Breaking the Chains of Gravity

by Amy Shira Teitel

  Four A-4s were built at Mittelwerk before the end of 1943 as proof that the factory was up and running, but they were far inferior compared to the rockets built at Peenemünde. Forced labor by unskilled workers produced a flawed product, and all were sent back for repairs and adjustments at the start of 1944. Still, Hitler remained unwavering in his decision to use prisoners to build his miracle weapon and praised Kammler’s efforts to fast-track its production by promoting him to SS Gruppenführer, lieutenant general.

  Quality control remained an issue as more A-4s came out of Mittelwerk. The stunning successes of the Peenemünde-built rockets weren’t replicated with the Mittelwerk-built versions; fewer than 20 percent of the rockets coming out of this subterranean factory successfully launched and reached their targets. The rushed mass production schedule exacerbated lingering problems in the still-nascent science of rocketry, but so too did sabotage. As laborers figured out what they were building, they did what they could to render individual pieces inoperable, loosening connections or urinating on electric units. The A-4 was the most technically sophisticated weapon to that point, and neither von Braun nor Dornberger was surprised to find it wrought with problems when built in squalid conditions by men with no vested interest in its success. To the engineers, Kammler’s plan to fast-track the A-4 risked killing it instead.

  In spite of mounting difficulties, Hitler’s interest in the A-4 deepened, becoming almost fanatical. So too did Himmler’s desire to wrest control of the program from Dornberger. Toward the end of February, he called von Braun into his office, an invitation that did not extend to Dornberger, who remained von Braun’s military superior officer. The A-4, Himmler said, was no longer a toy. It was a weapon all of Germany was eagerly awaiting. Wouldn’t von Braun like to develop his rocket free from all the army’s regulations and red tape? Himmler once again offered von Braun the chance to join his staff, enticing him with the promise of a simplified chain of command with his superiors afforded him by his rank. Von Braun, who had been promoted through the ranks of the SS yearly, was now a Sturmbannführer, a major in the SS. But von Braun had had enough of Himmler’s meddling. Loyal to Dornberger and the program he’d been a part of for more than a decade, the engineer refused Himmler’s offer.

  A month later, days before his thirty-second birthday, von Braun was roused by a persistent knocking in the early hours of the morning. It was an unwelcome interruption. He’d returned to his room at the Inselhof Hotel near Peenemünde hours before from a business trip, and was annoyed to be woken so soon after getting to bed. He grudgingly rose, his tired irritation turning to shock when he saw officers of the Gestapo at his door. Shock soon turned to anger; these men should know better than to wake one of Germany’s scientific and intellectual elite at such an ungodly hour. But von Braun fell silent when one of the officers started reading official orders requesting he accompany them to police headquarters in nearby Stettin. He wasn’t under arrest, one of the officers assured von Braun, they were simply putting him in protective custody. Von Braun consented and left with the officers, joining them as they paid visits to three of his colleagues, his brother Magnus, Klaus Riedel, and Helmut Gröttrup. Once in Stettin, all four were promptly placed in individual holding cells on the top floor with no explanation as to their incarceration. The next day, the guards allowed the men to share a food packet von Braun’s chauffeur brought by the jail to mark his birthday, but soon the rocketeers were back in their individual cells.

  As the days stretched into two weeks, the men learned they were all being held on charges of treason against the Reich, a crime that usually ended in execution. It was his love of spaceflight and penchant for heavy social drinking that had gotten von Braun into trouble. At a party weeks earlier, he’d mentioned in casual conversation that he foresaw the war ending poorly for Germany and added that all he’d ever wanted to do with his rockets was launch them toward other planets. It was a similarly damning admission to the one he’d voiced to Himmler at Peenemünde a year earlier. Magnus von Braun, Riedel, and Gröttrup were being held on the double charge of voicing similar opinions and being close friends of Wernher’s.

  Neither his position as a top military scientist nor his membership in the SS could save von Braun now, but Dornberger could. That the SS was unable to find any evidence that the leader of the army’s rocket program knew about or shared his subordinates’ treasonous tendencies left Dornberger free to defend von Braun and his colleagues. Dornberger knew all four men were indispensable to the A-4 effort, and he suspected that their imprisonment was more than likely another attempt by the SS to strong-arm control of the program away from him and the army while simultaneously lighting a fire under the scientists to get their rockets successfully flying sooner.

  By early April, von Braun knew the charges against him would likely bring about a days-long, if not weeks-long, interrogation at the hands of the Gestapo, and Dornberger had not yet managed to reach the right authorities to free his colleagues. Appealing to increasingly high-ranking officials in the Reich, Dornberger finally found success with Albert Speer, the minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Orders for a conditional release in hand, Dornberger swept into Stettin on the second day of von Braun’s interrogation to free him. They broke into a large bottle of brandy shortly after leaving the jail. Their three coworkers followed days later.

  Though his imprisonment ended before he was formally incarcerated, it forced von Braun to recognize a grim truth. The country he loved and the army that had funded his research for more than a decade had the potential to turn on him on a moment’s notice, switching from benevolent patron to lethal threat. His own feelings about and goals for his rockets would have to remain firmly separated from his professional goals if he was to survive the war. His imprisonment hadn’t changed his conviction that the war had taken a turn and Germany was unlikely to emerge the victor, and he now had to begin thinking about his own well-being.

  He began living a dual life. Publicly he was a dutiful soldier of the fatherland, visiting front line units in full SS dress. Privately, he kept his eyes open for opportunities. He would not only have to find a way to get out of Germany alive, he would have to bring with him his rockets, their blueprints, and ideally his team of engineers. Von Braun wanted to move everything to America. He had been fascinated with America since his older brother, Sigismund, had spent a year there studying law and touring in a Model A Ford. America seemed to von Braun the perfect place to build rockets, an American dream that gradually outweighed his feelings of loyalty to his homeland. He also privately thought that with Germany poised to lose a second major war, moving to the United States might put him on the victor’s side should another major international conflict erupt.

  Just under two years after Dwight Eisenhower arrived in London armed with the absolute powers of a theater commander, von Braun’s prediction of the war ending with a vanquished Germany began taking shape for the Allied forces. In 1942, Eisenhower had orchestrated the successful Operation Torch invasion of North Africa that secured Allied control in the Mediterranean. In the fall of 1943, he had facilitated a cease-fire with Italy. The general’s next major move was the invasion of Nazi-occupied France. Code-named Operation Overlord, the planned Allied liberation of France in the west in conjunction with a push from the Soviet Union from the east to reclaim its lost territories in Eastern Europe would be the definitive step toward taking Berlin. Who to command Operation Overlord was the question. U.S. president Roosevelt insisted it be led by an American; British prime minister Winston Churchill and Soviet premier Joseph Stalin agreed. It was widely assumed Roosevelt would choose General Marshall, the army chief of staff. He was the logical choice, but Roosevelt had another thought. The existing command structure was working well with General Eisenhower in charge of the European Theater of Operations and Marshall serving the president and the high command in Washington. If Marshall were to command Overlord, Eisenhower would take his place in the United States. Roosevelt coul
dn’t deny the value of Eisenhower’s firsthand knowledge of amphibious operations and the conditions in Europe, knowledge that Marshall did not have. On a personal level, the president also liked that Eisenhower displayed none of the posturing so common among high-ranking military officials.

  At a summit meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin convened at the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran, on November 28, 1943, the question over who would command Overlord was again on the table. Roosevelt’s indecision lasted the full five days of the conference. He knew Marshall deserved the command, but his confidence was ultimately in Eisenhower’s abilities; the general had never seen combat firsthand, but Roosevelt felt he had an unparalleled understanding of large-scale operations gained from years of study. The president met with Eisenhower in Tunis and told him to start packing. Eisenhower was going back to London as the commander of Operation Overlord. The news made the general grin like a schoolboy.

  Eisenhower spent six months meeting with military and political leaders to solidify plans for Operation Overlord. The invading forces grew to include American, English, and Canadian paratroopers and forces crossing the English Channel to land by sea at the beach in Normandy, France. They would first secure a foothold in France, liberating and rearming the country, then press onward toward Germany. Aerial bombing campaigns would aid the invasion forces, destroying roads and rail lines to stop German forces from advancing toward the Allies. Precision bombings of aircraft production plants, fuel storage depots, and airfields would further weaken the German defense. The ideal date for the invasion was set: June 7 or 9. Those dates marked a confluence between tides, moonlight, daylight hours, and favorable weather for an invasion; the weather had to be just right for all the land and air troops to arrive safely at their targets. Missing that window would push the invasion back until at least June 19, and Eisenhower didn’t want to miss the first chance to attack. This was a crusade in which he would accept nothing less than a full victory to end the war in Europe.

  As the window for Operation Overlord neared, the weather refused to cooperate. Low clouds brought poor visibility, high winds threatened to complicate paratroopers’ landings, and rolling waves promised extreme difficulty in adjusting naval gunfire and the safe navigation of landing craft. At ten o’clock on the night of June 4, Eisenhower was forced to postpone the invasion. Six hours later he met with his commanders against a backdrop of gale-force winds and pelting rain. But meteorologists found a glimmer of hope. The weather front responsible for the delay was moving fast, and there would be a window of calm early in the morning of June 6. Eisenhower made the call. Operation Overlord was back on. The night before the planned invasion, he visited troops of the 101st Airborne Division near Newbury, Wiltshire, in England. They would be the first men to land in France.

  Just after one o’clock in the morning local time on the morning of June 6, the first paratroopers began dropping near the beaches at Normandy, seizing roads and bridges. Within half an hour alarms were sounding. The German generals knew they were witnessing the beginnings of an invasion, but they also assumed it was a feint; they were expecting a major invasion at Calais, not Normandy. At four o’clock, aerial bombing began. By dawn, the first troops began storming onto three beachheads.

  Too late did the Germans recognize that the forces at Normandy were the main thrust of the invasion, and Hitler refused to believe it at all. Although Allied troops had pushed almost six miles into France, Hitler ordered his generals to hold off on sending counterattacking divisions until he could see what developed. Then he went to bed. When Hitler woke up at three o’clock that afternoon and realized the gravity of the situation, he not only gave permission for German troops to join the fight, he ordered that they take back the beachhead by the end of the day, a wholly impossible order. When the Sun set, the Allies had gained a strong foothold in Continental Europe. With one hundred thousand Allied soldiers beginning the slow, long trek toward Berlin, Hitler’s need for a fully functional miracle weapon with the A-4 only increased. It was time for the Führer to take a more drastic measure.

  Less than two months after the D-Day invasion at Normandy, Hitler promoted Himmler to head of the Home Army, and because Dornberger’s group reported to the Home Army, Dornberger now reported to Himmler. By extension, Himmler had effectively gained control of the A-4 program. On August 8, Himmler appointed Kammler special commissioner for the A-4 program, a level of authority that Dornberger had never had. Kammler had the power to deploy the A-4 as a combat missile. For Dornberger, it felt as though he’d spent a lifetime lovingly crafting a violin only to watch helplessly as an unmusical brute unceremoniously scraped its strings with a block of wood. There was nothing Dornberger could do. The program he and von Braun had built was now in the hands of Himmler, one of Hitler’s most universally feared servants.

  Dornberger threw himself into perfecting the rocket to appease his new commander, but the program was worse off for the SS’s involvement. Kammler wasn’t a rocket scientist. The changes he ordered for the A-4 were more of a hindrance than a help, just token changes to exercise his control over a technology he didn’t understand. His efforts ultimately added inefficiency to the program. The abysmal conditions at the Mittelwerk factory and nearby Camp Dora also didn’t make things any better. Public mass hanging became the norm for prisoners caught trying to sabotage the rockets, a way to both punish troublemakers and deter others from following in their footsteps; the bodies were typically left hanging for at least half a day. By the fall of 1944, the army’s A-4 project was firmly under the command of the Nazis and the SS. Von Braun and Dornberger, by extension, became an integral part of the SS program using slave labor to build long-range missiles. They could be held responsible for deaths on both sides of their rockets’ flights.

  By late August 1944, the Allies had reclaimed a sizable portion of northern France and were moving closer to the German border. As part of his counterattack, Hitler ordered that the rocket bombardment begin as soon as possible. Executing this order fell to Kammler, who deployed two firing units. Group North moved northwest from Cleves toward the Hague in Belgium to get a good shot at London, and Group South moved north from Baumholder to Koblenz to hit Paris. On September 6, Group South positioned an A-4 on its mobile firing table, and a little after ten-thirty in the morning, sparks began spewing from its engine. The sparks turned to flame and then a cloud of smoke as the rocket came to life and rose slowly off the launch platform. The rocket sputtered and fell back down with a thunk, luckily resting upright on the launch platform. A second A-4 launched a little over an hour later ended with the same failure. Premature cutoff of the fuel supply had grounded both rockets.

  Two days later, the missile unit traveled to Houffalize in Belgium and loaded another A-4 onto a launch platform. At eight thirty-four in the morning, the first successful long-range missile attack rose into the sky. It traveled 180 miles and caused moderate damage upon impact near Porte d’Italie in France. At six forty-eight that evening, the second A-4 of the day rose up from Group North’s launch site just north of the Hague. It carried its small warhead two hundred miles to London where Allied radar had no way of tracking the incoming supersonic missile. The residents of the London suburb of Chiswick who actually heard the explosion were the lucky ones who survived.

  The team at Peenemünde learned of the successful A-4 attack from a newspaper headline. VERGELTUNGSWAFFE-2 GEGEN LONDON IM EINSATZ (VENGEANCE WEAPON 2 IN ACTION AGAINST LONDON). The rocket had been christened the V-2 by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and touted as the weapon that would win the war for Germany.

  Standing in stark contrast to the V-2 rocket’s newfound fame was Sänger’s antipodal bomber’s increased obscurity. Work at Trauen had never matched the pace of developments at Peenemünde, and Sänger’s facility had been closed in the summer of 1942 under the guise of staff conflicts and fuel shortages. Around the same time, Göring had withdrawn Luftwaffe support for a rocket program as well. Sänger’s team had been
working on a one-hundred-ton thrust rocket motor. With their lab closed, they were left working on far less futuristic technologies, propulsive duct motors that used fans mounted inside a shroud and rockets using nitric acid and diesel oil. But Sänger never abandoned his antipodal bomber. He and his partner, mathematician Irene Bredt, cowrote a full proposal in 1944 called “A Rocket Drive for Long Range Bombers” and began quietly circulating it around scientific circles in which Dornberger traveled in the hopes of securing a benefactor.

  News of the Pennemünde rockets’ success also reached the United States, though the tone was far from celebratory. Even if the V-2 had come to the war late, it was clear that America’s technological advances and air supremacy were being challenged. The V-2 didn’t have the range to reach the United States from Europe, but to avoid being on the receiving end of rockets launched in some future war, America would have to master the major German technological advances of this war first. General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, chief of the Army Air Corps, knew this meant learning about the advanced weapons directly from the German scientists who designed and built the V-2. In November, Arnold sent a memorandum to Theodore von Kármán, an émigré from Budapest who, as one of the leading aerodynamics and propulsion experts in the United States, was teaching at the California Institute of Technology and directing its Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The continued security of the United States, Arnold wrote in his letter to von Kármán, will rest in part in developments by the nation’s educational and professional scientists. He went on to emphasize the importance of strong weapons in war since the goal of any war is to destroy the enemy’s will to resist. Having said all this, Arnold asked von Kármán to lead the new Army Air Force Scientific Advisory Group with the goal of studying the significance of scientific warfare and development of rocketry and guided missiles. What Arnold wanted in the end was expert opinions on how these technologies might benefit the future of the U.S. Army Air Force.