1942 Science Prediction Article: Aircraft of Uranus.

October 14, 1942: Hitler, in conversation with Albert Speer:

The A-4 is a measure that can decide the war. And what encouragement to the home front when we attack the English with it. This is the decisive weapon of the war, and what is more it can be produced with relatively small resources. Speer, you must push the A-4 as hard as you can! Whatever labor and materials they need must be supplied instantly. You know I was going to sign the decree for the tank program. But my conclusion now is: Change it around and phase it so that A-4 is put on a par with tank production. But in this project we can use only Germans. God help us if the enemy finds out about this business. (Speer)

December 17, 1942: United Nations Statement: ...those responsible for these crimes shall not escape retribution...

From Bomber Command by Arthur "Bomber" Harris: Whenever the fact that our aircraft occasionally killed women and children is cast in my teeth I always produce this example of the blockade, although there are endless others to be got from the wars of the past. I never forget, as so many do, that in all normal warfare of the past, and of the not distant past, it was the common practice to besiege cities and, if they refused to surrender when called upon with due formality to do so, every living thing in them was in the end put to the sword. Even in the more civilized times of today the siege of cities, accompanied by the bombardment of the city as a whole, is still a normal practice; in no circumstances were women and children allowed to pass out of the city, because their presence in it and their consumption of food would inevitably hasten the end of the siege. And as to bombardment, what city in what war has ever failed to receive the maximum bombardment from all enemy artillery within range so long as it has continued resistance?

December 22, 1942: Adolf Hitler signs an order approving the production of the A-4 as a "vengeance weapon" to be developed to target London.

Early 1943: Mass production of the A-4 finally begins. Ultimately, 42 000 concentration camp prisoners will be used as slave labor in the production of these rockets; at least 30 000 will perish. (Piszkiewicz, Burrows)

From Hermann Goering's testimony before the IMT: I knew of the subterranean works which were near Nordhausen, though I never was there myself. But they had been established at a rather early period. Nordhausen produced mainly V-1s and V-2s. With the conditions in Camp Dora, as they have been described, I am not familiar. I also believe that they are exaggerated. Of course, I knew that subterranean factories were being built. I was also interested in the construction of further plants for the Luftwaffe. I cannot see why the construction of subterranean works should be something particularly wicked or destructive. I had ordered construction of an important subterranean work at Kahla in Thuringia for airplane production in which, to a large extent, German workers and, for the rest, Russian workers and prisoners of war were employed. I personally went there to look over the work being done and on that day found everyone in good spirits.

On the occasion of my visit I brought the people some additional rations of beverages, cigarettes, and other things, for Germans and foreigners alike. The other subterranean works for which I requested concentration camp internees were not built any more. That I requested inmates of concentration camps for the aviation industry is correct, and it is in my opinion quite natural because I was, at that time, not familiar with the details of the concentration camps. I knew only that many Germans also were in concentration camps—people who had refused to join the Army, who were politically unreliable, or who had been punished for other things, as also happens in other countries in time of war. At that time everyone had to work in Germany. Women were taken into the ranks of labor, including those who had never worked before. In my own home parachute production was started, in which everyone had to participate. I could not see why, if the entire people had to take part in work, the inmates of prisons, concentration camps, or wherever they might be, should not also be put to use for work essential to the war.

Moreover I am of the opinion, from what I know today, that it certainly was better for them to work and to be billeted in some plane factory than in their concentration camps. The fact per se that they worked, is to be taken as a matter of course, and also that they worked for war production. But that work meant destruction is a new idea. It is possible that it was strenuous here or there. I for my part was interested that these people should not be destroyed, but that they should work and thereby produce. The work itself was the same as done by German workers—that is, plane and motor production—no destruction was intended thereby.

1943: The Lisbon Report, confirming that the Germans are test-firing long range rockets in Peenemuende, falls into Allied hands. An excerpt:

Hitler and members of his Cabinet recently inspected both weapons (the V-1 and V-2) at Peenemuende. About 10th of June, Hitler told assembled military leaders that the Germans had only to hold out, since by the end of 1943 London would be leveled to the ground and Britain forced to capitulate. October 20th is at present fixed as Zero Day for rocket attacks to begin. Hitler ordered the construction of 30,000 A-4 (the original nomenclature for the V-2) projectiles by that day; this is, however, beyond the bounds of possibility. Production of both weapons is to have first priority and 1500 skilled workers have been transferred to this work from anti-aircraft and artillery production. (Brown)

February 2, 1943: Paulus surrenders at Stalingrad.

February 18, 1943 Totalkrieg: In Berlin, Goebbels delivers his most famous speech:

The tragic battle of Stalingrad is a symbol of heroic, manly resistance to the revolt of the steppes. It has not only a military, but also an intellectual and spiritual significance for the German people. Here for the first time our eyes have been opened to the true nature of the war. We want no more false hopes and illusions. We want bravely to look the facts in the face, however hard and dreadful they may be. The history of our party and our state has proven that a danger recognized is a danger defeated. Our coming hard battles in the East will be under the sign of this heroic resistance. It will require previously undreamed of efforts by our soldiers and our weapons. A merciless war is raging in the East. The Fuehrer was right when he said that in the end there will not be winners and losers, but the living and the dead...

March 5, 1943: Nine months after the Germans had successfully tested the world’s first turbojet fighter aircraft, the British Gloster Meteor completes its maiden flight.

April 5, 1943: Wernher von Braun submits a formal application to the SS-Rasse-und Siedlungshauptamt (SS Central Office for Race and Settlement) requesting permission to marry a twenty-seven year old Berlin woman, Dorothee Brill. In the event, Brill and von Braun will not marry. Perhaps they found a Jew in her family tree, or the couple merely fell out of love? The reason is unknown. Von Braun will not marry until March 1, 1947. (Piszkiewicz)

April 15, 1943: General Ismay (above) to Churchill: The Chiefs of Staff feel that you should be made aware of reports of German experiments with long-range rockets. The fact that five reports have been received since the end of 1942 indicates a foundation of fact even if details are inaccurate." In response to the threat, Churchill will appoint his son-in-law, Duncan Sandys, as Chairman of a War Cabinet Committee (the 'Crossbow' Committee) for defense against German flying bombs and rockets. (Ismay, Kilzer)

April 22, 1943: General Adolf Galland had, along with Willy Messerschmitt, been an opponent of the development of the Me262 turbojet fighter aircraft. However, on this day Galland flies an Me262 and reverses his previous opinion. He now supports the aircraft unreservedly.

From the summary of Messerschmitt's SBS Interview: The ME 262 had a maximum speed of 560 miles an hour at level flight, both at altitude and near the ground. Its normal speed was approximately 500 miles an hour. The individual motors supplied for this aircraft varied markedly in efficiency. Due to difficulties with workmen and machines the airframes were inferior. Professor Messerschmitt was working on a specially built 262 with which he expected to achieve a speed of 575 miles an hour. The aircraft was capable of two hours flight at 27,000 feet without belly tanks. Professor Messerschmitt believed that conventional motors and propellers were satisfactory for designs involving speeds up to 500 miles an hour. Beyond that and until the speed of sound had been achieved, he believed a turbo-jet was the best type. For speeds in excess of sound, he had no definite opinion.

May 17, 1943 Operation Chastise: Using a specially developed bouncing bomb, Royal Air Force Squadron No. 617 (subsequently known as "the Dambusters") attack the Moehne and Eder dams in Germany's Ruhr valley. A catastrophic flooding of the Ruhr valley results. 53 of the 133 aircrew who participate in the attack are killed in action and three bail out to be made prisoners of war. This represents a casualty rate of almost 40%.

June 1943: The Anglo-American Combined Bomber Offensive is officially launched as Operation Pointblank.

From the summary of Messerschmitt's SBS Interview: In June 1943, Professor Messerschmitt took the matter up personally with Hitler. He was then disturbed about the program for production of V-weapons. Messerschmitt explained to Hitler that, in his opinion, unless a production of 80,000–100,000 V-weapons per month could be achieved, the entire program should be scrapped. He argued that 50 per cent of the V-weapons would be ineffective. Messerschmitt felt that it would be possible for Germany to build 100,000 V-weapons a month when the US was capable of building 4,000,000 automobiles a year. He urged Hitler that one thing or the other should be done; either V-weapons should be produced in overwhelming quantities or everything should be done to build up the Luftwaffe. In Messerschmitt's personal opinion, if the Luftwaffe were not strengthened the war would be lost . . . . As a result of his insistence upon increased aircraft production in many Air Ministry meetings ... several of Messerschmitt's friends warned him to be careful or he might be sent to a concentration camp.

July 7, 1943: Hitler is enthusiastic when Wernher von Braun shows him a color movie of an A-4 blast off. Hitler, anxious for a way to retaliate against Allied air strikes in kind, puts the A-4 on the top-priority list. He will soon personally award the 31 year old scientist the title of honorary "Research Professor." (Cornwell, Piszkiewicz, Braun)

July 24, 1943: The large port city of Hamburg is hit by a large raid of 740 aircraft killing about 1,500 people. Only 12 aircraft are lost, 1.5% of the force.

August 2, 1943: The large port city of Hamburg is hit again by a large raid, this time of 791 aircraft. 30 aircraft are lost, 4.1% of the force.

From The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer: In May 1943, an RAF reconnaissance plane had photographed the Peenemunde installation following a tip to London from the Polish underground that both a pilotless jet-propelled aircraft (later known as the V-1, or Buzz Bomb) and a rocket (the V-2) were being developed there. In August British bombers attacked Peenemunde, badly damaging the installation and setting back research and tests by several months. By November, the British and American air forces had located sixty-three launching sites for the V-1 on the Channel and between December and the following February bombed and destroyed seventy-three of the sites, which by that time had increased to ninety-six. The terms "V-1" and "V-2" came from the German word Vergeltungswaffen, or weapons of reprisal, of which Dr Goebbels' propaganda was to make so much of in the dark year of 1944.

August 17–18, 1943 Operation Bodyline (Crossbow): Peenemunde is attacked in a devastating raid by 517 British bombers, forcing the production of the A-4 underground. Eventually, tests will move to an alternate range at Blizna, Poland. Note: Crossbow (known as Bodyline until November 15, 1943) is the code name of the Anglo-American campaign against German rocket sites. (Verrier, D'Olier)

From Speer's SBS Interview: [The "only" effect of the August 1944 attack was that] one of the foremost collaborators of Braun was killed. We had tremendous luck in so far you completely destroyed the living quarters, however, you did not do any damage to a large laboratory hanger close by. Besides, at that time the development was already completed and we were already preparing for production. This was done at other locations. The V-1 was developed at Fieseler, Kassel . . . .

[The significance of the large concert construction at Watten was] probably concrete construction for V-2. V-2 required larger installations for preparation, like the filling with oxygen, testing of instruments, storage—in short everything to keep V-2 in shape. V-1 is mounted much quicker, is put on tracks and fired. V-2 as you know went straight up . . . .

The pressure on explosives (production) did not amount to much. V-1 carried 500 to 600 kg of explosives, that is about 1000 tons for the whole year. That's no object. V-2 used about 800 to 900 kg, that doesn't mean much in terms of explosives. At the same time we didn't have to produce bombs [for the air force] anymore. A difficulty existed in the procurement of sheet metal for V-2 and V-1. They had to be collected from other programs. I don't know anymore in detail from what programs, but it was very difficult to get these high-grade steel sheets . . . . The Luftwaffe was mad about the Army going in for such long distances. They said: "The Army starts to fly." The V program did not hit fighter production in any way. Because in the fighter program the difficulties were for instance to get aluminum sheets, whereas it was steel sheets for V-1.

From Bodyguard of Lies by Anthony Cave Brown: For many nights in the past, the C-in-C of Bomber Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, had been sending a few fast high-flying bombers to raid Berlin. Each night the bombers—Mosquitoes ... flew the same northerly track to the capital, dropped a few bombs, and then departed. The track took the Mosquitoes near Peenemuende and air-raid sirens there always sent the scientists and their work forces to the shelters, but after a time the Peenemuende defenses became more relaxed. The Reich air defense commander also considered Peenemuende an unlikely target; he thought these pinprick raids were the prologue to some devastating main raid on the capital. But Bomber Command had other plans...The raid was one of the most decisive air operations of the war . . . . The effect of the raid on Hitler and Goering was such that the full brunt of their rage fell upon General Hans Jeschonnek, the Chief of the Air Staff. Jeschonnek shot himself in his office the morning after the raid.

August 22, 1943: Alarmed at the destruction of the rocket facilities at Peenemuende, Speer and Himmler confer at Rastenburg with their Fuehrer. Heinrich Himmler offers to use concentration camp workers for A-4 production, and Hitler takes him up on it, ordering that some prisoners from Buchenwald be shifted to Nordhausen. Speer’s ministry will pay all the bills. Himmler places SS Brigadefuehrer Hans Kammler, a ruthless Nazi of the worst sort, in change of what will become known as Camp Dora. Note: 60,000 prisoners will be funneled into the camp, half will perish. (Sereney, Sellier, Cornwell, Piszkiewicz)

From Hermann Goering's testimony before the IMT: I knew of the subterranean works which were near Nordhausen, though I never was there myself. But they had been established at a rather early period. Nordhausen produced mainly V-1s and V-2s. With the conditions in Camp Dora, as they have been described, I am not familiar. I also believe that they are exaggerated. Of course, I knew that subterranean factories were being built. I was also interested in the construction of further plants for the Luftwaffe. I cannot see why the construction of subterranean works should be something particularly wicked or destructive. I had ordered construction of an important subterranean work at Kahla in Thuringia for airplane production in which, to a large extent, German workers and, for the rest, Russian workers and prisoners of war were employed. I personally went there to look over the work being done and on that day found everyone in good spirits. On the occasion of my visit I brought the people some additional rations of beverages, cigarettes, and other things, for Germans and foreigners alike. The other subterranean works for which I requested concentration camp internees were not built any more.

From The Devil's Disciples by Anthony Read: To save his reputation—and Germany—Goering needed the "wonder weapons" that Goebbels regularly hinted at in his efforts to raise public moral. There was a host of ideas, many of them hare-brained, but three were viable, genuinely effective, and in an advanced state. One, a long-range rocket with a one-ton warhead, code-named A-4, was being developed by the young scientist Wernher von Braun under the aegis of the army. The second, effectively the first cruise missile, was a small, pilotless aircraft with a range of up to 100 kilometer (125 miles), powered by a simple pulse-jet engine and also carrying a one-ton warhead, which became known as the Flying Bomb, or V-1—the V standing for Vergeltungswaffen, reprisal weapon.

The V-1 was the Luftwaffe's weapon. It was well advanced before the raid on Peenemunde (August 8, 1943), which only delayed its final development by a few weeks, and by the beginning of November the first sixty-three concrete launching ramps were being built near the Channel coast, pointing towards London. Goering issued a contract to the Fieseler company to start mass production of the bombs in January 1944. The delays caused by the Peenemunde raid to Braun's rocket, soon to be known as the V-2, which was in any case much more complex and expensive to produce than the flying bomb, were more serious.

Himmler and the SS came to the rescue, with Pohl's Works Department creating a huge underground factory in a cave complex near Nordhausen in the Hartz Mountains, complete with the most basic living quarters for prisoners who had until then been producing components in the secrecy of Buchenwald concentration camp. Code-named "Dora," the new workshops were prepared and equipped in the remarkably short time of two months, but large-scale production did not begin until May 1944, and it was September before the first operational rockets were fired.

October 8, 1943: This day’s Magic summary, a compilation of decoded Japanese and German communications presented to FDR daily, contains a dispatch from Baron Oshima, Japans representative in Berlin, informing his home office of developments. Oshima tells of a new "terror-weapon." long-range rocket guns, due to be deployed in mid-December, and opines that the effect of the weapon as a "means of military retaliation will be equaled only by the political reverberations." (Lee)

November 15, 1943: The remains of a German A-4 are found at Utlaengan in Karlskrona, Sweden. (Kilzer)

November 18, 1943: Berlin is attacked by 440 Avro Lancasters and four de Havilland Mosquitoes, but suffers little damage.

From the summary of Messerschmitt's SBS Interview: It was Professor Messerschmitt's opinion that area attacks on cities did no critical damage to war production and that they resulted in a stiffening of morale.

November 22, 1943: A bombing raid kills 2,000 Berliners and renders 175,000 homeless.

From Speer's SBS Interview: Later on I had an opportunity to witness the effects of numerous night attacks on Berlin for the period from about June, July 1943 until February 1944. Those, though they always had considerable effect, speedily hardened the population. They did not mind air attacks very much any longer. The effects of industry were indirect only in that labor first remained absent for a few days in those plants not directly hit. But one must say that the German worker possesses an extraordinary resistance and up to the end, and in spite of air attacks, returned to the plants and worked again. I for my part had always to underline that we owe our achievements almost exclusively to our German Workers. Attacks against towns or city centers can only make sense if the nations do not have the necessary resistance.

December 1943: The US forms the Crossbow Committee under General Stephen Henry of the New Developments Division to direct "operations against all phases of the German long-range weapons program—operations against research and development of the weapons, their manufacture, transportation and their launching sites, and against missiles in flight." (Verrier, D'Olier)

December 5, 1943 Operation Crossbow: "CROSSBOW Operations Against Ski Sites" begins in the Nord-Pas de Calais region.

December 10, 1943: Albert Speer visits the Nordhausen plant at Camp Dora. (Sellier, IMT)

From Dora by Jean Michel: The missile slaves ... from France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Russia, Poland and Germany ... toiled eighteen hours a day...for many weeks without tools, just with their bare hands ... ammonia dust burnt their lungs...they slept in the tunnels in cavities which were hollowed out: 1,024 prisoners in hollows on four levels which stretched for 1000 yards . . . . No heat, no ventilation, not the smallest pail to wash in: death touched us with the cold, the sensation of choking, the filth that impregnated us . . . . The latrines were barrels cut in half with planks laid across. They stood at each exit from the rows of sleeping cubicles .... The deportees saw daylight only once a week at the Sunday roll-call. The cubicles were permanently occupied, the day team following the night team and then vice versa ... no drinkable water ... you lapped up liquid and mud as soon as the SS had their backs turned . . . . It was not until March 1944 that the barracks were completed. At Dora, the work was as terrible as ever, but we could at least leave the tunnel for the six hours of rest allowed.

January 2, 1944: Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defence of Great Britain, Air Chief Marshal Roderic Hill, submits a plan to deploy 1,332 guns to defend London, Bristol, and the Solent against the V-1 "Robot Blitz." (Collier)

January 7, 1944: Speer and Milch meet with Hitler at his headquarters. The Fuehrer informs them that analysis of English periodicals reveals that the English are near to achieving success in the testing of experimental jet aircraft. Hitler demands that production of the Me 262, the Germans' turbojet fighter aircraft, be put on top priority.

January 25, 1944: Wernher von Braun visits Camp Dora. A friend of von Braun records that he said the following after this visit: "It is hellish. My spontaneous reaction was to talk to one of the SS guards, only to be told with unmistakable harshness that I should mind my own business, or find myself in the same striped fatigues! . . . . I realized that any attempt of reasoning on humane grounds would be utterly futile." This flies in the face of von Braun's future denials that he was aware of the horrific conditions. (Sellier, Stuhlinger, IMT)

Adam Cabala: ... the German scientists led by Professor Wernher von Braun also saw everything that went on every day. When they walked along the corridors, they saw the prisoners' drudgery, their exhausting work and their ordeal. During his frequent attendance in Dora, Professor Wernher von Braun never once protested against this cruelty and brutality . . . . On a little area beside the clinic shack you could see piles of prisoners every day who had not survived the workload and had been tortured to death by the vindictive guards . . . . But Prof. Wernher von Braun just walked past them, so close that he almost touched the bodies.

January 30, 1944: This day’s Magic summary contains a dispatch from Baron Oshima in Berlin, informing his home office of recent conversations with Hitler. Hovering over a map of Britain, Hitler tells Oshima:

I do not know whether they (the Allies) will attack on a large or small scale, or at what point. But the Anglo-Saxons positively cannot go on without invasion, and I, for one, think we may get a chance to give them an awful blow. Besides, don't forget our coming retaliation against England. We are going to do it principally with rocket guns. Everything is now ready, and practice shows that they are extremely effective. Now take this line running to the Birmingham area (Hitler points to map); that is a good place to start. I cannot tell you just when we will begin, but we are really going to do something to the British Isles. We also have two thousand schnell (fast) bombers, and last night we carried out our first bombing of London. With all these various (word missing), I belief we can gradually regain the initiative and, seizing our opportunities, turn once again against Russia. (Lee)

February 28, 1944: Famed test pilot Hanna Reitsch arrives at the Berghof to meet with Hitler. The V-1 is too inaccurate, she tells him. She urges him to begin a piloted suicide rocket (Reichenbergs) program and volunteers for it. Hitler immediately rejects the notion, saying that it is not the right psychological moment for such an idea to be presented to the German people. When Hitler changes the subject to jets, Reitsch interrupts him: "Mein Fuehrer, you are speaking of the grandchild of an embryo." Pressing him, she eventually gets his reluctant consent to begin experimental work on the piloted rocket as long as he is not pestered about it during its development. (Toland)

March 15, 1944: Reports that von Braun and a few of his colleagues had expressed regret that they were working on weapons instead of spaceships, and that they also had expressed opinions that the war was going against Germany, provides Himmler--who has been seeking to place the V-1 and V-2 programs under his personal control--the opportunity to arrest him. Von Braun is taken to a Gestapo cell in Stettin, Poland, where he will be held without any charges being filed against him. (Braun)

1944 Science Prediction Article: Rocket Warship by Morris J. Steele.

April 19, 1944 Operation Crossbow: At the request of the British War Cabinet, Eisenhower orders that Crossbow attacks be given absolute priority over all other air operations, including attacks directed at the "wearing down (of) German industry" and civilian morale (terror attacks) "for the time being." (Eisenhower II)

May 1944: Hitler decides to produce the ME 262 as a fighter-bomber. Erprobungskommando 262 is formed at Lechfeld in Bavaria as a test unit to introduce the Me 262 turbojet fighter aircraft into service and train a core of pilots to fly it. In the end, slightly over 1,400 Me 262s of all versions will be produced. As few as 200 Me 262s will make it into combat units due to fuel shortages, pilot shortages, and the lack of airfields capable of supporting the Me 262.

From Goering's SBS Interview: The first aircraft were primarily experimental ships and their engines had a lifetime of about four to five hours. Then again, they were completely new machines of which a great number had to be used for the training of pilots. Furthermore, we had to shake out the "bugs" from the engines. So that a lot of the first machines were lost through forced landings. Another thing, the ship had a kind of brake which had to be applied very carefully, otherwise it would roll off the runway and until we had corrected that, we lost a number of machines this way. It was hard to throttle it back because it was very fast. A lot of other things came into it. It was just a completely new ship and a completely new type of engine. But toward the end, everything was under control, and what was needed was a little more experience for the pilots, so that they might know how to fly this ship at its high speeds...The Fuehrer had originally directed that it be produced as a fighter, but in May, 1944, he ordered that it be converted into a fighter-bomber. This conversion was one of the main reasons for the delay in getting this plane into action in any quantity.

May 13, 1944: Hitler finally consents to von Braun's release after Speer and others come to his defense: "In the matter concerning B. I will guarantee you that he will be exempt from persecution as long as he is indispensable for you, in spite of the difficult general consequences this will have." (Speer)

June 1, 1944: This day’s Magic summary contains a May 27 dispatch from Baron Oshima in Berlin, informing his home office of recent conversations with Hitler. Oshima reminds Hitler that in their last meeting he had told his Japanese allies that if there were no invasion "you thought you might blast southern England with rocket guns and then find an opportunity to take the initiative again on the Eastern Front. Well, since then, the Anglo-Americans have been bombing the Channel area more heavily than ever; I wonder if those weapons you were going to use against England have not been destroyed" Hitler replies: "No. Those guns are in an arsenal made of impermeable concrete. They are in no danger." (Lee)

June 6, 1944 D-Day: The Allied Invasion of Hitler's Europe begins.

From D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II, by Stephen E. Ambrose: Rundstedt was unhappy with the idea of fixed fortifications [on the English Channel coast]. He argued that the Germans should hold their armored units well back from the coast, out of range of Allied naval gunfire, capable of mounting a genuine counteroffensive. But shortages of armor, men, fuel, and air coverage made that questionable.

What Hitler could do was attempt to anticipate the landing site, keep what armor was available for the West near that place, and use it for local counterattacks while the Atlantic Wall held up the invaders. Tanks could seal off any penetration; tanks could drive the lightly armed and unarmored first wave of invaders back into the sea, if fortifications were strong enough to keep the Allies from establishing momentum. The trick was to pick the place to make the fortifications that strong.

The Pas-de-Calais was the logical place for the invasion, for two overwhelming reasons: between Dover and Calais is where the English Channel is narrowest; and the straight line from London to the Rhine-Ruhr and on to Berlin runs London-Dover-Calais-Belgium.

Hitler had to make a bet and, in 1943, he bet the invasion would come at the Pas-de-Calais. In a way, he tried to force the Allies to invade there. In the summer of 1943, he decided to install the launching sites for the V-1 and V-2 Vergeltungs weapons in that area. He believed that, whatever the Allies' previous plans might have been, the V-weapons would be so dangerous as to force them to attack directly in the Pas-de-Calais, in order to overrun the launching sites.

Thus, the area around Calais became by far the strongest fortified portion of the Kanalkueste (Channel coast) and, in 1944, the location of by far the greatest concentration of German armor in the West. It was there that the Atlantic Wall came closest to what German propaganda claimed it was: an impregnable fortress.

June 12, 1944: London is attacked for the first time with a V-1 Flying Bomb. Note: 10,500 V-1s will be launched, but only 20% will succeed in reaching British targets. All told, V-1s will destroy 1.1 million homes and kill 10,000 souls in England. (Lee, Eisenhower II)

From Ike & Monty, Generals at War by Norman Gelb: But the main impact of those rockets was to instill terror. They arrived day and night, heralded a few seconds before impact by a low-pitched buzz that threatened instantaneous death and destruction. From the first appearance of the German rockets, nerves were frayed in England, tempers were short, and expectations were of worse to come . . . .

Eisenhower himself reluctantly took to spending his nights in an air raid shelter. Churchill pressed him to give high priority to dealing with the German rockets, and the Supreme Commander felt obliged to divert bombers from tactical operations to attack the launch sites. This had limited effect, which focused attention even more sharply on the failure of Montgomery to live up to his rapid-advance forecasts and seize the area from which the buzz bombs were being launched. Eisenhower at first declined to press the British commander to make better progress. Butcher observed, "Apparently Monty wanted to tidy up his administrative tail and get plenty of supplies on hand before he makes a general attack."

From Speer's SBS interview: One [side] believed that the V-weapons would have a decisive effect on London. Only London could be the target anyway, because the hits were so widely separated that any other city could not be attacked effectively. The deviation for the London distances was about 5 km for the V-1 and 2-3 km for the V-2. One could never compare the effects of V-1 and V-2 to a British attack on a center of a large city because of the heavy effects of the British attacks--the large tonnage dropped in a short time on a small target, the resulting fires--all of which cause much more damage. While in the case of V-2, even with occasional hits far apart, even with the same amount of explosives, the same effect would never have been reached . . . .

Its purpose was to counter the British night attacks with something similar, without the expensive bombers and practically without losses. The main reason was therefore a psychological one for the benefit of the German people. The effect of the V-weapons on London was also overestimated. We expected it to make the British population tired of war, for now and then we received reports that their morale wasn't as high as before. We expected more of a political reaction to the weapon . . . . You bombed the cement emplacements which permitted the launching anyway. These cement sites were prepared to launch the entire production. V-2s were to be produced at the rate of 20-30 units daily, 600-900 monthly, and we planned to fire about 80-100 V-2s daily. You also attacked the installations for V-2s.

September 15, 1944: At the Quebec summit conference between Roosevelt and Churchill, the Treasury Plan for the Treatment of Germany, known as the Morgenthau Plan, is adopted. Its three main points are:

1) Germany is to be partitioned into a number of independent states (map above).

2) Germany's main centers of mining and industry, including the Saar area, the Ruhr area and Upper Silesia are to be internationalized or annexed by neighboring nations.

3) All heavy industry is to be dismantled or otherwise destroyed.

Note: The Morgenthau Plan, along with the Allied policy of unconditional surrender, will fuel Nazi propaganda. Opposition among some Allies to the plan, as well as Cold War realities, will ultimately cause most of its provisions to be ignored.

September 17, 1944 Operation Crossbow: Crossbow bombing resumes with a raid on Dutch targets suspected to be bases for Heinkel He 111s, which are air-launching V-1s. Note: 865 V-1s will be air-launched from September 16, 1944–January 14, 1945.(Gruen)

October 19, 1944: Stalin appoints Chelomei (Vladimir Chelomey) chief designer of a reverse-engineered V-1 rocket program. (Harford)

October 30, 1944: Dressed in "bright red, soft morocco leather riding boots with silver spurs...wearing an amply cut thick fur coat of Australian opossum, the fur outwards," according to the account of the rocket sites commander, General Dornberger, Goering visits Peenemuende to view the latest anti-aircraft rockets: "He pretended to be studying the drawings on the walls, but he was no longer looking at them. He was totally disinterested . . . . About every five minutes his eyes started to turn until one could only see the whites. He staggered, reached into the pocket of his coat, and swallowed a small, round, rose red pill. Instantly, he straightened and appeared to be quite normal again. After five minutes, the same process . . . . When he climbed the stairs to the roof of the small tracking building of the "waterfall" project, he pulled a heavy revolver out of its holster, threw it up in the air several times and caught it again. His adjutant took the weapon away from him with the remark that it was loaded and not on safety." (Read)

November 18, 1944: From the Jefferies Report, The Impact of Nucleonics on International Relations and the Social Order:

Since the area of the earth does not increase, the advantage of the attacker constantly increases with increasing technical development. If two people are in a room of 100 feet by 100 feet and have no weapons except their bare fists, the attacker has only a slight advantage over his opponent. But if each of them has a machine gun in his hands the attacker is sure to be victorious. Similarly, as long as the weapons of war were of the caliber of rifles and guns, the act of attacking gave very little advantage. The situation had already changed substantially with the advent of the airplane; the present war illustrates this point clearly. With the production of nuclear bombs, however, the world situation approaches that of two men with machine guns in a 100 by 100 foot room. (Sherwin)

December 11, 1944: Speer to Hitler:

In view of the whole structure of the Reich economy, it is obvious that the loss of the Rhenish-Westphalian industrial area will in the long run spell ruin for the whole German economy and the further successful prosecution of the war. This would mean, in fact, the total loss of the Ruhr territory as far as the German economy is concerned, with the exception of products manufactured locally within the sector . . . . It is superfluous to discuss the consequence resulting for the whole German Reich if it is deprived of the Ruhr territory.

December 16, 1944 Beleidigender Ardennes: Hitler's big gamble in the West, the Battle of the Bulge, gets underway in Belgium and Luxembourg.

December 17, 1944: From a Goebbels article in Das Reich:

The time to make history is short, and he who does not use the opportunity fails. The burdens of such a time certainly may seem unbearable, but those burdens decide which nation is called to victory and which is damned to defeat...

January 13, 1945: Speer, in conversation with "a group of generals and corps commanders":

I have repeated again and again that we cannot expect miraculous secret weapons, and I have also notified the Fuehrer several times that I consider this entire propaganda campaign utterly wrong-headed, not only because it is misleading but also because it underrates the German soldier’s fighting powers . . . . We will never have a secret weapon that will end the war in one blow. There is simply no such thing in the offing. (Speer)

January 25, 1945 Beleidigender Ardennes: Hitler's big gamble, the Battle of the Bulge, collapses. The last of the German reserves are now gone.

January 27, 1945: From the notes of a Fuehrer conference:

Hitler: Do you think the English are enthusiastic about all the Russian developments?

Jodl: No, of course not. They have quite different plans. Perhaps we'll discover the full extent of their plans later.

Goering: They certainly didn't plan that we hold them off while the Russians conquer all of Germany . . . . If this goes on we will get a telegram (from the English) in a few days. They were not counting on us defending ourselves step by step ... holding them off like madmen while the Russians drive deeper and deeper into Germany, and practically have all of Germany now . . . .

Jodl: The English have always regarded the Russians with suspicion.

Hitler: I have given orders that we shall play a trick on the English—an information sheet telling them the Russians are organizing 200,000 of our men (German POWs) led by German officers, all of them infected with Communism, and they will be marched into Germany. I have ordered this report to be delivered to the English. I have discussed it with the Foreign Minister (Ribbentrop). That will be like sticking them with a needle.

Goering: They entered the war to prevent us from going East, not to have the East reaching out to the Atlantic.

Hitler: That's quite clear. It is something abnormal. The English newspapers are already saying bitterly: Is there any sense in this war?

Goering: On the other hand I have read a report in Braune Blaetter that they can support the Russians with their air force. They can reach the Russian forces with their heavy bombers, even though it is a long flight. But the information comes from an absurd source.

Hitler: Tactically, the English cannot support them. Since we don't know where the Russians are and where we are, how on earth can the English know?

Hitler then assures the assembled participants that this strategy—instilling the fear of unchecked Russian expansionism in the hearts of the British and Americans—will yet prevail. However, the conference ends with no decision being made as to the defense of the Oder. (Payne, Shirer, Read)

1945: Sergey Korolyov is awarded the Badge of Honor, his first decoration, "for participation in the development and testing of rocket motors for military aircraft." Later in the year, he is commissioned into the Red Army, with a rank of colonel. (Harford, Piszkiewicz)

February 13–15, 1945: 1,300 heavy bombers drop over 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices in four raids on the city of Dresden. Estimates of civilian casualties vary greatly, but recent scholarship places the figure at somewhere between 24,000 and 40,000.

February 17, 1945: Peenemuende is evacuated by the Germans. (Piszkiewicz)

Duncan Sandys: The advent of the long-range, radio-controlled, jet-propelled projectile has opened up vast new possibilities in the conduct of military operations. In future the possession of superiority in long-distance rocket artillery may well count for as much as superiority in naval or air power. High-grade scientific and engineering staff, together with extensive research facilities, will have to be maintained as a permanent part of our peacetime military organization.

1945 Science Speculation Articles: The Road to Space and Into the Stratosphere by A. Morris.

February 25, 1945: Joseph Stalin signs a decree creating special "trophy battalions." These specialized units soon begin establishing working relations with every Soviet Army Group in occupied Poland and Germany. Their mission is to remove all and any industrial equipment, materials and personnel deemed useful to the Red Army from both countries. By September 1945 there will be 48 trophy brigades, 23 of which will be deployed in Germany, seven in Poland and six in Czechoslovakia. (Menaul)

March 1, 1945: FDR reports to Congress on the Crimean Conference:

When we met at Yalta, in addition to laying our strategic and tactical plans for the complete, final military victory over Germany, there were other problems of vital political consequence. For instance, there were the problems of occupational control of Germany after victory, the complete destruction of her military power...

March 13, 1945 Goebbels' Diary:

This evening's Mosquito raid was particularly disastrous for me because our Ministry was hit. The whole lovely building on the Wilhelmstrasse was totally destroyed by a bomb...The Fuehrer telephones me immediately after the raid on the Ministry. He too is very sad that it has now hit me. So far we have been lucky even during the heaviest raids on Berlin. Now, however, we have lost not only a possession but an anxiety. In future I need no longer tremble for the Ministry. All those present at the fire voiced only scorn and hatred for Goering. All were asking repeatedly why the Fuehrer does not at last do something definite about him and the Luftwaffe.

The Fuehrer than asks me over for a short visit. During the interview I have with him he is very impressed by my account of things. I give him a description of the devastation which is being wrought and tell him particularly of the increasing fury of the Mosquito raids which take place every evening. I cannot prevent myself voicing sharp criticism of Goering and the Luftwaffe. But it is always the same story when one talks to the Fuehrer on this subject. He explains the reasons for the decay of the Luftwaffe, but he cannot make up his mind to draw the consequences therefrom. He tells me that after the recent interviews he had with him Goering was a broken man.

But what is the good of that! I can have no sympathy with him. If he did lose his nerve somewhat after his recent clash with the Fuehrer, that is but a small punishment for the frightful misery he has brought and is still bringing on the German people. I beg the Fuehrer yet again to take action at last, since things cannot go on like this. We ought not, after all, to send our people to their doom because we do not possess the strength of decision to root out the cause of our misfortune.

The Fuehrer tells me that new fighters and bombers are now under construction, of which he has certain hopes. But we have heard it so often before that we can no longer bring ourselves to place much hope in such statements. In any case it is now plenty late—not to say too late—to anticipate any decisive effect from such measures.

March 1945: A team of Soviet rocket specialists in Poland attempt to send an Li-2 aircraft loaded with salvaged V-2 components to Moscow. The plane crash lands near Kiev and only a portion of the shipment ever makes it to the Soviet capital. (Menaul)

March 25, 1945: The rocket-powered Kamikaze aircraft Ohka is used for the first time by Japanese forces against US naval forces. Note: 852 Yokosuka MXY7s, known as "Ohka flying bombs" and code-named Baka (fool), were built with rocket engines and short air-foils. These were launched at ships, and were virtually unsteerable.

March 27, 1945: The last V-2 attack against England occurs.

April 2, 1945: RAF bombers destroy Nordhausen city in two nighttime fire raids, killing 1,500 sick prisoners at Boelcke Kaserne. (Sellier, Verrier)

April 3, 1945: The Germans begin the evacuation of Camp Dora at Nordhausen. (Piszkiewicz)

April 10, 1945: The medics of the US 3rd Armored Division report that they have discovered Nordhausen Death Camp on the way to Camp Dora. In the two adjacent camps they discover 5,000 corpses. 1,200 patients are soon evacuated, with 15 dying on their way to the hospital area and another 300 subsequently dying of malnutrition. (Sellier)

April 11, 1945: The German city of Nordhausen is occupied by the US 3rd Armored Division.

From the US 3rd Armored Division War Diary: Nordhausen was entered on 11 April by Combat Command "B." The enemy offered little opposition in the town itself. Perhaps they feared being connected, in some way, with the notorious Nordhausen concentration Camp, near the city. This camp was uncovered in all its depravity by the 3rd Armored Division, and steps were taken to insure that photographic and other evidence was collected before any changes were made. Even the great piles of starved dead were left as found.

Division medical personnel quickly removed the hundreds of starvation cases to emergency hospitals where they could be cared for. Many of the less severe cases were cared for on the premises, while systematic arrangements were made to save as many lives as possible, by organizing the facilities of the camp. Medical officers of the 3rd Armored remained in charge, until relieved as the division moved on.

North of Nordhausen, at a place called 'Dora', the 3rd Armored uncovered one of the Germans' most extensive and elaborate underground factories. This factory, devoted to the construction of V-1 and V-2 weapons, and Junkers airplane motors, as well as extensive experimentation with a super-secret V-3 anti-aircraft weapon, was underground. Some of the tunnels were at a depth of six hundred feet and extended for two miles. Here, at the V-2 Assembly plant at Kleinbordungen, the most able-bodied of the inmates from Nordhausen Concentration Camp were forced to work at manufacturing and assembling parts. Both of these plants were taken and secured by the 3rd Armored.

From The Conquest of the Reich: D-Day to VE Day--A Soldiers' History, by Robin Neillands: The killing at Dora had continued to the end; six slave workers had been hanged in the factory on March31. Other workers were executed at Dora for lack of zeal or to encourage the work force by being strangled on a six-noose gallows; fifty-seven prisoners were once hanged at Dora in a single day. Of the 60,000 slave workers sent to Dora, 40,000 had died by the end of the war, and they were still dying, when tanks of the 3rd US Armored Division rolled into Nordhausen. Only 400 were still alive in the Dora compound, lying in their own excrement, surrounded by corpses, some of them, according to an eyewitness, 'stacked up in heaps, like firewood.'

When the sound of American artillery reached the camp on 5 April 1945, the slaves of Dora were hurriedly evacuated, many to the camp at Belsen. Over a thousand of them did not get that far. Their SS guards marched them into barns at Gardelegen in Northwest Germany and set the barns alight. Many of their tormentors were far more fortunate, escaping punishment, or being spirited away to safety. Werner von Braun and Arthur Rudolf, the head of production at Dora, were taken to the United States, and richly rewarded for their part in the American space program.

April 12, 1945: The US destroyer Mannert L. Abele is sunk by a rocket-powered Ohka kamikaze rocket plane.

April 12, 1945: President Roosevelt dies; Truman becomes President. The Allies liberate Buchenwald and Belsen concentration camps.

April 22, 1945: From Benito Mussolini's Political Testament (From Edgar Meyer and Thomas Mehner's Hitler und die Bombe: Welchen Stand erreichte die deutsche Atomforschung und Geheimwaffenentwicklung wirklich.):

The well-known mass destruction bombs are nearly ready. In only a few days, with the utmost meticulous intelligence, Hitler will probably execute this fearful blow, because he will have full confidence . . . . It appear, that there are three bombs—and each has an astonishing operation. The construction of each unit is fearfully complex and of a lengthy time of completion."

April 23, 1945: The first Soviet trophy brigades to specialize specifically on rocket scientists and equipment takes the field. (Menaul)

May 2, 1945: On the same day Berlin falls to the Soviet Army, von Braun and over 100 of his team flee to the relative safety of the American front. His brother and fellow rocket engineer, Magnus, spotting an American private from the US 44th Infantry Division, addresses the soldier in broken English: "My name is Magnus von Braun. My brother invented the V-2. We want to surrender." (Braun)

From The Day the War Ended by Martin Gilbert: On May 2, at Oberammergau, in southern Germany, American troops were approached by three German civilians, who gave themselves up. The first to reach them, and to explain who he was, was Dr Herbert Wagner, one of Germany's leading guided missile designers. With him were two senior members of the Peenemünde rocket research staff, Wernher von Braun and General Walter Dornberger. These were the men whose technical expertise had created the rocket bombs that had recently fallen on London and Antwerp, killing thousands of civilians.

The three men were hurried to Paris, and then to the United States. "We were interested in continuing our work," von Braun later wrote, "not just being squeezed like a lemon and then discarded." They may have been squeezed, but they were not discarded. A direct line of cause, effect and personnel was to run between the encounter at Oberammergau and the American Apollo ... project which landed the first human beings on the moon twenty-four years later.

May 5, 1945: Soviet troops enter Peenemuende to find that all the leading German rocket scientists have evacuated with the Americans. (Menaul)

May 7–8, 1945 VE Day: The Allies formally accept the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany.

May 9, 1945: Stalin to Truman:

I thank you with all my heart for your friendly congratulations on the unconditional surrender of Hitler Germany. The peoples of the Soviet Union greatly appreciate the part played by the friendly American people in this liberation war. The joint effort of the Soviet, US, and British Armed Forces against the German invaders, which has culminated in the latter’s complete rout and defeat, will go down in history as a model military alliance between our peoples. On behalf of the Soviet people and Government I beg you to convey my warmest greetings and congratulations on the occasion of this great victory to the American people and the gallant US Armed Forces. (Churchill)

  
 











 

 
 
 

 

 

 
 
  
  
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