). His father, Magnus von Braun (1878-1972), was Minister of Food and Agriculture in the government of the Weimar Republic. His mother, Emmy von Quistorp (1886-1959), had both lines of ancestry going back to royal families. Werner had a younger brother, also named Magnus von Braun. For his confirmation, his mother gave the future rocket scientist a telescope, which gave him an impetus for his passion for astronomy.
After World War I, Wirsitz was transferred to Poland, and his family, like many other German families, went to Germany. The Von Brauns settled in Berlin, where 12-year-old Werner, inspired by the speed records of Max Vallier and Fritz von Opel in rocket-powered cars, caused great confusion on a crowded street by blowing up a toy car to which he had attached many firecrackers. The little inventor was taken to the police station and kept there until his father came to the station for him.
Von Braun was an amateur musician, received an appropriate education, and could play works by Bach and Beethoven from memory. He is with early age learned to play the violin and piano and initially dreamed of becoming a composer. He took lessons from Paul Hindemith, the famous German composer. Several of von Braun's youthful works have survived, all of them reminiscent of Hindemith's works.
In 1930 he began working on liquid fuel rockets in Germany. In 1932 he was accepted into the Dornberger military rocket science group. In 1932-1933, at a test site near Kummersdorf, he launched several missiles to an altitude of 2000-2500 meters.
Wernher von Braun was working on his dissertation when Hitler and the NSDAP came to power in 1933. Rocket science almost immediately became important issue agenda. Artillery Captain Walter Dornberger, who actually oversaw rocket development in the Reichswehr, arranged for Brown to be given a research grant from the Ordnance Department. From that time on, Brown worked near the existing Kummersdorf Dornberger Test Site for solid rockets. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Physical Sciences (rocket science) on 25 July 1934 by the University of Berlin for a work entitled "On Experiments on Combustion", his supervisor was the German physicist Erich Schumann. But this was only the open part of his work, the full dissertation, dated April 16, 1934, was called “Constructive, theoretical and experimental approaches to the problem of creating a liquid-fuel rocket.” It was classified at the request of the army and was not published until 1960. By the end of 1934, his team successfully launched two rockets that reached altitudes of 2.2 and 3.5 km.
At that time, the Germans were extremely interested in the developments of the American rocket physicist Robert Goddard. Until 1939, German scientists occasionally contacted Goddard directly to discuss technical issues. Wernher von Braun used Goddard's designs, published in various magazines, and combined them to build the Aggregat (A) series of rockets. The A-4 rocket is better known as the V-2. In 1963, Brown, reflecting on the history of rocketry, reflected on Goddard's work: "His rockets... may have seemed quite primitive by today's standards, but they left a significant mark on development and already had many of the elements that are used in the most modern rockets and spacecraft ".
Participants in Operation Paperclip to evacuate German scientists and designers from the defeated Third Reich to the USA. Wernher von Braun is 7th from the right in the 1st row.
In 1944, shortly before the Nazis began bombing England with the V-2, Goddard confirmed that von Braun had benefited from his work. The V-2 prototype flew to Sweden and crashed there. Some parts from the rocket were transported to the United States, to a laboratory in Annapolis, where Goddard conducted research for the US Navy. Apparently, Goddard was examining the wreckage of a rocket, which on June 13, 1944, as a result of a technical error by personnel, went on the wrong course and crashed near the Swedish town of Bekkebu. The Swedish government exchanged fragments of an unknown missile to the British for Spitfire fighters. Only some of the debris hit Annapolis. Goddard identified the rocket parts of which he was the inventor and concluded that the fruit of his labors had been turned into a weapon.
Since the VFR Space Travel Society ceased operations in 1933, there have been no rocket science associations left in Germany, and the new Nazi regime banned civilian rocket science experiments. Only the military was allowed to build missiles, and a huge missile center was built for their needs (German: Heeresversuchsanstalt Peenemünde listen)) in the village of Peenemünde in northern Germany, on the Baltic Sea. This location was chosen partly on the recommendation of von Braun's mother, who remembered that her father loved to hunt ducks in that area. Dornberger became the military director of the test site, and Brown became the technical director. In collaboration with the Luftwaffe, the Peenemünde center developed liquid-fuel rocket engines as well as take-off boosters for aircraft. They also developed the A-4 long-range ballistic missile and the Wasserfall supersonic anti-aircraft missile.
“I was officially required to join the National Socialist Party. At that time (1937) I was already the technical director of the military rocket center in Peenemünde... My refusal to join the party would mean that I had to abandon my life’s work. So I decided to join. My membership in the party did not mean for me participation in any political activity... In the spring of 1940, SS Standartenführer Müller came to me in Peenemünde and told me that Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler had sent him with orders to convince me to join the SS. I immediately called my military superior... Major General W. Dornberger. He answered me that... if I wish to continue our working together, then I have no choice but to agree.”
This assertion by Brown is disputed by some biographers because in 1940 the Waffen-SS had not yet shown any interest in the work being carried out at Peenemünde. The claim that people of von Braun's position were pushed to join the NSDAP and the SS is also disputed. Commenting on a photo of himself posing in an SS uniform behind Himmler, Braun said that he only put on the uniform for that occasion. However, in 2002, former SS officer at Peenemünde Ernst Kütbach told the BBC that von Braun regularly appeared on official events in SS uniform. At first, von Braun received the rank of Untersturmführer, and Himmler subsequently promoted him three times, to last time in June 1943 to SS Sturmbannführer. Brown stated that this was an automatic promotion, which he received notification of every year by mail.
The first combat A-4, renamed the V-2 (Vergeltungswaffe 2 - "Weapon of Vengeance 2") for propaganda purposes, was released across the UK on September 7, 1944, just 21 months after the project was officially accepted.
Helmut Walter's experiments with hydrogen peroxide rockets, carried out at the same time, led to the creation of lightweight and simple Walter jet engines, convenient for installation on aircraft. The Helmut Walter company in Kiel was also commissioned by the Reich Ministry of Aviation to create a rocket engine for the He 112. And in Neuhardenberg, two different rocket engines were tested: a von Braun engine using ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen and a Walter engine using hydrogen peroxide and calcium permanganate as a catalyst. In the von Braun engine, the jet stream was created as a result of direct combustion of fuel, and in the Walther engine it was used chemical reaction, which produced hot steam. Both engines produced thrust and provided high speed. Subsequent flights of the He 112 were powered by a Walter engine. It was more reliable, easier to control and posed less of a danger to both the pilot and the aircraft.
On August 15, 1944, Brown wrote a letter to Albin Sawatzki, who was in charge of V-2 production, agreeing to personally select workers from the Buchenwald concentration camp, which he allegedly admitted in an interview 25 years later were in a “terrible state.”
In the book "Wernher von Braun: Knight of Space" (eng. Wernher von Braun: Crusader for Space) Brown repeatedly states that he was aware of the workers' conditions, but felt completely unable to change them. His friend quotes von Braun as saying on his visit to Mittelwerk:
It was creepy. My first instinct was to talk to one of the SS guards, to which I received a sharp answer that I had to mind my own business or risk ending up in the same striped prison uniform!... I realized that any attempt to appeal to the principles of humanity would be completely futile.
When Brown's team member Conrad Dannenberg was asked in an interview with The Huntsville Times whether von Braun could have protested the terrible conditions of the forced laborers, he replied: "If he had, I think he might have been shot on the spot."
Others accused von Braun of participating in or allowing inhumane treatment. Guy Morand, a French member of the Resistance who was a prisoner in the Dora concentration camp, testified in 1995 that after an apparent sabotage attempt:
Without even hearing my explanation, (von Braun) ordered Meister to give me 25 blows... Then, deciding that the blows were not strong enough, he ordered me to be flogged more severely... von Braun ordered to translate to me that I deserved worse that in fact I deserved to be hanged... I believe that his cruelty, of which I personally became a victim, became eloquent evidence of his Nazi fanaticism.
Biddle, Wayne. Dark Side of the Moon(W.W. Norton, 2009) pp. 124-125.
Another French prisoner, Robert Cazabonne, claimed to have witnessed von Braun stand and watch as prisoners were hanged from chain hoists. Brown himself stated that he “never saw any ill-treatment or murder” and only “rumors were heard ... that some of the prisoners were hanged in the underground galleries.”
According to the French historian André Cellier, who passed through the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp, Himmler received von Braun at his Gochwald headquarters in East Prussia in February 1944. To strengthen his position in the Nazi power hierarchy, Heinrich Himmler plotted to, with Kammler's help, take control of all German weapons programs, including the development of the V-2 at Peenemünde. Therefore, Himmler advised Braun to work more closely with Kammler in solving the V-2 problems. However, as von Braun himself stated, he replied that the problems with the V-2 were purely technical and he was confident that he would solve them with the help of Dornberger.
Apparently, von Braun had been under the supervision of the SD since October 1943. One day a report was received of how he and his colleagues Klaus Riedel and Helmut Gröttrup, in the evening at the engineer's house, expressed regret that they were not working on a spaceship and they all believed that the war was not going well. This was regarded as “defeatism.” These statements were reported by a young female dentist who was also an SS agent. Together with Himmler's false accusations about von Braun's communist sympathies and his alleged attempts to sabotage the V-2 program, and taking into account that Braun had a pilot's certificate and regularly flew on state-provided aircraft and thus could have escaped to England - all this led to von Braun's arrest by the Gestapo.
Not expecting anything bad, Braun was arrested on 14 or 15 March 1944 and thrown into the Gestapo prison in Stettin. He spent two weeks there, not knowing what he was accused of. Only with the help of the Abwehr in Berlin was Dornberger able to obtain von Braun's parole, and Albert Speer, the Reich Minister of Armaments and War Industry, convinced Hitler to reinstate Braun so that the V-2 program could continue. Speer, quoting in his memoirs “Führerprotokoll” (minutes of Hitler's meetings) dated May 13, 1944, writes that Hitler said at the end of the conversation: “As for B., I guarantee you that he will be freed from persecution as long as you will need it, despite the general difficulties that may follow.”
W. von Braun after surrendering to the Allies in May 1945. On the left is Dornberger.
In March, while on a business trip, Brown broke left hand and a shoulder due to the fact that his driver fell asleep at the wheel. The fracture turned out to be complicated, but Brown insisted that he be put in a plaster cast so that he would no longer have to stay in the hospital. The designer underestimated the injury, the bone began to heal incorrectly, a month later he had to go back to the hospital, where his arm was broken again and the bandage was re-bandaged.
In April, Allied troops penetrated quite deeply into Germany. Kammler ordered the scientific team to take a train to Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps. Here they were closely guarded by the SS, which was ordered to eliminate all rocket launchers if they were in danger of falling to the enemy. However, von Braun managed to convince SS Major Kummer to disperse the group to nearby villages so as not to become an easy target for American bombers.
On May 2, 1945, noticing an American soldier from the 44th Infantry Division, Werner's brother and fellow rocket engineer Magnus caught up with him on a bicycle and told him in broken English: “My name is Magnus von Braun. My brother invented the V-2. We want to give up." After his capture, Brown told the press:
“We know that we have created a new means of warfare and now the moral choice - which nation, which victorious people we want to entrust our brainchild to - faces us more acutely than ever before. We want the world not to be drawn into a conflict like the one Germany has just gone through. We believe that only by transferring such weapons to those people who are guided by the Bible can we be sure that the world is protected the best way».
The top ranks of the US command were well aware of how valuable the spoils were in their hands: von Braun's name topped the "Black List" - the code name for the list of German scientists and engineers from among those whom American military experts would like to interrogate as soon as possible. On July 19, 1945, two days before the planned transfer of territory to the zone of Soviet occupation, US Army Major Robert B. Staver, chief of the jet propulsion section of the US Army Ordnance Research and Intelligence Service in London, and Lieutenant Colonel R. L. Williams imprisoned von Braun and heads of his departments into a jeep and taken from
"The youngest doctor of technical sciences in Germany, the father of all rocket science, the creator of the V-2, the “culprit” of the American space program and expeditions to the Moon and Mars, SS Sturmbannführer, meet Baron Wernher von Braun. How the same person spent half his life serving the Nazis and the other half serving the most advanced democracy remains a mystery.
In 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany. The Fuhrer highly valued scientists capable of creating new weapons. However, he needed absolutely loyal and preferably racially pure personnel. Wernher von Braun, baron and true Aryan, was a wonderful find.
In the same 1933, Wernher von Braun, like two thousand other German scientists, joined the SS. After that, he easily defended his dissertation - without discussion, since the topic was declared closed. On June 27, 1934, he became the youngest doctor of technical sciences in Germany: he was only 22 years old. He was given a laboratory in Kummersdorf and a patent for all rocket developments.
At the end of 1934, von Braun and Riedel launched two A-2 rockets, nicknamed "Max and Moritz" after the popular comedians, from the island of Borkum. The rockets went up a mile and a half - it was a success! A year later, the laboratory was visited by the commander ground forces General von Fritsch. Impressed, he got the Fuhrer to allocate 20 million marks for new experiments. And in 1936, construction began on the ultra-modern Peenemünde military base at the mouth of the Peene River near the fishing village on the island of Usedom in the Baltic Sea, where Werner’s great-grandfather hunted ducks.
Weapon of Vengeance
Surrounded by triple rows barbed wire The base was in full swing day and night. War was approaching, and the Fuhrer demanded that scientists create weapons capable of hitting distant targets. Dreams of space flight had to be forgotten for a while.
In Peenemünde, a whole army of workers and engineers - up to 20 thousand people - was subordinate to von Braun. He commanded them clearly, achieving maximum efficiency and effectiveness. As in the Soviet "sharashkas", scientists who were threatened by the camp or the front hid in its laboratories. While they were doing the job, von Braun kept them with him, but laziness or negligence immediately deprived them of the protection of Zeus - this was the nickname the baron received.
At the end of 1937, rocket scientists managed to create a 15-meter A-4 rocket, which could carry a ton of explosives 200 kilometers. It was the first modern combat missile in history. She was nicknamed "Fau". Later, another doctor, Doctor Goebbels, will explain to everyone that the name “Fau” comes from the first letter German word Vergeltungswaffee (which translates to "weapon of retribution"). On the eve of the war, in March 1939, Hitler came to Peenemünde and was shown rocket tests. Von Braun later admitted that the Fuhrer did not make an impression on him at the first meeting. It seems that the other side was also unhappy: after the visit, allocations for missiles were cut by half. At that time, Hitler still hoped to quickly capture England by landing troops.
Everything changed when Operation Sea Lion was postponed. The rocket scientists were tasked with creating weapons capable of striking from long distances as quickly as possible. No expense was spared on this: in 1942, at the height of the war, only half as much money was spent on Peenemünde as on the production of tanks. Today it is obvious that the military result of the A-4 missiles in the European theater of war was almost zero. The missile program caused significant damage to the military-industrial potential of the Reich, which involuntarily made von Braun our “ally”: thousands of additional aircraft and tanks were not transferred to the Eastern Front.
Working in race with Brown's group were their competitors from the Air Force, who were creating cruise missiles, or projectile aircraft, in their laboratory in Grossendorf. Von Braun always preferred ballistic missiles: they were ten times more expensive, but they hit more accurately and over a greater distance.
In the summer of 1943, concrete bunkers were built on the French coast to launch missiles. Hitler demanded that London be filled with them by the end of the year. The cards were confused by the work of British intelligence. Von Braun was a master of camouflage, and for a long time Allied planes simply did not fly into the Baltic dunes of Peenemünde. However, in July 1943, Polish partisans managed to obtain and transport drawings of the V-V and a plan for the missile base to London. A week later, 600 English “flying fortresses” arrived in Peenemünde. The firestorm killed 735 people and all the completed missiles. For anyone it would have been a disaster, but von Braun was an iron man. He (with the Fuhrer's blessing, of course) moved rocket production to the limestone Harz Mountains, where thousands of prisoners worked in the underground Dora camp. Von Braun came there more than once, went down into the adits and walked past stacks of corpses of prisoners who died from hunger and overwork. He seemed not to notice them, thinking either about space flights or about the successful completion of the Fuhrer’s task. In Peenemünde, only laboratories remained - rockets were developed there and tests were carried out. It never occurred to anyone to test missiles over densely populated Germany.
Death of gods
Competitors from the Air Force got there earlier. On June 16, 1944, 294 aircraft flew to London. The effect of using these missiles, immediately called "V-1", was small: they rarely hit the target, they were easy to shoot down. It turned out to be stronger psychological impact: after all, now it was impossible to know about the bombing in advance and neither cloud cover nor camouflage could save you from it. Soon, however, British scientists learned to use radio waves to disable the pilot mechanism of rockets and make them fall into the sea.
Soon the Allies landed in France and captured the V-launch sites. The time had come for von Braun, because his rockets flew further and could well have been launched from the territory of Holland or even Germany itself. Back in November 1943, the V-2 was tested in Polish villages, from which residents were not evicted for the sake of conspiracy. After successful tests, von Braun's immediate superior, Dornberger, said: "We invaded space with our rocket and proved for the first time that rocket propulsion is suitable for space travel... but while the war continues, our main task there can only be a rapid improvement of the missile as a weapon." By the way, then the missiles did not hit the target, but the Germans consoled themselves with the fact that it was easier to hit such a large target as London.
And they hit - from September 1944 to March 1945, 4,300 V-2 missiles were fired at London and Antwerp, which killed 13,029 people. It is not difficult to understand that there would have been much more casualties if Hitler’s order to launch a thousand missiles a day had been carried out.
Unlike the A-4, the Germans failed to implement a number of projects at all. The most interesting of them are: the underwater launch "A-4" - "Lafferentz" (life jacket) and the two-stage intercontinental missile "A-9/10" with a flight range of 5000 km (!), the winged prototype of the upper stage of which ("A-9 ") - "A-4b" "Wasserfall) - tested in 1944-45. At the end of January 1945, it was approaching Peenemünde. Soviet army. The Germans were afraid of the Russians, and so were “their own”: there was a rumor that Himmler had ordered the liquidation of rocketry specialists. A team of rocket scientists led by Brown and Dornberger secretly moves to southern Germany, where on May 2, 1945 they surrender to American troops.
He, an SS Sturmbannführer, could easily have been shot or taken into custody. Even his future boss, General Medaris, who stormed Berlin in the ranks of the Allies, later admitted that if he had come across Brown in 1945, he would have hanged him without hesitation. But time, as the Russian writer Yuri Trifonov wrote, is like fire: when you are in it, you don’t notice the heat. Over time, you approach everything calmer and cooler. Moreover, Brown fell into the hands of completely different people from the American Paperclip mission, which was searching for German rocket scientists. The "Rocket Baron" and his crew were transported overseas with all honors as especially valuable cargo.
In 1945-50 Brown's team introduces American specialists to rocketry by launching A-4 (V-2) missiles. It was painful for professional rocket scientists to assemble already outdated A-4s instead of creating something new.
Through generals to the stars
Until 1955, when von Braun became a US citizen, mention of him in the press was prohibited. He was constantly under intelligence surveillance - first in El Paso, then in Huntsville, Alabama, where, under his leadership, American engineers worked their magic on the V-2s taken from Germany.
Already in 1945, the Conveyor company manufactured the MX-774 rocket, where instead of one Vau engine, four were installed. In 1951, von Braun's laboratory, consisting of 130 German rocket scientists and 800 American workers, developed Redstone and Atlas ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear warheads. By that time, the USSR was already producing the M-101 combat missile with a nuclear charge. Soviet missiles were bulky and expensive for a war-ravaged country, but Stalin ordered: “Do it! I don’t care how much it costs.” Even then, many realized how successful both in the military and in psychologically could be a rocket launch into space.
On October 4, 1957, the first Soviet satellite took off into the sky, which greatly undermined the prestige of the Americans. The American Explorer was launched only 119 days later, and Soviet leaders were already hinting at the imminent human flight into space. Thus began the space race.
Rocket launches in the United States have moved from the sole responsibility of the Pentagon to the hands of the government agency NASA. Under him, the John Marshall Space Center was created in Huntsville under scientific guidance Wernher von Braun. Now Brown had even more money and people (now 2 thousand people work under him, the heads of all 30 departments are Germans who received US citizenship in 1955) than in Peenemünde, and he was finally able to realize his old dream of space flight.
The first American astronaut, John Glenn, went into space ten months after Yuri Gagarin. And so it went: to the Americans’ launch of two cosmonauts, ours responded by launching three, to the Skylab station - with the Mir station. The Americans arrived at Venus only two days later, but were the first to arrive on Mars. They managed to get ahead only when the Atlas launch vehicle was replaced by the more powerful Titan, and then by the Saturn. It was the latter that delivered Apollo 11 to the Moon on July 16, 1969, and the whole world watched with bated breath the first steps of Neil Armstrong and the American flag on the Moon.
The Apollo program, like previous space flights, was developed by Wernher von Braun. All these years he lived in a two-story mansion in Huntsville, surrounded by a neat flower garden. Journalists writing about the baron called him an “exemplary gentleman”: he was always correct, polite, and knew how to keep company. He lost his temper only when he was reminded of his service in the SS and that his Vau brought death to women and children. He did not like to travel to Europe, where there were more such reminders. In England, where von Braun was elected an honorary doctor, a crowd threw his car rotten eggs. In America, the attitude towards it was completely different, especially in Huntsville, where most of the residents worked in its center.
He lived in grand style, like a baron: every year he changed Cadillacs, flew to the Bahamas, ordered antiques and vintage wines from Europe. Back in 1947, he married his cousin Maria von Kistorp, discharged from Germany, to whom he had been engaged since pre-war times. His daughters Iris and Margrit later married rocket engineers, his son Peter tried to go into business in the same field, but quickly went bankrupt and sank into obscurity.
The baron's family life was impeccable, as was the entire image he personally created. Not a single book or even article about von Braun could be published without his careful censorship. He managed to hush up sensitive moments of his biography, for example, to create a myth about his anti-fascism. In general, in his books the baron preferred to write not about himself, but about rockets. Here he was visited by true inspiration - he published almost a dozen popular science books, which the generation of the 60s read in the same way as he himself once read the books of Jules Verne and Hermann Oberth. It seems that over all these years, the boy who once looked out of the window of the family estate at the stars, dreaming of conquering them, never died in the fanatical experimenter.
Brown reached the pinnacle of his career in 1972 - he became deputy director of NASA and head of the Cape Canaveral spaceport. However, already in 1972, in the context of an economic recession, he was asked to cancel expensive flights to the Moon and engage in more profitable programs - the launch of reconnaissance and technical satellites. Apparently, von Braun did not listen, because he was soon dismissed. Immediately, lunar flights were stopped, and von Braun’s planned dispatch of a manned spacecraft to Mars did not take place. Many warm words were said at the farewell, but the baron, as always, did not show his feelings in any way. He became vice president of the promising Fairchild company, which produces aerospace equipment. The work was easy, and von Braun spent a lot of time with his family. As before, he almost never appeared in public, and guests visited his mansion infrequently. In all his years in America, he never made close friends.
In 1973, Wernher von Braun undergoes surgery for cancer. In 1974, he worked on the satellite project, and free time gives to glider flights. In May 1976, he underwent treatment in the hospital, and in December he left work. In June 1977, von Braun was admitted to a hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, with severe kidney disease. The course of intensive therapy turned out to be useless, and on June 16 the “rocket baron” died. He was buried in Huntsville solemnly, but without much pomp. Since then, his fame has not been disputed by anyone, but continues to remain in the shadows.
00:05 — REGNUM March 23 marks the 106th anniversary of the birth of the famous German-American designer Wernher von Braun- developer of the first ballistic missiles, “father” of the American space program.
Ivan Shilov © IA REGNUM
One can often come across the opinion that von Braun is a scientist untainted by relations with the Third Reich. However, in fact, von Braun not only was a member of the SS from the age of 21 (1933), but also made a career thanks to party patronage. Von Braun was a member of the NSDAP, which he later explained:
“I was officially asked to join the National Socialist Party. At that time (1937) I was already the technical director of the military rocket center in Peenemünde... My refusal to join the party would mean that I had to abandon my life’s work. So I decided to join. My membership in the party did not mean for me participation in any political activities ... "
One of the fruits of “his life’s work” was the development of the first ballistic missiles V-1, V-2 - the so-called “weapons of retaliation”, which, according to various estimates, destroyed at least seven thousand civilians during the Second World War.
His work did not end after 1945. After the USSR victory over Nazi Germany von Braun continued to develop weapons for the war with the USSR, but “under the wing” of Washington.
In his book “Wandering,” the Russian political scientist Sergey Kurginyan writes:
“Lisping about the fact that Wernher von Braun joined Hitler’s NSDAP “for career reasons” is unseemly. Claiming Wernher von Braun as an American Sergei Korolev, they began to “wash” him at the same time. It would be nice - only Americans. But so are the British. It got to the point of stupidity... Von Braun began to be portrayed as almost a victim of Nazism. Well, if not a victim, then certainly an apolitical techie who joined the party in order to unhinderedly satisfy his creative needs.”
So was von Braun an apolitical techie, willing to do anything for the opportunity to “do what he loves”? A scientific genius whose achievements free him from responsibility for the crimes of the Third Reich?
Let’s read the biography of von Braun, about whom, as the author of “Wanderings” notes, “no less has been written than about Roosevelt” ( Franklin Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States).
In Germany
Werner Magnus MaximilianFreiherrvon Braun born on March 23, 1912 in Wirsitz (province of Posen, Prussia - now the Polish city of Wyzysk) into an aristocratic family. Emmy von Quistorp, von Braun's mother, was a descendant royal families- both on the maternal and paternal side.
Father of the future inventor of the FAU Magnus von Braun was Minister of Food and Agriculture in the government of the Weimar Republic. Possessing enormous political and financial power, he used his connections in the SS to advance his son’s career.
And von Braun's career was meteoric. From the Zurich Higher Technical School, at the age of 19, thanks to the patronage of his father, he was transferred to the Berlin Higher Technical School.
In 1932, von Braun was accepted into the military rocket science group Walter Dornberger(SS-Brigadeführer, one of the founders of heavy rocket engineering in Nazi Germany). Dornberger led the liquid-propellant rocket group of the ballistics department of the German Army Weapons Directorate (Reichswehr).
Von Braun was appointed as a research assistant in Dornberger's group at age 20, while still a student. In 1932-1933, at the Kummersdorf test site, he, as part of a group, conducted test launches of liquid-fuel rockets to an altitude of 2000-2500 meters.
It is noteworthy that von Braun, who graduated from the Berlin Higher Technical School in 1934, received a Doctor of Philosophy diploma, although his secret dissertation had nothing to do with this science, but was devoted to rocket development. The dissertation examined the advantages of rockets with liquid engines over cannon artillery and aviation.
To assign secrecy to von Braun's work, administrative resources were used: the head of the ballistics department, Colonel, put pressure on the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy CharlesBecker and a captain from the military intelligence department.
The dissertation is so secret that Erich Schumann, head of the Weapons Directorate's research department, ordered military counterintelligence to use special measures to "monitor" those who pay attention to von Braun's dissertation.
As you can see, von Braun was not just working on purely scientific issues when Hitler came to power. He worked on creating new weapons while being part of the system. It had been part of the SS since 1933 (4th Cavalry Squadron, 6th Regiment).
It would be strange to talk about the apolitical nature of von Braun, who participated in the creation of a large secret program, the fruits of which were tested at the Kummersdorf training ground (27 km from Berlin).
Dornberger conducted missile tests at the Kummersdorf test site together with Rudolf Nebel, Germany's chief rocket scientist Walter Riedel, head of the design bureau of the Peenemünde research center, and “Ph.D.” Kurt Wamke(his dissertation was entitled “Investigation of the outflow of gases through cylindrical nozzles”).
Von Braun at that time was simply a member of Dornberger's group. But soon he headed secret program. Due to what? Is it only due to his “genius” and obsession with his “life’s work”?
In his book “Secret Golden Pioneers from the Don Land” Stanislav Averkov writes:
“Who will step over whom? Will Kurt Wamcke finally crush Wernher von Braun or will Braun step over Wamcke? Luck was on von Braun's side. If what happened can be called luck!
In the summer of 1934, an explosion occurred at the Kummersdorf test site during the launch of a rocket engine. Wamke's head was cut by a fragment of the engine power supply system: one of the main creators of the German combat missile died without regaining consciousness. Wamcke was a serious theorist and practitioner and could have headed the technical part of the growing project.
After his death, three claimed leadership in the group: professor Hermann Oberth, Nebel and his former student Brown. Oberth's candidacy was no longer possible because he was a Romanian citizen. And then von Braun got rid of the teacher.
“A low blow was taken. Werner's dad was close to Reichsführer SS Himmler's entourage. Magnus von Braun held an explanatory conversation with Himmler's team. They understood everything there, but made it clear that a denunciation of the Jew Rudolf Nebel was needed. It was composed by people close to the Brown family and sent to the Ordnance Department. Its head, Professor Colonel Karl Emil Becker, signed the denunciation and sent it to Himmler." , writes Averkov.
As a result, Nebel was initially forbidden to engage in even private research in the missile field, and when he refused to transfer patents for his inventions to the Armaments Directorate, the Gestapo accused him of collaborating with someone who had escaped to the United States Albert Einstein.
“For six months the Gestapo kept Nebel in a state secret police cell in Berlin. Having achieved nothing from the scientist, the Gestapo sent him to the Bautzen concentration camp. His bride Hertha Imbach died in the Auschwitz death camp" , writes Averkov.
In 1936, Hitler handed over to 24-year-old von Braun the leadership of the rocket project and the largest missile testing base, Peenemünde (located in northeastern Germany). Dornberger headed the Peenemünde center as military commander, and von Braun as technical director of the project.
When, in 1943, Major General Dornberger and SS Sturmbannführer Wernher von Braun reported personally Hitler about the progress of work on the V-1 ballistic missile, the Fuhrer was impressed. The magazine Der Spiegel (1955) writes:
“The persuasiveness of Wernher von Braun’s arguments made as strong an impression on Hitler as it later did on the Pentagon generals.”
The first V-1 missiles were fired at London on June 13, 1944. In total, 6,800 people were killed as a result of missile attacks on Great Britain. V-2s were put into action in November 1944: they fired at London, Antwerp (Belgium) and other European cities.
On December 24, 1944, von Braun was awarded the Knight's Cross with Swords. Dornberger was also awarded and promoted early to lieutenant general.
Note that in the production of V-2, the Germans used the forced labor of prisoners from concentration camps. Commenting on the information that more people died during the construction of the V-2 than died from the use of this rocket as a weapon, von Braun admitted: the working conditions at the Mittelwerk plant (Nordhausen) were “disgusting.” But, he said, he never witnessed any deaths or beatings.
Moreover, in his book Wernher von Braun: Knight of Space, he repeatedly states that he “could do nothing” for the workers. Surviving prisoners, on the contrary, say that von Braun stood and watched as people were tortured.
In 1944, von Braun was taken into custody by the Gestapo for unknown reasons, but Dornberger was able to get him paroled to continue work on the V-2. By the end of the war, von Braun and his group Otto Skorzeny was developing a missile attack on the Empire State Building (New York, USA).
It is important to note that von Braun was not only absent from the Nuremberg trials. After the defeat of the Third Reich, he continued his work in the United States, receiving American citizenship in 1955. He was not executed as a war criminal, but died in the United States from pancreatic cancer at the age of 65.
IN THE USA
How did it happen that the SS man escaped to the United States with impunity? In 1945, von Braun surrendered to the Americans as a prisoner - not wanting to answer in the Nuremberg bench for his crimes. He was transported to the United States, saving him from trial for Nazi criminals.
Von Braun explained his choice in favor of the United States with “humanistic considerations”:
“We know that we have created a new means of warfare, and now the moral choice - which nation, which victorious people we want to entrust our brainchild to - faces us more acutely than ever before. We want the world not to be caught up in a conflict like the one Germany just went through. We believe that only by transferring such weapons to those people who are guided by the Bible can we be sure that the world is best protected."
In the USA, von Braun’s “biography” was “washed” of Nazi vulgarity as part of the notorious Operation Paperclip. All this was done by the Americans not out of respect for science, but for practical reasons: it was necessary to rush to create ballistic missiles for a potential strike on the USSR.
To begin with, “Werner” (this is how Brown was addressed by his boss, 26-year-old Major Jim Hamill) was supposed to teach Americans how to use the V-2. Brown's work was supported by General Electric. Since September 1945, Brown was appointed head of the Army Weapons Design and Development Service at Fort Bliss (Texas, USA), and since 1950 he worked at the Redstone Arsenal military base (Huntsville, Alabama, part of the Tennessee Valley region).
The PGM-11 Redstone ballistic missile created here is a direct development of the V-2. Work is also underway on the space program.
The significance of Werner’s work for the United States is not limited to the sphere of “peaceful space.” Yes, thanks to the space developments of a former Nazi, the Americans were the first to land on the Moon. Under this flag, the United States has always carried out its military developments aimed at maintaining dominance over the world at any cost. Domination mixed with neo-Nazism.
To quote “The Journey” again:
“What Wernher von Braun piled up technically is, of course, important... But something else is even more important. The anti-communism of the GID, the 5th Directorate of the FBI and the DISC special police is finally being completed in the form of the merger of this very DISC with the apparatus of Wernher von Braun - the same Nazi- passionate, just like his boss.”
“For twenty-two years he worked in cooperation with the “intelligence enterprise” built by the GID, the 5th FBI Directorate, and the military. For twenty-two years he influenced this “economy” accordingly, instilling in it the SS gene. He introduced personnel there, reorganized the structures, and most importantly, imbued it all with ideology.”
And one last thing. Since 1960, von Braun has been appointed director of NASA's Space Flight Center. Americans are proud that their compatriot was the first to land on the moon Neil Armstrong. Brown, as the creator of Apollo 11, was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.
It is significant that as soon as the United States considered itself the winner in cold war, the American lunar program began to decline, and further projects of the “father of American space” remained unrealized.
Wernher von Braun was born in the city of Wirsitz in the province of Posen of the then German Empire. His family belonged to an aristocratic family, he inherited the title "Freiherr" (corresponding to baronial). After World War I, Wirzitz was transferred to Poland, and the Werner family, like many other German families, left for Germany. The von Brauns settled in Berlin. In 1930, von Braun entered the Berlin Technical University, where he joined the group "Verein für Raumschiffahrt" ("Space Travel Society"). In 1930 he began working on liquid fuel rockets. In 1932 he was accepted into Dornberger's military rocket science group.
Von Braun was working on his dissertation when Hitler and the NSDAP came to power in 1933. Rocket science almost immediately became a major issue on the agenda. In July 1934, von Braun was awarded the degree of Doctor of Physical Sciences (rocket science).
The new Nazi regime banned civilian experiments in rocket science. Only the military was allowed to build rockets. For this purpose, a huge missile research center was built in the village of Peenemünde in northern Germany, on the Baltic Sea, of which Dornberger became the military leader. Since 1937, Wernher von Braun has been the technical director of the center in Peenemünde and chief designer A-4 (V-2) missiles, used in World War II to bombard cities in France, Great Britain, Holland and Belgium.
"V-2", (V-2 - Vergeltungswaffe-2, weapon of retaliation, another name: A-4 - Aggregat-4) is a single-stage liquid-fueled ballistic missile. It was launched vertically; on the active part of the trajectory, an autonomous gyroscopic control system, equipped with a software mechanism and instruments for measuring speed, came into action. The flight range reached 320 km, the trajectory altitude was 100 km. The warhead could hold up to 800 kg of ammotol. One of the most revolutionary technological solutions used on the V-2 was automatic system guidance, which did not require constant adjustments from the ground, the target coordinates were entered into the on-board analog computer before launch. Gyroscopes installed on the rocket controlled its spatial position throughout the flight, and any deviation from the given trajectory was corrected by rudders on the side stabilizers.
By the end of January 1945, the roar of cannonade from the shots of Soviet guns was clearly audible on Peenemünde. Everyone working at the missile base realized that this territory would soon fall to the enemy. Wernher von Braun gathered his team of developers and asked them to decide how and to whom they should all surrender. The opinion of those present was unanimous. Von Braun and his men won't wait until Soviet troops will capture Peenemünde, but should go to the south of Germany and offer their experience and knowledge to the Americans.
On the last day of January, von Braun gathered the heads of sectors and departments, as well as his deputies, in his office and announced that he had just received orders from SS Lieutenant General Hans Kammler for the urgent evacuation of personnel and equipment used in the most important projects to south of Germany. Von Braun emphasized that this was an order from above, and not just a suggestion. He later admitted that there were several orders from various departments, and they contradicted each other. Von Braun chose the one that most closely matched his plans.
Preparations began for departure to the south of the country. Unique equipment and tons of documentation were collected. By the beginning of March 1945, the evacuation from Peenemünde was practically completed.
2 Bleicherode
Von Braun settled in the town of Bleicherode, and Walter Dornberger, who assisted in the evacuation, chose the town of Bad Sachsa in the center of Germany. Both of these cities were quite close to the underground Mittelwerk plant, where the first V-2 rockets were assembled a year ago.
By the beginning of April 1945, American tanks were already 19 km from Bleicherode, and American troops were trying to capture the entire territory around Mittelwerk. Kammler ordered von Braun to gather 400 of the most talented scientists and engineers and go even further south - to the town of Oberammergau, at the foot of the Bavarian Alps. Walter Dornberger and his small group received the same order.
3 Oberammergau
On April 11, General Kammler invited Wernher von Braun to his place and announced that he was forced by duty to leave Oberammergau, and von Braun and his people would remain under the protection of the general’s deputies. The next day Kammler really disappeared, and except for a short message he sent to Himmler's department, no one heard anything from him again.
In the following days, von Braun's men scattered throughout the villages surrounding Oberammergau. They felt relatively safe on the slopes of the Alps.
On May 1, 1945, German radio reported the news that Fuhrer Adolf Hitler had died. The next day, von Braun and six members of his team, including Magnus von Braun's younger brother and teacher Walter Dornberger, surrendered to the Americans.
After his capture, Brown told the press: “We know that we have created a new means of warfare and now the moral choice - to which nation, to which victorious people we want to entrust our brainchild - stands before us more acutely than ever before. We want the world not to be drawn into a conflict like the one Germany has just gone through. We believe that only by delivering such weapons to those people who are guided by the Bible can we be sure that the world is best protected."
4 Garmisch-Partenkirchen
The Americans kept von Braun and his team under arrest in the quiet resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the foothills of the Alps. The top ranks of the US command were well aware of the valuable loot that fell into their hands: von Braun’s name topped the “Black List” - the code name for the list of German scientists and engineers from among those whom American military experts would like to interrogate as soon as possible. Based on the results of intensive interrogations, measures were immediately taken, special search groups were hastily sent to different parts of Germany to seize documentation, materials and search for people. 
On July 19, 1945, two days before the planned transfer of territory to the zone of Soviet occupation, US Army Major Robert B. Staver, chief of the jet propulsion section of the US Army Ordnance Research and Intelligence Service in London, and Lieutenant Colonel R. L. Williams imprisoned von Braun and heads of his departments in a jeep and taken from Garmisch to Munich. Then the group was transported by air to Nordhausen, and the next day - 60 km southwest, to the town of Witzenhausen, which was located in the American occupation zone. Von Braun stayed briefly at the Dastbin interrogation center, where representatives of the Third Reich's elite in the fields of economics, science and technology were interrogated by British and American intelligence services.
On June 20, 1945, the US Secretary of State approved the move of von Braun and his staff to America. Brown was among those scientists for whom the Joint Intelligence Agency created fictitious biographies and removed references to Nazi Party membership and ties to the Nazi regime from public records. Having “washed” them of Nazism, the American government thus gave scientists guarantees of safety to work in the United States.
5 Fort Bliss, USA
The first seven specialists, including Wernher von Braun, arrived in the United States at a military airfield in New Castle, Delaware, on September 20, 1945. They then flew to Boston and were taken by boat to the US Army Intelligence Agency base at Fort Strong in Boston Harbor. Then everyone except Brown arrived at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland to sort out the documents taken at Peenemünde. These documents were supposed to allow scientists to continue experiments with rockets.
Eventually, von Braun arrived at Fort Bliss, Texas, a major U.S. Army base north of El Paso. Since the Americans had no experience in developing large rockets, and especially ones like the V-2, they asked von Braun to provide the names of those people who would help in as soon as possible establish production of combat missiles for the United States Army. This was easy for von Braun to do. He knew perfectly well which of his people was loyal to him and possessed highly qualified. In total, he named 118 names.
Until 1950, Wernher von Braun worked at Fort Bliss and then at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. In 1956, he was appointed head of the program for the development of the Redstone intercontinental ballistic missile (as well as rockets based on it, Jupiter-S and Juno) and the Explorer series satellite. Since 1960, von Braun has been a member of the US National Aeronautics and Research Administration. outer space(NASA) and Director of the Center space flights NASA. Head of development of Saturn series launch vehicles and spaceships Apollo series. Since 1970, he has been NASA's deputy director for human spaceflight planning; since 1972, he has worked in industry as vice president of Fairchild Space Industries in Germantown, Maryland. After leaving NASA in 1972, he lived only five years and died of pancreatic cancer.
Did Wernher von Braun work for the USSR?
In the autumn of 1933, the English journalist S. Delmer, working in Germany, wandered into a vacant lot on the outskirts of Berlin. It showed two men doing something with a mysterious long cigar-shaped object with a pointed nose. “What will it be?” asked Delmer. “Yes, one of the missile options. We think that our missiles will throw both artillery and bombers into the dustbin of history,” said the older one, who introduced himself as engineer Rudolf Nebel. “Rockets will change the course of human history, it will leave the earth,” added the second, a handsome blond man of about twenty, who introduced himself as Wernher von Braun. The Englishman, looking skeptically at his companions, did not wait for the end of their work and left. If only he knew that in ten years the V-2 missiles, created under the leadership of the blond, would bring terror to “good old England”...
Engineers von Braun and Korolev are called to the start!
Wernher von Braun was born on March 23, 1912 in the city of Wirsitz, now called Wyzysk and located in Poland. The boy, who came from an old Prussian noble family, was smart and greedy for knowledge. After finishing school, he studied at three institutes in Zurich and Berlin.
At that time, scientists in many European countries were already thinking about developing not only relatively small powder rockets, known to the ancient Chinese, but also huge liquid fuel rockets. The impetus for this was the work of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky “Exploration of world spaces with jet instruments,” in which the great Russian dreamer and scientist described the principle of a liquid-propellant rocket engine back in 1903.
And so in 1929 in Germany, the Minister of the Reichswehr gave a secret order “to begin experiments in order to study the possibilities of using a rocket engine for military purposes.” The Germans had the groundwork since 1917, when the sergeant major of the Austrian army, the future Nobel laureate Hermann Oberth developed a design for a combat rocket using a mixture of alcohol and oxygen to deliver 10 tons of explosives over several hundred kilometers. In the 1920s in Germany, not only Nebel and von Braun experimented with rocket engines. To join forces, a liquid rocket engine research group (hereinafter referred to as LRE) was created in the ballistics and ammunition department of the Reichswehr Armament Directorate under the leadership of military engineer Captain Walter Dornberger.
It was under the leadership of Dornberger, who quickly became a general, that the development of liquid fuel jet engines began in Germany. In October 1932, 20-year-old Wernher von Braun came to work in the engineer-captain's laboratory. He turned out to be extremely intelligent and soon became the leading designer and closest assistant to Dornberger. In 1933, under their leadership, the A-1 rocket was developed, which meant “unit one.” In 1934, the “second unit” had already reached a height of 2.2 km. The A-2 rocket weighed 150 kg, had a length of 1.4 meters and a diameter of 30 cm. It was an Englishman who saw her in a vacant lot near Berlin...
Almost simultaneously with the Germans, work on liquid-propellant rocket engines began in the Soviet Union. In 1931, Jet Propulsion Study Groups (GIRDs) were created on a voluntary basis in Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, and Baku. 24-year-old Sergei Korolev is appointed head of the Moscow GIRD. Since August 1932, the GIRD began to be financed by the Department of Military Inventions of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA). Things have started, the correspondence competition “Korolev-Brown” has begun!
From the start, the rivals left about the same.
In August 1933, the Soviet rocket “09” took off to a height of 1.5 km, in November “GIRD-X”, the first Soviet rocket powered by liquid fuel, took off into the sky. ethanol, oxidizer - liquid oxygen) fuel. In the summer of 1935, the rocket “07” was launched, rising to 3020 meters. It had a length of 2.01 meters, starting weight - 35 kg. In terms of starting weight, the Soviet “nine” was already four times inferior to the German “A-2”...
At the end of 1933, the Jet Research Institute was formed, of which Korolev became one of the deputy heads. Soon he already had the rank of division commander, which corresponded to the later rank of “major general.” The RNII developed several types of liquid propellant engines, some of which were installed on rocket planes and cruise missiles designed by Sergei Korolev in 1937-39. But these engines were not powerful enough for a ballistic missile, and therefore nothing similar to Nebel’s 1917 project was designed. Then the “purges” began. Deprived military rank, the “pest” Korolev had withdrawn from the distance competition with the “blond beast” Wernher von Braun even before 1945...
V-2: “what cannot be”
And in 1936, the Dornberger-Brown rocket laboratory was visited by the Commander-in-Chief of the German Ground Forces, Fritsch, and the head of the research department of the Ministry of Aviation, Richthofen. They found the work of the rocket scientists promising and gave instructions to develop a missile capable of delivering a 1-ton warhead to a range of 275 km. 20 million marks were allocated for the development of missile weapons (including the V-1 cruise missile), and a special missile range began to be built in the Baltic Sea on the island of Usedom, near the fishing village of Peenemünde.
In 1937, the A-3 intermediate rocket was launched here. It was 5 times larger in weight than the A-2, and 3 times larger in size. The Germans pulled far ahead. True, the A-3 launch was unsuccessful. But a project had already been drawn up for an even more powerful A-4 rocket, which was destined to become the “V-2 weapon of retaliation.” For the final development of the A-4 design, von Braun’s team developed the A-5 rocket, approximately three times smaller than the future FAU. From 1938 to 1942, several hundred (!!!) such missiles were launched from Peenemünde. Wernher von Braun became the world leader in rocket science for a long time...
The best scientific forces and research organizations in Germany were involved in the work on the V-2, and huge funds were allocated. But the developers also had a lot of problems. The main thing is the engine. After all, it was supposed to develop a thrust of about 25 tons! The best Soviet liquid-propellant rocket engines developed up to 300 kilograms. And the Germans came up with their own “tricks”. In contrast to the previously used fuel supply system supercharged with compressed air, fuel was supplied to the combustion chamber of the FAU-2 engine by two turbine pumps powered by gases generated from the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide when it is heated. Small in size and weight, these turbopumps developed enough power to power a terribly voracious engine, which consumed nine and a half tons of fuel in 4 minutes of operation.
By making the combustion chamber of a liquid-propellant rocket engine two jackets and pumping a cold oxidizer - liquid oxygen - between the jackets, Brown and his colleagues ensured that the combustion chamber did not burn out from the action high temperatures during the entire operating time. It was thanks to these innovations that the Germans were able to create a liquid-propellant rocket engine with enormous thrust for those times.
BROWN GOES AWAY
In March 1939, Hitler visited Peenemünde. The work of the fascist rocket scientists made a great impression on him, but after the victories over Poland and France, the “rocket allocations” were cut by half: it was necessary to prepare for war with the USSR. Attack on Soviet Union delayed the start of testing of the V-2 until 1942, and only on October 3 of that year the first success was achieved: the rocket flew about 200 km, reached an altitude of 90 km and fell 3.4 km from the target. The starting weight of the "A-4" was 12.7 tons, length - 14.3 meters, diameter - 1.65 m. According to the project, the rocket, developing a speed of up to 5500 km/h, was supposed to rise to a height of up to 180 km. From there, its warhead weighing 980 kg, continuing to move along the ballistic curve, could “reach” a target located up to 320 km from the launch site. Nothing like this has ever been done in the world! An altitude of 180 kilometers is near space, and Hitler’s Germany broke out into it. One! Because decals, swastika or cross were not painted on the sides of the V-2. For what? All the same, there would be no other missiles nearby...
Large-scale production of FAU-2 was organized at the enterprises of an underground industrial complex built in former gypsum mines near the city of Nordhausen. The engineers and craftsmen were Germans, Czechs, and French, and their working and living conditions were tolerable. But a huge number of workers were prisoners who lived in terribly difficult conditions, under the constant threat of execution. Before 1945, it was planned to produce 12,000 missiles, but although in some months up to 690 of them were made, the total number of “units” produced until April 1945, when Nordhausen was captured by the Americans, was 5,940 units. The Germans made the first combat launch of the V-2 on September 8, 1944, in London. A rocket fell in the Chiswick area...
SUPER-FAU-2
After the Allied landings in Normandy and their rapid advance to the east, German rocket scientists, in order not to lose England in their sights, decided to increase the range of the V-2. They added wings to the production A-4 by December 1944. The new “product” was called A-4B. According to calculations, the destruction range should have increased to 600 km. In fact, an aircraft was launched into space, which on the third attempt was made to fly approximately in a given mode. However, von Braun had no time left to fine-tune the new “unit” - the war was over.
Intercontinental "gift to Uncle Sam"
Launching a missile strike on America was cherished dream Fuhrer. Even if the blow is not all-crushing, it is in the right place, from the point of view of the panic created, and in right time. By 1944, German rocket scientists had already realized that it was impossible to reach America with a single-stage rocket - the part in which the engine and fuel, after it burns out, becomes a brake for the warhead. This part of the rocket needs to be separated. Yes, and more fuel with an oxidizer would be needed, and the engine would be more powerful...
The Germans sat down to the calculations, sparing neither alcohol nor liquid oxygen for experiments, and by January 1945 they made a prototype of the missile system, which already consisted of two “units”, A9/A10, with a total take-off weight of 86 tons. The fuel weight of the 70-ton A-9 was 52 tons, the engine was supposed to develop a thrust of 200 tons, only 3 times less than that of the royal rocket R-7, which lifted Yuri Gagarin into space 16 years later. The A-9 was supposed to accelerate to a speed of 4250 km/h and the A-10, a 16-ton winged version of the V-2. But the A-10 was supposed to accelerate to 10,000 km/h and deliver 1 ton of explosives to a target across the Atlantic. The A-10 should have been aimed at the target either by a radio beacon, which would have been installed in advance, or by a suicide pilot.
Hitler wanted to get into no other way than into a 102-story skyscraper " Empire State Building"! He hoped that in this way it would be possible to withdraw the United States from the war. The entire operation was given the name "Elster". In November 1944, German agents Erich Gimpel and William Kolpag landed in the United States from a German submarine. Each of them had to independently get a job in some kind of organization for the maintenance of a skyscraper, install a beacon in it, send a message to Germany and put the lighthouse into operation. Gimpel finally got a job at a tour desk and even sent a telegram to the Vaterland, but Kolpag surrendered to the FBI on his own. He spoke about a characteristic feature of his colleague: he puts the change not in his wallet, but in the breast pocket of his jacket. The FBI brought all the newsstand owners and cashiers to their feet, and Gimpel was taken in before he installed a radio beacon. Gimpel received the electric chair, Kolpag received a long sentence. The shooting at the Empire did not take place...
At various times, reports were published that the A9/A10, controlled by a suicide bomber, had actually taken off for America, and the pilot’s name and surname were even given. It supposedly successfully flew to the calculated altitude, separated the warhead and began gliding towards the target, but burned out upon entering the dense layers of the atmosphere. “Fire, fire everywhere” - these were supposedly his last words. And, of course, “Heil Hitler!”...
Was von Braun a criminal?
Demoted from brigade commander only to major, Sergei Korolev was released from Sharaga in 1945. And he was immediately sent to study German rocket technology in Germany. Inspecting the V-2 in 1945, Wernher von Braun's former absentee rival, amazed at the successes achieved by the Germans, told test pilot Mark Gallay: “I see something that cannot be.” Was! It thundered and killed!
In total, during its use, until March 23, 1945, 1269 missiles were launched at England, and 1739 missiles at other targets already in continental Europe. Antwerp got the most - 1593 missiles. According to English data, 1054 V-2s exploded in England, killing 2754 and seriously injuring 6523 people. 1,265 rockets exploded in the Antwerp area, killing and maiming about 30,000 people. In total, with the help of Brown's “aggregates,” the Germans dropped 1,034 tons of explosives on England. Scary and cruel. But…
In 1944, an average of 4,100 Allied four-engine bombers dropped at least 6,000 tons of bombs on German cities every day, and not only on industrial plants. Six times more than Brown dropped on England in 7 months. The pleasure of terrorizing England with the help of the V-2 cost Germany enormous sums. The cost of constructing the missile center at Peenemünde alone amounted to an amount sufficient to produce 10,000, or one fifth of total number tanks produced by Germany during the war. And how many tanks were “eaten” by those 5,940 missiles produced that did not drop a single gram of explosives on Soviet cities or troops? So it turns out that von Braun indirectly... worked for the USSR.
Moreover, after the war, more than 150 German rocket specialists, “raised by von Braun,” arrived in the USSR “to help Korolev,” including 13 professors, 32 doctoral engineers, 85 certified engineers and 21 practicing engineers. It was precisely because of the “creative competition” with them that Sergei Pavlovich Korolev overtook Wernher von Braun on October 4, 1957 and April 12, 1961, launching the first artificial satellite earth and the first man. Paradoxically, for such work in the USSR, the “rocket baron” deserved at least a medal “For Victory over Germany”!
Victor NOVITSKY 2
