been terrible. Notwithstanding those difficulties, a contract was immediately given to Vulkan Docks of Stettin to build a test version by March or April. Only a handful of people worked on the project before it was stopped by the evacuation. Those who participated, including General Rossmann and Walther Riedel, seem to have taken it seriously, but there was scarcely a clearer expression in Peenemünde of the escape from reality produced by the impending collapse of the Third Reich. In one way or another, desperation had come to overshadow all work in the Army rocket program. 35

By January 1945 the situation in Peenemünde had become truly bleak. The sound of Russian guns could be heard in the distance; endless streams of grim and tattered refugees came marching across the island of Usedom on their way to the bridge at Wolgast and points farther west. They brought with them tales of terrible atrocities committed by Soviet troops, although the Germans all too easily forgot that such outrages were revenge for the millions killed in the East by the Nazi regime and its armed forces. In the center itself, military employees had to carry guns, while all able-bodied male civilians were obliged since October or November to spend time exercising with the Volkssturm (Home Guard), preparing for a last-ditch stand. On January 18 rumors of Soviet tanks only a few dozen kilometers away caused panic. Scientists from Erich Regener’s stratospheric research institute in Friedrichshafen were sent away before they could finish preparing their instrument package for an A-4 launch, a project begun in mid-1942 to explore the upper atmosphere for guidance purposes as well as science. The launch never happened, because Kammler ordered the evacuation of Peenemünde to central Germany less than two weeks later. 36

A move had of course long been planned, although the destination was not the one expected. Throughout 1944 the prisoner-dug Zement tunnels in the Austrian Alps had remained the intended location for the new development works. But as the date for the move stretched into 1945, Speer and Hitler became impatient. In early July 1944 the Führer accepted his Minister’s suggestion that part of the complex be given over to tank drive-train production. That measure never went into effect, because American attacks on German oil production provoked a sudden decision by Saur to use the nearly complete “A” tunnels at Zement for a refinery. The oil refinery began to set up its equipment in early August. After a period of confusion, Electromechanical Industries received confirmation that it would move to Zement’s smaller and much less complete “B” tunnels, when they were ready. In the fall studies were made of testing locations in Austria; one suggestion was to fire the A-4b from sites near Vienna at targets in the sparsely populated Tyrolean Alps. The steady deterioration of the military situation also provoked studies of an emergency evacuation to other locations, but until early December von Braun and the Peenemünde leadership took for granted a move into Zement—and in the relatively near future. Then Saur handed over the remaining tunnels to aircraft engine production on December 8, terminating a year of planning. 37

Storch, von Braun, and other Peenemünders must have had an inkling that the only place left to go was the Mittelwerk area, which had become an SS-dominated region devoted to underground production and secret weapons. On January 26 Dornberger wired von Braun that his BzbV Heer organization was evacuating to Bad Sachsa, a town near the subterranean plant. Movement of related firms and research institutes to the same area would be discussed in Berlin the following day at the first meeting of “Working Staff Dornberger.” 38

That committee had been appointed by Speer on January 13 in a last attempt to consolidate authority over anti-aircraft missiles and other advanced weapons. Speer gave Dornberger special powers within the Armaments Ministry to make emergency decisions, but neither man anticipated how easily Kammler could counter the move. The SS general went to Göring on the January 26 and had himself appointed V-1 commander and commissioner for the “Breaking of the Air Terror.” Ten days later, after receiving further backing from Himmler, Kammler canceled Enzian, Rheintochter, and a number of other projects and subordinated Working Staff Dornberger to his command. Speer’s influence over missile development was at an end, while Kammler’s meteoric rise continued. More and more, however, he was becoming the ruler over a shadow empire of skeleton organizations, false hopes, and self-delusion. 39

Back at Peenemünde, rumors about the evacuation were flying. On January 30 and 31, Gen. Rossmann issued orders telling everyone to stay calm, remain in place, and await developments. Northern Experimental Command soldiers were to take training in antitank weapons. But later on January 31, “a cold and cloudy Wednesday,” according to Huzel, Kammler’s order finally arrived. Von Braun immediately called an emergency meeting of all available department heads to plan the transport to the Mittelraum (Central Region) of what could be salvaged of the facility. First priority was assigned to A-4 and Taifun personnel, followed by A-4b and Wasserfall people. The launch crews were to remain in place until further notice. The meeting unleashed feverish activity, because all departments had to choose whom to move first, how much equipment to take with them, and what form of transportation to use. Allotted to Electromechanical Industries were a few trains, a number of barges that could be mobilized to move heavier material, and vehicles from the Peenemünde motor pool and other organizations. Storch had already ordered in September that a central archive be assembled and prepared for shipment. 40