Michael Neufeld - The Rocket and the Reich

The abbreviated German date system has been used in the notes for clarity and brevity: day.month.year. Where possible, names have been given in primary document citations, although the originals may have been addressed to or from the acronym of a person’s office. When the original author of a document is known and the document was signed by someone else, the actual author’s name is given in brackets. Full citations of secondary works can be found in the Bibliography.

1. Huzel, Peenemünde , 44.

2. Ibid. , 30–38; Schubert chronicle, 17.6.43, 11.7.43, and 16.7.43, in BA/MA, RH8/V.1210.

3. Huzel, Peenemünde , 38–40.

1. Willy Ley, “Review in Retrospect” (ms., 1947), NASM, Willy Ley Collection, box 2701, folder 200.

2. Schneider, “Technik,” 236; Hölsken, V-Waffen , 15; Müller, “World Power Status,” 182; Ley, Rockets , 168–74.

3. WD, V-2 , 19; WD, “Denkschrift,” c. late 1943, DM (page 6 missing from copy in NASM, FE496); Ordway and Sharpe, Rocket Team , 17; Winter, Prelude , 51; Carroll, Design , 59–61; Homze, Arming , 8–10, 21–22, 39–41.

4. Oberth, Rakete; Neufeld, “Weimar Culture,” 725–30; Winter, Prelude , 22. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.

5. Neufeld, “Weimar Culture,” 729–30; Winter, Prelude , 21–22; Goddard, “A Method”; Goddard, “Liquid-propellant Rocket Development” (1936).

6. Neufeld, “Weimar Culture,” 731–41; Winter, Prelude , 35–37; Ley, Rockets , 105–23.

7. Neufeld, “Weimar Culture,” 725–28, 742–52.

8. Oberth, Wege, 199–200.

9. WD, “Denkschrift,” c. late 1943, 6–7, NASM, FE496, and DM; Schneider, “Technik,” 236; WD, V-2 , 19; WD, “European Rocketry,” 249; Keilig, Deutsche Heer , 211/19, 211/68, 211/145, 211/302, 211/373.

10. Philipps, “Karl Becker,” 293; Ebert and Rupieper, “Technische Wissenschaft,” 469–70; Keilig, Das Deutsche Heer , 211/302, 211/373; Winter, Prelude , 52. That Becker had been aware of the spaceflight literature for some years is shown by Cranz’s skeptical discussion of Oberth and Goddard in volume 2 (1926) of his textbook, Cranz, Lehrbuch , 2:402–19, 437. Becker had assisted in revisions to volume 1.

11. WD, V-2 , 20; WD, “Lessons,” 18; WD to Oberth, 12.6.64, in an unpublished Festschrift for Oberth in NASM file “Hermann Oberth”; Reisig OHI, 1989, 57–58; WvB, “Behind the Scenes,” 8, 20, SRCH, WvB Papers. Whether Dornberger was actually hired first to look into liquid-fuel rocketry or only later was assigned to that task is unclear from the contradictory accounts in his book and memoir articles. In general, Dornberger’s various memoirs are absolutely indispensable but not highly trustworthy. His memory was faulty on many details, and he suppressed or distorted damaging information, most notably regarding his dealings with Hitler, the SS, and concentration camp prisoners.

12. Neufeld, “Weimar Culture,” 730–31. On the military-industrial complex and rocketry, see McDougall, Heavens.

13. Winkler, “Rückstoss-Arbeiten Winkler,” 8.5.43, DM; Kunze, “Zusammenarbeit,” 71–75. The powder rocket manufacturer Friedrich Sander, who had been involved in the Opel–Valier stunts, may have secretly built and launched a liquid-fuel rocket in 1929, but nothing further came of that work. Winter, Prelude , 37; Sänger-Bredt and Engel, “The Development,” 221–22.

14. Franklin, American , 18–19; Rudolph OHI, 7–8; Essers, Max Valier , 247–65; Riedel, “A Chapter,” 208–12; Riedel, “Raketenentwicklung mit flüssigen Treibstoffen” (ms., 1950), 9–10, IWM, German Misc. 148. See Winter and Neufeld, “Heylandt’s Rocket Cars,” for a fuller examination of this group.

15. Oberth to Dickhuth-Harrach, 11.1.34, in BA/MA, RH8/v.1226; Ley, Rockets , 124–27; Winter, Prelude , 38–39.

16. Ley, Rockets , 127–32; Barth, Hermann Oberth , 139–53; Neufeld, “Weimar Culture,” 738–41.

17. Becker to Wimmer, 12.5.31, in BA/MA, RH8/v.1226; Nebel, Narren , 72–75; Oberth to Dickhuth-Harrach, 11.1.34, in BA/MA, RH8/v.1226. Nebel’s memoirs are of questionable reliability, but some of his wilder stories are confirmed by other sources.

18. Magnus von Braun, Weg, 87–193; WD, V-2 , 27; Ley, Rockets , 133–35; Ritter/CTR to Stucktay/Notgemein. d. Dt. Wissenschaft, 5.11.30, in IWM, MI 14/801(V).

19. Ley, Rockets , 136–39; WvB drawings of Mirak, 3.8.30, and Kegeldüse, 12.9.30, in SRCH, WvB Papers.

20. Becker to Wimmer/Wa Prw 8, 12.5.31, in BA/MA, RH8/v.1226 and IWM, MI 14/801(V). See also Wimmer to Becker, 6.5.31, in latter.

21. WvB, “Behind the Scenes of Rocket Development in Germany 1928 through 1945” (ms., late 1940s), 6, SRCH, WvB Papers. A heavily edited version was published as “Reminiscences of German Rocketry.”

22. Marionoff, quoted in Winter, Prelude , 42; WvB, “Behind the Scenes,” 6–7, SRCH, WvB Papers; Rolf Engel interview by Neufeld, 1991.

23. Ley, Rockets , 140–51; Winter, Prelude , 43.

24. Ley, Rockets , 140–54; WvB, “Behind the Scenes,” 6–7; Winter, Prelude , 41–43; Nebel, Narren , 99–116; Sänger-Bredt and Engel, “Development,” 218–21.

25. On the Paris Gun, see Klein, Vom Geschoss , 28–35, 56–57, 72–73; Ludwig, “Die ‘Hockdruckpumpe’,” 144; WD, V-2 , 47–48; WD, “European Rocketry,” 253–54; WD, “German V-2,” 398. On surprise in Becker’s thought, see Schumann, “Wehrmacht,” 135. The solid-fuel rocket program’s close connection to chemical warfare, leading to the battlefield Nebelwerfer of World War II, and Oberth’s discussion of the ballistic missile’s utility for long-range poison gas attacks make it certain that Becker and his subordinates also discussed the possibility of using liquid-fuel missiles for chemical warfare against civilians. But the only document that even hints that they advocated it is the war diary of General Franz Halder, Chief of the Army General Staff (1938–42). Halder records a tour of a chemical weapons plant with Becker on September 26, 1939. Poison gas and the use of the long-range rocket against London are mentioned but are not clearly linked; see Halder, Kriegstagebuch , 1:85. Müller, “World Power Status,” 190, overinterprets this cryptic entry. If Ordnance believed in the 1930s that ballistic missiles would be decisive if equipped with chemical warheads, all documents mentioning this idea must later have disappeared.

26. Becker to AG f. Industriegasverwertung, 16.10.31, in NASM, FE724/a; Winter, Prelude , 52. By some accounts there was an important meeting on December 17, 1930, in which Colonel Karlewski, head of the Testing Division, backed increased funding for rocket development. But in the absence of original documents such exactitude is suspicious; the chronology in the memoirs of this period is often demonstrably in error.

27. Riedel, “Raketenentwicklung,” 11–14, IWM, German Misc. 148; AG f. Industriegasverwertung to von Horstig, 20.11.34, in NASM, FE737; Rudolph OHI, 6–15; Franklin, American , 24–27; Ley, Rockets , 146; Winter and Neufeld, “Heylandt’s Rocket Cars.”

28. Frey (for Hess and Hitler) to Nebel, 19.2.30, and Grundtmann (for Göring) to Nebel, 18.3.32, in NA, T-175/155/2685593–94; Nebel to Bodenschatz, 23.8.33, in IWM, MI 14/801(V); Nebel, Narren , 16–17; Nebel handbill in Winter, Prelude , 174; Horeis, Rolf Engel , 17–18; W Kechmann article, Berliner Zeitung , 12.6.32, in WvB Papers, LC, box 53, scrapbook 1; Baumgarten-Crusius, Rakete .