Peenemunde: The German Experimental Rocket Center and It’s Rocket Missile Assemblies A-1 Through A-12 Part 1

By David Myhra

When one hears the noun "Peenemünde" recalled immediately is the "Heeres Versuchsanstalt", Peenemünde or the German Army Ordinance's experimental rocket missile research center on a peninsula bordering the Baltic Sea in northeast Germany. It existed for only nine years...1936-1945. Read the story (part 1) and view the photos in future volumes. Read about what really happened in Dr Myhra's latest historical account of The German Army Ordinances' experimental rocket research center, "Peenemunde"!

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Myhra
• Release date: Dec 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310421822

David Myhra

David Myhra, PhD, has written more than 100+ books and Ebooks on World War Two German flying machines, both proposed and built, pre and post war and their designers, than anyone living or dead, along with the VTOLs (Vertical Takeoff and Landing). He has researched and interviewed the German scientists that were captured and taken to the Soviet Union and forced to work on the supersonic DFS 346. He has interviewed dozens of former German aviation designers and gas turbine rocket scientists throughout the 1980's in places such as West Germany, East Germany, France, USA, South America and other countries. He was also involved in the production of numerous TV documentaries such as the History Channel’s 2005 “Nazi Plan to Bomb New York” and the National Geographic TV Channel’s 2009 documentary “Hitler’s Stealth Fighter” which featured the building of a full-scale replica of the Horten Ho 229 V3 by the Northrop Corporation and its radar cross section (RCS) testing at their classified radar test range in the California Mojave Desert.

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Part 1

By:

David Myhra, PhD

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Published By:

Robert Walters

RCW Technology & E Book Publishing

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Copyright 2013 by Dr David Myhra, all rights reserved.

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When one hears the noun Peenemünde recalled immediately is the Heeres Versuchsanstalt, Peenemünde or the German Army Ordinance’s experimental rocket missile research center on a peninsula bordering the Baltic Sea in northeast Germany. It existed for only nine years...1936-1945. One powerful image recalled is that of rocket Test Stand VII, the 30 foot high earthen wall which surrounded it, and the arena in side where all the static testing and experimental launches of the infamous A-4 (V2) rocket missile took place. One recalls, too, Royal Air Force’s (RAF) Bomber Command’s raid on this northeastern rocket complex in August 1943 which had the immediate effect of transferring all plans for the mass production of A-4s to the nightmarish underground caves at Mittelwerk (central works), Nordhausen. Mass production of this rocket missile at this central eastern mountainous area of Germany resulted in the deaths of thousands of concentration camp inmates transferred from area concentration camps. It didn’t matter to the Third Reich. What mattered was the rapid mass production of a vengeance weapon flying in on silent wings. It hurled 2,000 pounds of high explosive in a random manner at the cities of London and Antwerp with a complete absence of warning. Approaching London, for example, it impacted with a forward speed of five times the speed of sound thanks to its basic ballistic trajectory and gravity. When it impacted there was the sound of an explosion, and enormous crater in the ground to be followed seconds later by two sonic booms. If you heard these sonic booms then you knew that you were alive...that you were a survivor. There was no defense when death flew in on silent wings as with the case of the V2. Winston Churchill said that the angle of death is abroad in the land and you can’t hear the flutter of its wings. The V2 had an advantage unclaimed by any other weapon: silent, long-range terror. Was it an effective weapon? No, not from a military point of view. The total weight of all the explosives carried abroad the 1,190 V2s which impacted London were less than one average Royal Air Force bombing raid over Germany. Then, too, mass production of V2s redirected scarce materials and thousands of tons of potatoes to make alcohol with fueled those V2s. Building one V2 took as long as constructing six fighter aircraft and cost twenty times that of a V1 buzz bomb which generally created more collateral damage than did a V2. What then was the V2's purpose? Since there was no air-raid sirens, no rumble of bombers overhead, no antiaircraft guns firing away, no telltale buzz like that of the V1 robot flying machine to announce the presence of danger, the sole purpose of the V2s which hit London, Antwerp, and Paris was terror. How England and the Low Countries dealt with the V2's terrorism and its psychological effects is another matter. This illustrated history looks at the V2s experimental rocket center and the facilities, laboratories, and people involved in perfecting this flying machine at Peenemünde. Its purpose was two fold: first to destroy British morale by silently raining death. Secondly, to buoy up a war-weary German civilian population with the promise of a new weapon to turn back the tide of war that had been running against them.The area known as Peenemünde, prior to 1936, was a small, sleepy, fishing village located on the Peene River on the Isle of Usedom. The Isle of Usedom is a peninsula facing the Baltic Sea. At Peenemünde, the Peene River flows out to the Baltic Sea and the word Peenemünde means the mouth of the Peene River. Only later did the word Peenemünde come into usage to include the entire peninsula known as the Isle of Usedom including several other small holiday-recreational villages facing the Baltic Sea coast such as Karlshagen, Trassenheide, and Zinnowitz.

The Peenemünde Experimental Rocket Center, which at its peak in August 1943, was a huge, busy, and exciting rocket research and development facility employing in excess of 10,000 German men and women plus as many as another 12,000 foreign workers. These foreign workers included prisoners of war and civilians taken from German-occupied countries of Europe to supply the need for unskilled muscle in clearing the ground, heavy construction of highways, railroad roads, and the digging of deep water harbors. The wide spread use of foreign workers was not unusual in war time Germany. It is estimated that by 1943, 5 million foreigners were working in Germany doing unskilled work. So it was with Peenemünde. Skilled workers of Organization Todt (Dr. Fritz Todt, Minister for Armaments and Munitions, died February 8th 1942, in a airplane crash, replaced by Hitler’s architect Albert Speer) managed all the planning, building of facilities, offices, barracks, and rocket test and launch pads such as the famous Test Stand VII. Organization Todd’s major construction contractor was the Baugruppe Schlempp and they had a need for several thousands of common laborers. This need was filled through the use of Polish workers and estimates vary on the actual number of Poles employed in heavy manual labor constructing the Peenemünde Experimental Rocket Center. Estimates range between 8,000 and 10,000 Polish males.On the other hand, thousands of unmarried young German woman provided secretarial, drafting, and statistical computing a Peenemünde. Thousands more young college educated German men who had been drafted into the Wehrmacht (Germany Army) had been later transferred to Peenemünde from the front lines, especially the Russian Front. They also came from Erwin Rommel’s troops fighting in North Africa and from other military duties...each for their engineering, chemical, and mathematical degrees needed at Peenemünde. Then there were individuals fresh from the universities with their master’s degrees and doctorates found immediate work at Peenemünde. Finally, the private industrial sector throughout Germany sent their best minds to Peenemünde as consultants to help out the rocketeers with their seemingly unresolvable numerous challenges presented by their Führer’s desire to hit Paris, London, Antwerp...with 2,000 pounds of high explosive located in the nose of the A-4 (V2) rocket missile. So for all these men and woman...their combined efforts had but one purpose, one solitary goal...the perfection of the 46 foot tall A-4 bi-fuel liquid rocket missile...which in the extreme, would be capable of hitting the United States...New York City and Washington, District of Columbia.

As in any history of a highly complex research and development facility such as the Peenemünde Experimental Rocket Center...presenting its history is as challenging as the subject itself. The rocket center did not just happen to come about overnight at a site on Germany’s Baltic Sea. The experimental center was preceded by years of numerous amateur rocketeers throughout Germany beginning in the mid to late 1920s and those dreamers of space flight to the Moon, Mars, and the stars beyond. It was these individual rocketeers conducting countless experiments in farm fields and urban areas to advance the science of bi-liquid rockets. More failures occurred and than successes and the funds to pay for these experiments came out of their own pockets and the small donations of well-wishers. There were no others involved...that is private industry or from academia because they had no time for such silliness. It was only men who had a passion for rocket flight...some to perfect rocket powered travel between continents such as Berlin and Tokyo or Berlin and New York City. Others had more heavenly goals...travel to the Moon and to Mars.

On the other hand, German Army Ordinance in the late 1920s and early 1930s was thinking of a modern long-range cannon-type device which could propel an artillery shell for 50, 60 miles and more... right into the cities of an enemy during a land war in Europe. Army Ordinance had had one ultra long-range cannon during the last few years of World War One which could launch a shell up to fifty miles distance. This ultra long range gun was known as the Paris Cannon (Pariskanone) and was destroyed post-war as spelled out in the Treaty of Versailles.

Post World War One, the German Army or Reichswehr, was limited to 100,000 men. They were not allowed tanks and its artillery was limited to cannon no larger than 105 mm which was no more than light artillery. Yet, by the late 1920s many of the high-ranking Army Ordinance officers were men who had once been assigned to the ultra long-range cannon such as the Paris Cannon as young officers during the Great War. Now, as high-ranking officers, they were looking for modern day versions of a big gun. These men included officers such as General Karl Becker and Oberst (Colonel) Walter Dornberger...both members of a Paris Cannon gun crew in World War One. According to Dornberger:

I had been a heavy gunner. Germany’s highest achievement to date had been the huge Paris Gun during the First World War. It could fire a 8.2 inch [21 centimeters] shell without about 25 pounds [11.5 kilograms] of explosives about 80 miles. My idea of a first big rocket was something that would send a ton (2,000 pounds) of high explosive over 160 miles...double the range of the Paris Gun.

In the late 1920s, Army Ordinance was seriously thinking of how they might hurl up to 2,000 pounds of high explosive at an enemy city one hundred sixty miles distant. Could such a heavy shell be propelled by some form of a rocket once it left its cannon barrel to give it the ultra range desired? Or, for example, could 2,000 pounds of high explosives be placed in the nose of a rocket and launched against an enemy city? It seemed a do-able proposition. In the late 1920s movie maker Fritz Lang was demonstrating how people, riding in the nose of a rocket, could be landed on the Moon. General Becker and Oberst Dornberger believed that it should be possible to substitute the people for 2,000 pounds of high explosives and launch it not to the Moon, as Fritz Lang had successfully demonstrated in his movie, but at cities 160 or more miles away?

It would be the marriage of these two interests, amateur rocketeers and Army Ordinance, into a singular goal-minded pursuit of researching and developing a rocket capable of carry 2,000 pounds of explosives to cities filled with enemy citizens. Rockets to the Moon, Mars, and beyond would have to wait while Army Ordinance got their modern Paris Cannon...a weapon which eventually came to be known as the A-4 or (V2). In order to achieve this end and the need to keep it all secret from Germany’s enemies, all rocket research and development, public and private, would become the sole domain of Army Ordinance and their activities classified top secret. In the summer of 1930, all amateur rocketeers in Germany were given a choice: join Army Ordinance’s rocket team or quit their private rocket experiments entirely. Rocket development became a closed subject...a top secret government endeavor and the only player in this game was Army Ordinance.

Army Ordinance’s initial collection of amateur rocketeers began work at the Army’s Kummersdorf West Experimental Station about seventeen miles south of Berlin. Their goal, according to Walter Dornberger, was to turn the rocket into a practical weapon of war. To learn the basic principles of liquid fuel rockets Army Ordinance in 1931 issued a contract with Dr.-Ing. Paul Heylandt owner of the Paul Heylandt Chemical Werk of Berlin-Brietz to design and construct a bi-fuel liquid rocket motor of [20 kilograms] thrust. Walter Riedel of Heylandt had designed and built rocket motors for the late daredevil Max Valier between 1929 and 1930 which had powered his experimental autos, ice sleds, even rocket-powered railroad sleds. For Walter Dornberger of Army Ordinance, Heylandt’s rocket engine’s purpose was to allow them to experiment with different combinations of liquid fuels and to determine which combinations were the most effective. In October 1932, Wernher von Braun joined Army Ordinance’s growing team of rocketeers at Kummersdorf. The rocketeers experienced set backs and accidents. Chemist Dr. Wahmke and two of his assistants would die in March 1934 when a bi-fuel liquid rocket motor exploded as they were seeking to premix alcohol with hydrogen peroxide. Three rocket test stands were constructed at Kummersdorf with monies provided by General Becker. In 1934, Dornberger’s rocketeers began work on their first complete bi-fuel liquid rocket missile. It was known as the A-1 and it weighed 330 pounds [150 kilograms]. It was followed by the A-2 which was designed to produce 2,205 pounds [1,000 kilograms] of thrust.

Following the A-1 and A-2 rocket missiles, Walter Dornberger wrote a report outlining how rockets could be utilized in military roles. These applications included:

Army

1) rocket artillery missiles for the Wehrmacht;

2) Anti-aircraft rocket missiles for the Wehrmacht; 3) Military signaling and illumination rockets; 4) air-launched rocket missiles for the Luftwaffe (Air Force); 5) Rockets propelled guided aerial torpedoes for the Luftwaffe (Air Force); 6) Rockets propelled underwater torpedoes for the Kreigsmarine (Navy);

By May 1937, the number of Dornberger’s rocketeers at Kummersdorf had grown to 90 men and women. They had outgrown the facilities. But thanks to Generaloberst von Fritsch, the rocketeers had been promised in 1936, an entirely new rocket experimental facility in a remote area of northern Germany. The place was known as Peenemünde. In the meantime while the Peenemünde experimental rocket facility was being constructed, Dornberger’s rocketeers would test launch their rocket missiles on the Island of Greifswalder Oie six miles offshore from Peenemünde. In May 1937 most of Dornberger’s rocketeers transferred to Peenemünde. Dr. Walter Thiel, the rocket motor expert as his staff remained at Kummersdorf until the summer of 1940 when the rocket test stands at Peenemünde were ready.

This, then, is story of how the Peenemünde Experimental Rocket Center came to into existence in the mid to late 1930s in that remote extreme northeast corner of Germany bordering on the Baltic Sea near the Polish border. It is a story of how in a mere nine years thousands of individual men and women created a technology that would surpass the hopes and dreams of Karl Becker and Walter Dornberger and astonish the world. Post war, the rocket men of Peenemünde would become the most sought after individuals...and why not...their technology had invaded gravity and would eventually allow human kind to leave the ground and reach altitudes of fifty, sixty and more miles above the earth. This is the illustrated history of the Peenemünde rocketeers= Experimental Rocket Center (1936-1945) and their work which expanded into a family of bi-liquid propelled rockets which Army Ordinance designated A-1 through A-12. Only one of the twelve, namely the A-4 or the V2 as it came to be known, was ever used operationally.

Origins of the German Army Ordnance’s Rocket Research and Development Program

Nazi Germany’s organized rocket research and development program began by Dr.-Ing. Karl Becker, a career artillery officer from World War One along with other career army artillerists such as Walter Dornberger, came to the conclusion in 1929, that it would be possible for a missile fueled by liquid oxygen and alcohol, a 1-ton explosive warhead in its nose, and gyroscopes for flight control, to hit a distant enemy target up to 200 land miles away. Inexperienced as they were in rocketry they would nevertheless systematically study the current public displays of rocketry by the VfR such as Max Valier, Fritz von Opel, Reinhard Tiling, Friedrich Sander, Albert Püllenberg, Johannes Winkler, and others, review the existing literature, call upon the scientific establishments throughout Germany to conduct systematic research, built an in-house staff by hiring bright college graduates from engineering and chemical sciences, and through cooperation with industry from a military/industrial complex to bring about the development of practical long-range ballistic rocket missiles.

Walter Dornberger, was a professional engineer and experienced artillery officer. He had joined the study team of Heereswaffenamt-Prüfwesen (Army Ordnance Research and Development Department) of Hauptmann (captain) Aubigny von Horstig [born in 1893] in 1930 one year after he had been assigned the duty of studying the progress of rocketry in terms of their use for long-range military bombardment. It was Dornberger, the experienced artillery officer from World War One, who believed that any rocket powered artillery piece should have a payload of 1-ton [2,000 pounds], achieve a maximum altitude of 50 miles, and a range of at least 170 miles. This what he suggested to Hauptmann von Horstig in 1930. All these battle experienced officers this new artillery piece to be a significant technological advance over the Pariskanone of World War One. Nor should it be limited in its movement as was the Pariskan one which was limited to railroad tracks. As it turned out, the A-4 bombardment rocket missile was a significant improvement. It could be moved about Germany over existing network of roads as well as in the Low Countries. Then it could be launched vertically almost anyplace where there was a hard surface beneath it. But it could not carry 1-ton [2,000 pounds] relatively weak explosives in its nose compartment as initially planned but only 1,605 pounds. The explosive was cast