Michael Neufeld - The Rocket and the Reich

43. Huzel, Peenemünde , 137–39; Ordway and Sharpe, Rocket Team , 256–57; WvB, “Affidavit,” 18.6.47, in FOIA release, INSCOM.

44. Huzel, Peenemünde , 138–42; Kaiser to Huzel, 24.2.45, in NASM, FE731; Ordway and Sharpe, Rocket Team , 261.

45. Huzel, Peenemünde , 139–48; WD, V-2 , 265–70; McGovern, Crossbow , 94–95; Kammler to Storch et al , 17.2.45, in BA/MA, RH8/v.1941; Rossmann, “ Notprogramm für A-4 Entwicklung,” 27.2.45, and Schneider minutes of 20.3.45 meeting at BzbV Heer, in NASM, FE766; WvB minutes of 2.3.45 meeting in NASM, FE738/1; WvB “Antrag,” 6.3.45, in BA/MA, RH8/V.852; Kurz to WvB, 16.3., and Steinhoff to WvB, 27.3.45, in NASM, FE333; Wiesman OHI, 17–19.

46. WvB defense questionaire responses, 14.10.47, in NA, M-1079/4/169 and 12/348.

47. Bornemann and Broszat, “Das KL,” 192–93; executions list, 1.11.44–27.3.45 (prosecution exhibit, 1947), in NA, M-1079/11/664–65.

48. Mierzejewski, Collapse , 125–61, 184–85; Bornemann and Broszat, “Das KL,” 191–94; KL Mittelbau, prisoner list, 1.11.44, in NA, M-1079/11/580; Hein, “Lagerstaerke in KL.Dora” 1.12.44–3.4.45, c. 1947, in NA, M-1079/1/574.

49. Documents on Dora executions, 1947(?), in NA, M-1079/1/737 and 11/664–65; Bornemann and Broszat, “Das KL,” 172–73, 194–95.

50. Béon, La planète Dora , 172 (translation courtesy of Yves Béon); interrogations of Ball, Friedrich, Rudolph, and Voss, 28.5–3.6.47, Fort Bliss, in NA, M-1079/1/385–428 (Ball quotes, 396–98). The Germans give various dates, but the tunnel hangings most probably occurred only in March 1945, when the large numbers correspond to the execution lists in the Nordhausen trial records.

51. Hölsken, V-Waffen , 79–80; Bornemann, Geheimprojekt , 135.

52. Hölsken, V-Waffen , 162–63; Herbert, Fremdarbeiter , 340.

53. Ordway and Sharpe, Rocket Team , 264–65; Reisig OHI, 1989, 109–10.

54. Bornemann and Broszat, “Das KL,” 195–96; Bomemann, Geheimprojekt , 138–40.

55. Bomemann and Broszat, “Das KL,” 197–98; Freund, Arbeitslager Zement , 328–29; Hölsken, V-Waffen , 162–63, 200–02.

56. Ordway and Sharpe, Rocket Team , 81, 265–66; telegrams to and from Kammler, 3–23.4.45, in NA, T-175/183/8718632–64; WD, V-2 , 266–67; McGovern, Crossbow , 203.

57. Huzel, Peenemünde , 151–83; WD, V-2 , 271; Ordway and Sharpe, Rocket Team , 261–67; Heimburg OHI, 77–78; Dahm OHI, 31–32.

58. Rees OHI, 43–44; Dannenberg OHI, 65–66; Huzel, Peenemünde , 187–88; Ordway and Sharpe, Rocket Team , 1–8, 268–69.

1. McGovern, Crossbow , 101–2, 151–86; Albrecht et al, Die Spezialisten , 33–34.

2. Gimbel, “Project Paperclip”; McGovern, Crossbow , 125; Ordway and Sharpe, Rocket Team , 273–74.

3. Gimbel, “Project Paperclip”; Lasby, Project Paperclip , 66–92; McGovern, Crossbow , 185–97.

4. Ordway and Sharpe, Rocket Team , 318–20; McGovern, Crossbow , 205–6; Albrecht et al, Die Spezialisten , 92–93.

5. Villain, “France,” 5–8; McGovern, Crossbow , 200–204; Tessmann OHI, 28–32; FIAT Main Branch (British), “Memorandum for Dornberger P File,” 2.10.45, in NA, RG319, IRR files, WD dossier; Simpson, Blowback , 27–39.

6. McGovern, Crossbow , 207–15; DeVorkin, Science , 109–49; DeVorkin, “War Heads”; Ordway and Sharpe, Rocket Team , 310–17, 344–62.

7. Gimbel, “German Scientists”; Gimbel, Science , ch. 2; Bower, Paperclip Conspiracy; Hunt, Secret Agenda .

8. Hunt, Secret Agenda , 64–77.

9. Neufeld, “Guided Missile,” discusses these issues more theoretically in terms of Thomas P Hughes’s “technological systems” approach.

10. Albrecht et al, Die Spezialisten , 94–99; Bornemann, Geheimprojekt , 150–56; Ordway and Sharpe, Rocket Team , 318–43; Gröttrup, Rocket Wife .

11. WvB and WD contributions in Zwicky, Report , 67, 73. For other estimates, see Hölsken, V-Waffen , 79–80; Irving, Mare’s Nest , 304, 315; Ordway and Sharpe, Rocket Team , 242–53, 405–8.

12. Hölsken, V-Waffen , 203–12; Irving, Mare’s Nest , 304–6; Speer, Inside, 467–69.

13. Hölsken, V-Waffen , 163, 187–212; Murray, “Reflections,” 90. Longmate, Hitler’s Rockets , provides the other side: powerful eyewitness accounts of V-2 attacks in London.

14. Hölsken, V-Waffen , 208. Emphasis in original.

This book is primarily based on what might be termed “the Peenemünde archive”—the documents that were salvaged by the U.S. Army and shipped to the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, for evaluation and exploitation. Some of the material was then forwarded to Fort Eustis, Virginia, for cataloguing and selective translation. Much of the archive, which included material from Wa Prüf 11 and its predecessors, was microfilmed, and a finding aid was created, numbering 2,683 pages. The first three volumes plus an Index were finished in 1946, followed by two supplementary volumes in 1948. The original paper documents appear to have followed the German rocket group to Fort Bliss, Texas, and Huntsville, Alabama, and then were returned to Germany (with minor exceptions) in the late 1950s. At that point the archive was artificially divided between the Deutsches Museum in Munich, which received the more “technical” files, and the Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt in Freiburg, which received the more “military” files. The latter collection then became part of the Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, when it was founded.

The American file system, and thus the microfilm as well, is divided into two bodies of material. The FE (Fort Eustis) files are administrative and technical documents that were renumbered, whereas the Peenemünde Archive Reports (the scientific report series) retained their original numbers. The Archive Reports, both in microfilm and in paper copy form, are to be found in a number of locations, because they were of greater value to postwar researchers than the FE material, which is more interesting to historians. Only one copy of the FE microfilm is known to me, and it is in the NASM Archives, but it covers only about 60 percent of the original files now found in Germany. In the notes I have cited this material according to the location and form in which it was used. (The same is true for National Archives microfilm of Captured German Records now found in Freiburg and Koblenz.) The BA/MA finding aid to the collection (RH8/II) has a concordance of FE file numbers in its possession to the new file numbers, but the situation in Munich is more confused, as is described below. The following are short descriptions of the archival collections consulted, including non-Peenemünde material.

Berlin Document Center (BDC)

This archive is currently run by the U.S. State Department but is being turned over to the Bundesarchiv when microfilming is complete. The filmed records will then be available at the National Archives. The BDC contains much of the central card file of the Nazi party, many SS officer files, and files of other Nazi organizations. Access is restricted to qualified persons, and records are obtained by supplying names and birthdates of relevant individuals.