The Woman in the Moon

THE WOMAN IN THE MOON OR THE GAS WARRIORS @COPYRIGHT 1994, 1995 EDMUND P. GRONDINE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED [email protected] INTRODUCTION - 2023 The success of my very short history of the Soviet manned Moon program, one of the very last pieces of samizdat to circulate, led me to write up my working notes as a longer history. The following was the first volume of it I completed, covering von Braun and the V2, and its rather complete rejection by von Braun's acquaintances and associates led me to abandon the entire project. I immediately moved on to other very pressing work. I still think this history is pretty good, but the reader will have to judge that for themselves. It lacks footnotes, as the software I was using at that.e time did not allow them, but my notes remain in two briefcases and a paper shopping bag sitting on the shelf of my library. Everything I wrote here is documented, and no, I did not make any of it up. You can address me with any proposals for conversion to other media or for commercialization at [email protected] THE WOMAN IN THE MOON, OR THE GAS WARRIORS 1865, OFFICES OF PIERRE JULES HETZEL, PARIS, FRANCE. Monsieur Verne presented his publisher Jules Hetzel with the manuscript for his latest work. This "extraordinary voyage" would satisfy the terms of his 20,000 franc a year contract with Hetzel, provided that his publisher accepted it. But would Hetzel accept his account of a "voyage" far more "extraordinary" than his previous "voyages": A flight by men around the moon? Two years previously Hetzel had rejected his manuscript describing life in "Paris in the Twentieth Century", telling Verne that no one would ever believe him. What would his reaction to this tale of flight by men around the moon be? Jules Verne had been born on 8 February, 1828, near Nantes on the island of Feydau in the river Loire. His father Pierre had been a strict disciplinarian and young Jules had tried to escape his grasp by running away to sea when his was 11 years old. He had been caught and returned to his father, and his father had become even more strict with him. No doubt to escape even more severe punishment, Jules had promised his mother that in the future he would only travel in his imagination, and from this time forward Verne channeled his desire for freedom into writing. His father had managed to get him into law school and Verne had trained for the bar, but soon after graduating he had turned full time to his passion for writing. In 1850 his play "The Broken Straws" had a successful run in Paris. Besides writing comedies and librettos for the stage, Verne also turned his hand to writing children's literature. In 1851 he had written a "A Voyage by Balloon", a fictional account of a balloon flight. But the money had not been enough, and in 1857, with a new marriage to a young widow with two children, Verne had found himself with a need for even more of it. He had become a stockbroker but had continued to earn extra money on the side with his writing. When Verne had approached Hetzel with a treatise on a long flight by balloon, Hetzel had suggested that he rewrite the piece as fiction. Verne had taken Hetzel's suggestion, and in 1863 Hetzel had published the successor to "A Voyage by Balloon", "Five Weeks in a Balloon". The publication had been a fantastic success, and Hetzel had offered Verne a contract for 20,000 francs a year for two "novels of a new type" per year. After the setback with "Paris in the Twentieth Century", Hetzel accepted for publication "A Journey to the Center of the Earth" which told of an exploration by cave to the core of the Earth. But what of the new manuscript? Verne's books had always used available technologies. The balloons of "A Voyage by Balloon" and "Five Weeks in a Balloon" had been developed in the preceding century, and in 1863 Verne himself would fly on his friend Felix Tournachon's balloon "Geant". Cave exploration was also a well developed field, and "A Journey to the Center of the Earth" had relied on the endless speculation on the interior of the Earth which appeared in scientific journals. But Verne's new manuscript "From the Earth to the Moon" instead of being based on existing technologies, was based on his own idea that it would be possible to launch a manned spaceship on a flight to the moon by firing it from a massive gun. Verne had calculated the mass and velocity requirements of the gun and spacecraft, and had had his calculations verified by expert astronomers, and had begun to write. The manned capsule that Verne described in his manuscript would be made out of aluminum, the rarest and lightest metal known at the time. The capsule, shaped like a bullet, would be fired toward the moon by a giant gun. The manned capsule would use a water shock absorber to protect the crew from the impact of being fired from the gun, and would carry its own atmosphere, because, as Verne recognized, the vacuum of space had none. Hetzel accepted Verne's manuscript, and "From the Earth to the Moon" would be published in 1865. Its success would lead to the sequel, "Around the Moon" being published in 1867. While in "From the Earth to the Moon" Verne's voyagers intended to land on the Moon, in the sequel "Around the Moon" a meteorite would deflect their course to one that went around it. Despite their efforts to change course by setting off "powerful fireworks" inside tubes placed around the capsule, the voyagers would end up circling the Moon and being pulled by gravity back to Earth. Verne's voyagers would be rescued alive after their capsule lands in the Pacific Ocean. It is interesting to note that while Verne could imagine using rockets to alter the course of the capsule, he could not imagine using them to place it on its course towards the moon. Verne used existing technology, and the rockets of the time were too weak to lift much of anything. But Verne was the first writer to seriously consider using any means for man to travel to the Moon, and his writings would become the inspiration without equal in inspiring the men who would first develop the means for man to travel to the Moon. A century later the Canadian Gerald Bull would design a massive cannon which could launch a satellite into space for the government of the United States. When work on his project was stopped, Bull would refuse to give it up and would instead go to work for outlaw governments. For the European descended rulers of the Africans in South Africa, Bull would design advanced artillery shells which would allow them to earn foreign currency. But the goal of the space gun would still beckon Bull, and when the insane leader of Iraq Saddam Husein offered Bull the resources to design a cannon capable of delivering poisonous gas warheads from Iraq to Israel, Bull would accept his offer. Fortunately, agents of the Israeli security service Mossad would kill Bull, and the delivery of components for his gun would be stopped. 1874, BRUSSELS. The use by man of poisons as weapons stretches back into the ages. Primitive man had often been attacked by poisonous snakes and fish, and he had also noted that eating certain plants would lead to sickness or death. He soon learned that tipping his spear in fluids extracted from these plants and animals would turn the most glancing blow in to a fatal wound. When hand held guns had first been developed there had been no standard shape or material for their bullets. While round shot soon became the standard charge, soldiers had noticed that if a nail was placed through the shot particularly nasty wounds would result. By common agreement such shot was considered ungentlemanly, and its use would lead to severe retribution being taken against its user if he was captured. In 1874 an agreement was reached by several different nations on the types of weapons whose use in war would be permitted and not result in retribution later being taken against their user. Under the terms of the "Brussels Convention" the use of poisoned bullets or poison was banned along with the use of certain other weapons. 1899, INTERNATIONAL PEACE CONFERENCE, THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS. The advances in chemistry had led to the development of new poisons, poisons which did not have to be applied to a projectile to be delivered The gas "phosgene" had been discovered in 1812, and was by now being used commercially. In the late 1880's the liquid form of the gas "chlorine" had become commercially available. The use of poisons had always been viewed with fear by man, not only because of their strength but even more fundamentally because they allowed their user to kill his victim undiscovered. The new poison gases were considered particularly loathsome because they would kill indiscriminately both soldier and civilian: not only did you not have to aim upon your enemy to kill him with gas, once they were fired it would be impossible to control who it killed. In 1899 and again in 1907 the major powers agreed "to abstain from the use of projectiles, the sole object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases," despite the active opposition of the United States. The United States claimed that since the character and effect of such weapons was unknown, they could not be described as being "more or less merciful than the missiles now permitted." 13 MAY, 1901, HOUSE OF COMMONS, LONDON. Winston Spencer Churchill was born in 1874 at Blenheim Palace. His father was a noble, Lord Randolph Churchill, a descendant of the John Churchill, First Duke of Marlboro, a hero who had led English forces against the French King Louis XIV. Lord Randolph was a leader of the British Conservative Party. Winston's mother Jeanette "Jennie" Jerome was the beautiful daughter of a wealthy New York financier. As was usual among the upper classes at the time, Winston's parents spent most of their time attending to their business and thus Winston was largely raised by a nanny, for whom he developed a deep affection. As there was nothing the young boy could do to make his parents spend more time with him, by the time he was five Winston developed into a depressive. Winston's father Lord Randolph had long before caught syphilis but it had gone into an asymptomatic phase before his marriage to Jennie. In 1881 the disease reemerged and entered its final phase of attacking Lord Randolph's central nervous system and he had a paralytic seizure. Lord Randolph and Jennie stopped having sex, and Winston's mother Jennie began to have affairs. Over the next decades Jennie would take on over twenty lovers and the cause of Lord Randolph's illness would become more and more apparent to all of London society. Besides intensifying Winston's feelings of abandonment, as neither parent wanted Winston around to witness their state, shame became part of Winston's emotional baggage as he became the butt of gossip among his schoolmates. When Winston was eight years old his parents separated him from his nanny and sent him to a boarding school. The headmaster of the school was a strict disciplinarian, so strict in fact that many of students would later conclude that he derived sexual pleasure from beating the bare bottoms of his students. Sad at being rejected by his parents, confused by the school, hurt by his headmaster, Winston soon became an angry fighter. By 1884 Winston had become such a problem that it became necessary for his parents to transfer him to another school. At the new school Winston also fought with the authorities, but despite the punishment he never gave in and finally he had been victorious. By 1888, when young Winston entered the English private high school Harrow, he came to the conclusion that he must become a great man. When his peers had hurt him he had openly told them that he would be greater than them. Being great meant being recognized, and Winston knew from his parents lack of recognition of him just how painful it could be not to be recognized. While his teachers recognized that young Winston was intelligent, they never understood why, despite his abilities, he did so poorly in his studies. What they failed to fathom was that by now Churchill was only applying himself to those things that he thought were important. A turning point occurred when young Churchill had come into the English class of Robert Somervell, who had showed affection for him. As a result of Somervell's encouragement, Churchill acquired an ability to use the English language which would benefit him for the rest of his life. Through the persistent efforts of his father Churchill finally gained admission to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. The anger that had been building in him for years had finally found a socially approved outlet, and Churchill threw himself into being a soldier. While he was a student at Sandhurst Churchill's ability with the English language, which had been so assiduously developed by Mr. Somervell, found it first public expression as Churchill had given a speech hoping to incite a riot over the banning of prostitutes from a London theater. By 1894 Lord Randolph's syphilis had progressed to the point at which he was raving, and Winston's mother Jennie came up with the scheme of starting on a one year voyage around the world so that his disintegration would not be witnessed by London society. Despite the gossip of his school mates, until then Winston had remained ignorant of cause of his father's decline. During the trip Winston finally discovered the cause of his father's illness. After less than a year Lord Randolph returned home and died. Later the same year Churchill's childhood nanny had also died. The life of a Hussar was hard on the purse, and Churchill needed money. In 1895 his unit had been given ten weeks leave before they were shipped off to India, and Churchill came up with a scheme for making some. The people of the island of Cuba off the coast of the United States had revolted against the King of Spain, and Churchill proposed reporting on the revolt for a newspaper. Using his connections, Churchill soon gained the endorsement of both the Spanish government and British military intelligence and went on his way. At the front in Cuba Churchill showed no fear of death or injury. Whether his actions were related to a suicidal impulse or not is difficult to say, but he had suffered from depression from a very early age. Following his first work as a war correspondent, Churchill returned to Britain and soon departed for India. A revolt had broken out there Churchill once again managed to get taken on as a war correspondent. The revolt was a fight without quarter, where no one could surrender and the Indians would torture wounded prisoners. At the war's end Churchill was still in need of money and pasted his dispatches into a book "The Story of the Malakand Field Force", which met with great commercial success. By this time revolt was brewing in the Sudan in Africa, and Churchill then managed to get transferred there so that he would be able to do more war reporting. Having renewed his ties to military intelligence, Churchill was assigned to a scouting party. He was the first to spot an enemy force and miraculously escaped when the enemy troops surrounded a group he was leading in an attempt to open a route for reinforcements. Apparently this close brush with death opened Churchill's eyes to the cruelty of war, and in his articles he protested the atrocities committed by some British troops. Churchill once again turned his dispatches into yet another book, this one titled "The River War". When Churchill returned to Britain he wrote a fictional novel "Savrola" and ran for election as a Conservative but was defeated. However, the British in South Africa were now about to subjugate the Dutch Boer settlers there and lay claim to the newly discovered gold and diamond deposits, and Churchill once again got a job as a war correspondent. Churchill rushed to South Africa and the front. Shortly after his arrival Churchill was invited to go aboard an armored train that was to explore the Boer front. When the Boers ambushed this train by blocking its track, Churchill took control of its engine and managed to get part of the train to safety. Churchill then attempted to return to the rest of the company, but was surrounded, and as he was unarmed he surrendered. When Churchill was captured he had had several anxious minutes attempting to get rid of "dumdum" expanding ammunition, ammunition which had been outlawed at the Hague. He knew that if the Boers found it he would be shot. Churchill first argued to the Boer authorities that he should not be in prison because he was just an unarmed press correspondent, but they rejected his claims. Under pressure from friends of Jennie, the Boers later reversed themselves, but by this time Churchill had already escaped. Churchill hopped a train and had then had the incredible luck of stumbling into the only English house for miles, whose occupants had helped him to escape into Portuguese East Africa. Churchill returned to South Africa. Because of Churchill's dispatches from the Sudan it had been resolved that no war correspondent could be a soldier, but the commanding officer made an exception and once again Churchill went to the front. But this time it was different. No longer were the British troops undertaking the slaughter of poorly armed indigenous peoples. This time they had faced a modern force equipped with machine guns instead of rifles, and artillery that used shells which could be much more rapidly loaded than the shot and powder used by cannon. The force Churchill was with was decimated by an artillery barrage; Churchill once again took field command, but the force was ordered to retreat. The British sent even more troops to South Africa. Churchill's mother Jennie arrived with a hospital ship under United States flag that she had succeeded in financing by appealing to wealthy Americans. The British soon returned to the field and Churchill once again accompany them as a correspondent, where he again repeatedly risked certain death. When the Boers' capital fell Churchill returned to London. Wealthy and famous from his writings, Churchill gave a series of public lectures to earn more money, and then he took his lectures to the United States and Canada to earn yet even more. By this time Churchill had enough money that he would remain independently wealthy for the rest of his life. Churchill returned to the political arena and won election to the House of Commons as a Conservative. While he supported an army capable of keeping subjugated the indigenous peoples of the Empire under British rule, his experience in South Africa of the effects of the modern weapons of war led him to conclude that Britain should avoid a war with France, Germany or Russia, and he now urged that defense expenditures should focus on the Navy, which was capable of isolating Britain from the continent. Churchill's second speech to Parliament reflected his views: "A European war cannot be anything but a cruel, heartrending affair which, if we are ever able to enjoy the bitter fruits of victory, must demand, perhaps for several years, the whole manhood of the nation, the entire suspension of peaceful industries, and the concentration to one end of every vital energy in the community... "In former days, when wars arose from individual causes, from the policy of a Minister or the passion of a King, when they were fought by small regular armies of professional soldiers, and when their course was retarded by the difficulties of communication and supply, it was possible to limit the liabilities of the combatants. "But now, when mighty populations are impelled against each other, each individual severally embittered and inflamed, when the resources of science and civilization sweep away everything that might mitigate their fury, a European war can only end in the ruin of the vanquished and the scarcely less fatal dislocation and exhaustion of the conquerors. Democracy is more vindictive than Cabinets: the wars of people will be more terrible than those of kings." 1904, LONDON. Seeing Britain's example, other nations had concluded that the way to prosperity was by building an Empire. The French and Dutch had been among the first to follow Britain, and as they were the among the first to lay claims, they had not come into conflict with Britain. By the time the Germans decided to follow suite, most of the prizes had been claimed, and the Germans had soon come into conflict with the other powers. The war in South Africa for diamonds and gold under the control of Dutch settlers had brought Britain close to conflict with Germany. The previous March Germany had made a claim to Morocco. Dismissing the Americans as hostile, the British Foreign Minister decided to enter into an alliance with France, the Entente Cordial, an alliance which would later be expanded to include Russia. 1905, BERLIN and PARIS The leaders of the governments of Germany and France decided to settle their dispute over Morocco by agreeing that neither of them should turn it into a colony. 1908, LONDON. Joseph Wells was a cricketeer, a sportsman, a rogue, and an atheist who earned his living as a gardener. In 1853, when he found out she was pregnant with their child, Joseph married Sarah Neals, the devout Christian maid of a house he worked at. Unable to find work as a groundsman, in 1855 Joseph took over a relative's china shop in Bromley. The couple would live there in poverty for many years to come. Joseph and Sarah's fourth child, Herbert George Wells, was born in 1866 in Kent, England. In 1873, when "Bertie" was seven years old, he had his leg broken in an accident at play. While his leg mended "Bertie" spent his time reading a large and diverse collection of materials. The books spurred Bertie's imagination and intellect. Not only was Bertie's family poor, Bertie was the youngest child and frail. For many years these frustrations of his youth found an outlet in his day dreams of leading an army in battle. In 1880, when Bertie was fourteen, his mother was offered a position as maid at great manor, and Bertie was apprenticed out. The apprenticeship failed, as did the one following it, and in 1883 Herbert ran away and became a teacher. He then won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science, and began his studies there in 1884. While attending school Wells started to attend debates and discussions by socialists, communists, anarchists, and Fabians. This last group thought that socialism could be established by gradual evolution instead of the revolution of Marx. By 1886 Wells had become a confirmed Democratic Socialist. He wrote a story for a small student magazine in which a man invented a machine and traveled into the future, where he found that the upper class and the lower class had evolved into two distinct species. In 1887 Wells suffered a severe kidney injury in a football match and was forced to drop out of school. After a period of dire poverty he again found employment as a teacher. In 1891 Wells married, but by 1892 he was spending time with a student. In 1893 Wells health failed, and he was forced to give up teaching. He then began a career as a journalist, and in 1894 he ran off with his former student, Catherine Robbins. In 1895 Wells reworked his earlier short story on time travel into "The Time Machine", and it was an instant success. The affair with his young student made Wells very happy and was a fount of energy for him. Over the next five years he rapidly turned out enough science fiction to make him a wealthy man. While the French science fiction writer Jules Verne had been optimistic about the impact of the discoveries of science on man, not so Wells. He remembered the day dreams of war and destruction of his youth, and he realized that not all men drop their youthful fantasies. Wells had been trained by the geneticist T. H. Huxley who had suggested to him that the evolution of the human species was not inevitable, and Wells was worried that if man's humanity to man lagged behind his scientific progress, the weapons science provided could lead the human race to destroy itself. In 1908 Wells wrote "The War in the Air", in which civilization is nearly destroyed by a war in which bombs containing poison gas are carried to their targets by Zeppelins and airplanes that flap their wings. Wells had spotted the start of a new era of warfare. Generally, when two groups of people had come into contact with one another, several outcomes had been possible. If the groups were sufficiently similar and resources were not constrained, the two groups might merge. If the two groups occupied differing economic niches, they might live together peacefully side by side. More usually, one group might dominate the other, restricting its economic opportunities, or more brutally the dominant group might just enslave the other. In more extreme cases there might be slaughter: the dominant group might kill all the men of the other group, leaving the women and children to be slaves; or the dominant group might kill the men and children, leaving only the women to be slaves. All these interactions between two groups of people were common before Wells time. What Wells saw was that the machinery of modern warfare could make common the most brutal interaction between two groups of people, that in which the dominant group completely killed the other group of people, and that if the two sides were well matched a mutual destruction could occur. Darwinian genetics had started many people thinking about man and war. It might be pointed out that not only is man the only mammal to wage war, but that he is the only mammal to walk upright. Strange as it may seem the two may be connected: not only is man the only mammal to walk upright, but woman is the only creature among the mammals to routinely die in childbirth. Before the advent of modern medicine some 5 per cent of women died giving birth. This meant that among any group of humans there would always be an imbalance between men and fertile women, a surplus of sexually active men seeking partners. This meant that in genetic terms it made sense for the sexually active men of one group of people to wage war on the other group. Either the surplus men would capture fertile females from the other group, thus increasing the chance of survival of their group's genes, or they would be killed, thus ensuring that resources available to their group would not be wasted supporting them. Seldom had one group of people completely slaughtered another: even in the most extreme case of migration the dominant group would usually enslave the women of the conquered group. Wells foresaw that man's use of modern machines to conduct war could change things. 1910, LONDON. Churchill thought that free trade contributed not only to the prosperity of Britain but also to its peaceful relations with the other major powers. When the Conservatives proposed tariffs to strengthen British industry, Churchill broke with the leadership of the party. Later, by 1904, Churchill had come to conclusion that labor unions must be allowed and given rights, and he had switched from the Conservatives to the Liberal Party. When the Liberals gained control of the government in 1906 Churchill became a member of the cabinet attached to the Colonial Office. He then lost his seat in Parliament when the Liberal vote split after H.G. Wells urged the working people to back the candidate of the Marxist Social Democratic Foundation. Churchill took his time out of office to marry Clementine Hozier, daughter of landed gentry, and started a family. As while he had been at the Colonial Office Churchill had championed unemployment compensation in South Africa, he was now appointed to the Board of Trade where he supported labor unions, unemployment insurance, minimum wage, and limited working hours. He continued to oppose defense expenditures: "I think it is to be greatly deprecated that persons should try to spread belief in this country that war between Great Britain and Germany is inevitable. It is all nonsense." 1911. Once again a dispute over Mediterranean North Africa led France and Germany into conflict, and Germany dispatched a gunboat to Agadir. Italy used the occasion to attack Tripoli, a region which was part of the Turk's Ottoman Empire. The Serbs in the Balkans had been suffering under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for many years, and they saw the Italian attack as providing them with their chance for independence and they revolted. The Serbs were the neighbors of Germany's ally Austro-Hungary, and Austro-Hungary feared that the Serbs would enter into an alliance with their fellow slavs, the Russians. As it appeared that war between France and Germany might occur soon, the government of Britain decided that it would enter this war on the side of France, with whom it had warred for colonies a century earlier. The King of Germany and the German government concluded that they needed a fleet capable of facing the British fleet and they began its construction. 1911, LONDON. Strikes by unions in Britain started in 1910 and brought the country to a state of collapse by 1911, Since this area was his responsibility, Churchill was in trouble at the Home Office. But as war between France and Germany appeared eminent, Churchill, who earlier had not seen any danger from Germany, concluded that Britain would be best served by following the course it done in the past: by allying itself with the second most powerful continental power, Britain could be sure of being the absolute victor of any war. He urged an alliance with France, and sought and gained control of the management of the British Navy as First Lord of the Admiralty. This time war was averted, but Churchill would continue to prepare Britain for a war which he felt was inevitable. He would take up flying and begin exploring the use of the airplane as a military weapon. While at his wife's urging he would soon give up flying, he would continue to support the development of military aircraft. 28 JUNE, 1914, SAREJEVO, BOSNIA. While riding through the streets of Sarajevo, Austrian Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were shot and killed by a Serbian nationalist. Austria responded by demanding that the government of Serbia suppress all anti-Austrian activity and allow a group of Austrian officers entry to investigate the assassination. War appeared eminent, and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill kept the fleet on alert, while the government of Britain thought that it would be able to avoid involvement. The Czar of Russia ordered a mobilization, intending to protect his fellow slavs in Serbia. Despite Serbia's acceptance of the Austrian demands, Russia rejected the King of Germany's demands to demobilize, and Germany soon declared war on Russia. The German government now provoked war with France. The German ambassador in Paris was instructed to find out if the French would remain neutral, and if he was told by the French that they would remain neutral he was to present them with unacceptable territorial demands for Verdun and Toul. In the event France honored its agreement with Russia, and Germany declared war on France. Finally, Britain was allied to France and Russia and Britain declared war on Germany. Lest anyone should think that it was merely the assassination of Franz Ferdinand that caused the First World War, he should remember that at the root of the War stood the conflicting desires of the European countries to subjugate the same foreign peoples. The leaders of Germany had clearly performed their calculation. They had decided that their interests in the Balkans conflicted with those of Russia, that their interests in North Africa conflicted with those of France, and that their interests in the oil rich Near East conflicted with those of Britain. The leaders of Germany had calculated that they could win a war with Russia, France, and Britain and they were intent upon provoking it. The misery and suffering that would be endured by ordinary German men and women who would bear the brunt of the war played little role in their calculation. Most likely the leaders of Germany expected that this war would be like their last victorious war with France in 1870: a quickly rapid offensive entirely fought by the professional military. While there had been improvements in the technologies of war since then, the leaders of Germany felt secure that they had technical supremacy with their superbly engineered Zeppelin airships, submarines, machine guns and artillery. The leaders of Germany would nearly be right in their calculations. FALL, 1914. When war finally came, despite the fact that he was the First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill personally led a delaying action at Antwerp, Belgium, which kept the Channel ports open to Britain. As a result of Churchill's action, after a rapid initial success the German offensive was stopped by the French and British just short of Paris. The use of rapid fire machine guns and shell loaded artillery then resulted in a stalemate in which the opposing armies faced each other in parallel trenches that ran the length of Europe. 22 APRIL, 1915, YPRES, FRANCE. As the war progressed, the Germans began to suffer from a shortage of the nitrates used to manufacture explosives, as the British blockade cut them off by from their usual imported supplies. The chemist Fritz Haber was assigned to the problem. Teargas had already been used by all sides in attempts to break the trench lines, but without success. As he was looking for something to replace the high explosives used to fill artillery shells, Haber began to investigate using teargas to fill them. He rapidly concluded that teargas would be ineffective, but then he began to investigate the use of chlorine. Haber finally proposed to the German command that instead of teargas, poisonous chlorine gas be released from cylinders to be blown by the wind into the lines of Germany's enemies. This would have the dual advantage of saving on artillery shells, and as the gas would not be carried by a shell, Germany would still technically be in compliance with the Geneva Accords. Haber estimated that the poison gas would so quickly disperse that the German troops would need no protection from it when they advanced. On 22 April the Germans first used poison gas in warfare. The results to the French were devastating. Unfortunately for the Germans, Haber's calculations of the gas's dispersion rate were wrong, and when their troops advanced they were rapidly overcome by it as well. The French line held, and the French rapidly improvised gas masks. And so it would continue over the next three years. The Germans would introduce a new gas or a means of delivering it and would use it. Despite the weapon's effect the line would hold, and then the British and the French would find a counter measure and adopt the German's technology themselves. Haber would return home, where his wife would attempt to persuade him to stop his work. She failed in her efforts, and when Haber left home in May to launch gas attacks against the Russians she committed suicide. 20 OCTOBER, 1915, LONDON. Churchill returned to Britain from France and began experiments to develop armored cars for use against the German trenches. When these proved inadequate he began experimenting with armored caterpillars, which would later be known as "tanks". Thus Churchill was the father of the tank, and several years later the tank would prove effective in attacking the German's defensive trenches and would play a large role in Britain's victory. In the East the war was following a different course. The Russians did not have the industrial base of the Germans and they were completely unprepared for the use of either machine guns or gas. They were presenting an ineffective defense, and only the demands of the western front prevented the Germans from routing them. As an additional complication, it was impossible for Britain to supply the Russians. The Turks shared with Germany and Austria a desire not to have their former colony of Serbia come under Russian domination. The Turks had come into conflict with Britain and France when those two countries had established control over Egypt, a former part of the Ottoman Empire, and the Turks had also come into conflict with Britain as it had expanded its oil wells in Mesopotamia, in territory that had also formerly been under the control of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey had entered the war on the side of Germany. The Turks then closed the straits at the Dardanelles, and thus closed the warm water route of Britain and France to Russia. The Turks also attacked Russia, and if their attack continued Russia would be forced to send troops to the south to deal with their attacks, thus freeing German troops for their western front to fight against Britain and France. Early on Churchill proposed forcing the straits, but his plan was blocked by those who thought the troops were needed on the Western Front. Churchill then argued that the Straits of the Dardanelles could be forced by the navy alone and received permission to begin. When the naval attack failed, it was decided to make an amphibious assault. By then the Turks had already dug in and the situation quickly evolved into the wastage of trench warfare. Following the Germans first use of poison gas earlier in the year, the British had been quick to adopt its use as well. Churchill now proposed that mustard gas should be used against the Turkish troops guarding the Dardanelles at Gallipoli. He faced the opposition of some of his colleagues, for while the use of gas against the Germans was justified, in as much as they had been the first to use gas against the British troops, the Turks had never used gas, and thus the use of gas against them was hard to justify morally. Churchill argued that since the Turks had massacred millions of Armenians, and since they had been shooting British troops attempting to surrender, they had lost their moral claim. He proposed that massive quantities of gas should be sent to the Dardanelles, where the south westerly gales would blow the gas into the Turkish lines. Churchill's proposal was not adopted, and the Gallipoli campaign ended in defeat, He was forced to resign as First Lord of the Admiralty and soon took command of a small unit in France. 24 FEBRUARY, 1917, THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON. At the beginning of the war the British set up an office of propaganda which had gradually extended its influence to dominate nearly all print and all motion pictures in the United States. Most newspaper editors were already anglophiles, but they had been further encouraged to favor Britain by the use of social groups. As motion pictures were controlled by film distributors, the British urged them not to allow their feature films to be shown at theaters that showed German newsreels. The British government also appointed Edmond de Rothschild to conduct an economic campaign to involve the United States in the war on the Britain's side. de Rothschild sold at once all United States securities held by the British, creating a collapse of the United States stock market and a recession. To overcome this recession President Wilson, who had run again for presidency and been elected on the slogan "He kept us out of war", was persuaded to allow the private placement of loans to Britain. Borrowing by Britain from the United States was so great that by 1917 that a British defeat in the war would mean the collapse of the United States' economy. In a further move Britain cut all telegraph lines between the United States and Germany, preventing direct communication between Germany and the United States. This permitted the British to intercept all telegraph traffic between the United States and Germany and the intercepted messages enabled them to break the German codes. To counter this the Germans finally persuaded the United States government to allow them to use their own diplomatic lines. It became clear to German Foreign Secretary Zimmerman that the United States would enter into the war on the side of the British and French. Zimmerman began to search for a counter measure. In 1914 Wilson had sent troops down to the border with Mexico to stop the raids of Pancho Villa, but now it appeared the new Mexican President was starting up where Villa left off. Zimmerman proposed to the government of the United States' neighboring country Mexico that it wage war against the United States to try and reclaim lands recently lost to the United States. The British intercepted this telegram, decoded it, and now provided it to President Woodrow Wilson. The British representative showed him that they had indeed broken the German diplomatic ciphers and codes. Wilson became livid with rage. The Germans had proposed to Mexico that it make war against the United States. Adding insult to injury, the Germans had sent their proposal over United States own diplomatic telegraph lines that he had let them use so that they could negotiate a cease fire and peace. He decided that the United States would go to war. German Foreign Secretary Zimmerman's telegram was released to the newspapers with a false story about how it had been acquired. The people of the United States were outraged. Their representatives were outraged. Within a month war the United States would declare war. The British government had succeeded in consciously engineering the United States' entry into the First World War on the side of the French, British, Italians, and Russians. 1917, BERLIN. Hermann Oberth was born in 1894 in Hermannstadt, Transylvania, a German speaking area that was at that time a part of Hungary. The son of a prosperous physician, Hermann inherited his father’s intelligence and even as a young boy demonstrated a natural ability for mathematics and physics. In 1905, when Hermann was 11 years old, his mother gave him copies of Verne's lunar books, and Oberth became completely enthralled and read them time and again. He quickly concluded that the force of acceleration from being fired from a gun would instantly crush to death Verne's "voyagers" inside their lunar "shell", but instead of giving up on the idea of flight by man to the moon Oberth began to think of other ways of escaping the Earth's gravity. The first scheme he came up with was gradual acceleration of the capsule by electromagnets. [This idea would be developed many decades later by the scientist Gerard O'Neil.] Oberth also briefly considered using an airplane and also considered using the centrifugal force stored by a large wheel as means of escaping the Earth's gravity. Then Oberth had noticed that Verne's passengers had used rockets to change the course of their "shell". With his innate abilities he realized that rockets could be used to generate much larger forces than those used to change the direction of flight of the "shell": They could be used to launch the "shell" itself. Oberth began to study the problem in depth. At this time rockets used solid fuels, were small, had a limited range, and were liable to explosion. Completely independently of the American scientist Robert Goddard and the Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, young Oberth began to develop a physics of rocket flight, and at a time when there were no liquid fueled rockets at all in existence, he came to the conclusion that the most practical rocket for spaceflight would be to use liquid fuels. When it had become time for him to attend university, Oberth realized there would be no money in physics and at the urging of his father he entered into the study of medicine. Oberth continued to develop his theories, and in 1917 he proposed to the German War Department that a liquid fueled rocket for long range bombardment be developed. They turned his proposal down. FALL, 1917, LONDON. While Churchill was in France the area of the front that he was assigned to neither undertook any major offensives nor was it subjected to any major assaults. Churchill's family in Britain kept him well supplied and as an officer he enjoyed considerable freedom of movement. Churchill wrote a memo proposing to commanding General Douglas Haig that they use flamethrowers, infantry shields, and tunneling operations to overcome the entrenched German machine guns. As Haig harbored the illusion that massed cavalry would be as effective against entrenched machine guns as it was against entrenched rifles, he ignored Churchill's suggestions. Churchill was finally given command of a battalion and sent to the lines. By exposing himself to enemy fire again and again he demonstrated his complete lack of fear of being killed or wounded. On a brief visit home Churchill gave a speech critical of the government's management of the war. It led to an uproar, and Churchill resigned from the Army and returned to Parliament to continue his criticism. He was finally appointed Minister of Munitions. Following the German Army's first use of gas, the British adopted its use, and ironically while the superbly engineered German trenches had stood up well to all previous weapons, they were susceptible to gas. The Germans proposed through the International Red Cross that the use of poison gas be abandoned. Churchill declined. He told the French Minister of Munitions that he did not trust the Germans, and that he believed that once they gave up gas the Germans would go back on their word and start to use it again. Churchill pointed out that the prevailing winds favored their use of gas, and he doubled the British production of poison gas. The International Red Cross protested that the use of gas was inhumane. "So is the rest of the war," Churchill pointed out to them. 9 NOVEMBER, 1917, ALL RUSSIA CONGRESS OF SOVIETS, SAINT PETERSBURG. There are many reasons why democratic institutions did not develop in Russia. Among them may be listed the poor agricultural yields caused by the harsh climate; the lack of ethnic cohesion; the poor lines of transportation and communication; the low overall level of industrial development; the intellectual climate fostered by their form of Christianity; the consequences of attacks by external enemies; the weakness of their kings as leaders. Just as there are many reasons, over the years there had been many attempts by many groups in Russia to overthrow the Czar and establish a democracy. There had always been two main areas where economic problems had led to opposition to the Czar. One area had been the cities, where the problem was with the wages and working conditions of the laborers in the factories of the newly industrialized nation. The other area had been the countryside, where the opposition was composed of the landless farm workers. In 1905 a major revolt took place against the government but it had finally been suppressed and its leaders had gone into hiding or exile. At the start of this war German military intelligence and the German Foreign Ministry had begun to support the Russian revolutionaries, and following the entry of the United States into the war their support of the revolutionaries had been stepped up. Lacking an industrial base, Russia found itself at a disadvantage in a mechanized war and suffered massive losses. When the people of Russia decided to revolt the German government had in place several revolutionary organizations. Among those revolutionary organizations was the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party. Presented with an opportunity, the Germans had quickly returned its leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin from his exile in Switzerland. Initially the revolt had led to the establishment of a democratic government, but the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, supported by massive amounts of German funds, set up "Soviets", structures paralleling those of the government. With German support Lenin managed to take control of the "Soviets" of the other cities in Russia and thus had a majority of the delegates to an "All Union Congress of Soviets", and with German support he now took control of Russia. 8 JANUARY, 1918, WASHINGTON. Immediately upon taking power Lenin ordered a cease fire. Lenin then sent Trotsky to negotiate with the Germans, hoping this would damage his main rival for control of the new government. Trotsky delayed accepting the original German terms of surrender set down the previous December because they were so harsh. Instead he invited other countries to take part in the negotiations, hoping that the socialists in not only Germany and Austria but also around the world would arise. Woodrow In response to Trotsky's initiatives, United States President Woodrow Wilson called a joint meeting of Congress and explicitly set out the war goals of the United States, the "Fourteen Points". The German people enthusiastically embraced what Wilson considered to be acceptable terms for Germany's surrender, but since their government did not agree with them, the German people set out to change their government. 14 MARCH, 1918, SAINT PETERSBURG. When Trotsky's plan came to nothing, he finally told the Germans that Russia would withdraw from the war, but would not sign a peace treaty. The Germans did not accept Trotsky's cease fire in place and continued to wage war against Russia. s Lenin thought that the Russia Army was too weak to resist the Germans and that its remaining strength would be needed in the upcoming civil war, he always urged that the German terms be accepted. The Allies refused to recognize the Bolshevik's new government in Russia and were beginning to finance counter revolutionary groups. Faced with the prospect of losing even the little of the country that they had left, the Bolsheviks finally surrendered to the Germans and signed a peace treaty. The All Russia Congress of Soviets ratified the treaty on March 14, 1918. With the Germans on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, the government of Russia was moved to Moscow. By the use of covert (hidden) operations Germany had managed to disable Russia, one of its opponents in the war. 10 AUGUST, 1918. The German troops were just as enamored with Wilson's Fourteen Points as were the German people. When the allies launched a new attack on 8 August, the German troops mutinied and began to riot. German General Ludendorff concluded that the war must be ended before Germany, like Russia, was plunged into the throes of a socialist revolt. Prince Wilhelm now came to visit Ludendorff, and Ludendorff told him he could no longer guarantee military victory. "I see that I must balance accounts. We are at the end of our ability to do anything. The war must be ended." When they met at Spa several days later the King and the Generals would authorize the beginning of peace negotiations based on Wilson's Fourteen Points. 10 NOVEMBER, 1918, GERMANY. The pastor summoned those wounded men that were able to walk to a meeting. The pastor was sobbing. A revolution had broken out, he told the men, the House of Hohen Zollern had fallen and a republic had been proclaimed. The men began to weep. The war was now lost, the pastor continued, and the Reich was throwing itself unconditionally upon the mercy of its enemies. One of the patients became so enraged that he almost passed out. He had been gassed with mustard by the British at Werwick during their last offensive and had been blinded and burned. While his vision had come back to some extent, and the chemical burns to his genitals were healing, he still feared that his vision would never return to the extent that he would ever be able to fulfill his lifelong desire of becoming an artist. His vision narrowed again as the pastor sobbed his message and he was barely able to see as he felt his way back to his sick bed. A few days before a group of sailors from Kiel had come to the hospital, calling for the patients to join them in their revolt against the government. They had been led by Jewish boys who had been staying in a hospital for gonorrhea patients. Why didn't someone shoot them?, he wondered. As he lay there weeping, the twenty nine year old corporal swore eternal revenge upon those Jews: those lying thieves who had profited from the war and financed the British; those lying thieving Jewish cowards: those cowards who had evaded serving their country by catching venereal disease by being so morally weak as to satisfy their sexual urges with their dirty habits; those perverted lying thieving Jewish cowards who had used their freedom to become communists; those perverted lying thieving Jewish bolshevist cowards who had betrayed the fatherland by attacking the king while the enemy was attacking loyal Germans in the field. As long as he had breath, he would seek revenge for every loyal German who those lying thieving perverted Jewish bolshevist had ever betrayed. Adolf Hitler was born in Bavaria in 1889. Adolf's father Alois had been born illegitimately and probably because of this he abused both young Adolf and his mother until his death in 1903, when Adolf was 14. Adolf was a poor student, and after his graduation from school in 1905 he went to Linz where he hoped to establish himself as an artist. After his father Alois' death Adolf's mother began to receive a small pension from the state, and she had used part of that to support him in Linz. After two years in Linz Adolf had applied to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but had been turned down twice. Adolf's mother died in 1908 and the money that she had been sending him stopped coming. He fell into poverty, and about this time he began to develop a hatred for Jews which would later become an obsession. In 1912 Adolf decided that he would leave Vienna and go to stay with his illegitimate half brother Alois and Alois's wife and infant son in Liverpool, England. Adolf hoped that he would be able learn English, get a trade, and settle down in either England or the United States. Adolf did not manage to learn English, or to get a trade, and after a half year Alois and his wife finally managed to get rid of him. But Adolf was now a committed Anglophile, and his admiration and respect for Britain would remain with him throughout the rest of his life. Adolf returned to Germany and continued to drift. With the tensions rising in international relations, early in 1914 he was drafted despite his best efforts at evasion, but was then found medically unfit for military service. Later in that year, after the war started, Adolf voluntarily enlisted in the German Army. He served in the war carrying orders from headquarters to the front lines, and had been wounded and then gassed. JANUARY, 1919, LONDON. At the beginning of the war every country participating in it had taken steps to suppress the socialists who did not support their war efforts. In most countries the socialists were simply thrown into jail without trial. In the United States President Wilson threw several thousand members of the International Workers of the World (the "Wobblies") into a concentration camp without trial. When the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party overthrew the Czar, Britain, France, and the United States, sent troops there, ostensibly for the purpose of protecting shipments of supplies from falling into German hands, but mainly for the purpose of supporting counter revolutionary forces. Japan also sent troops to Russia, but in her case the motive was to seize territory in Russia's far east. That Winston Spencer Churchill intensely hated socialism and socialists is a fact; what the causes of this hatred were is a matter for speculation. While the writer H.G. Wells had cost him his seat in parliament, this does not seem to account for Churchill's hatred. Certainly socialism presented a very real threat to many of Churchill's friends, who were very wealthy and owned large amounts of property and factories, which they had very often gained by inheritance. Despite his liberal reforms, while Churchill had been Home Secretary he had sent troops to break strikes. However much he hated socialists, Churchill reserved particular ire for Bolshevik Communists. While the socialists at least respected the process of democratic elections, the communists held no such respect. Perhaps one of the most important factors in the development of Churchill's hatred of socialism and communism may lie in the execution by the Russian Bolsheviks of the Czar and his family, who were relatives of the British royal family. Though now only Minister of Munitions, Churchill planned and saw implemented all of the measures the British took against the new Bolshevik government in Russia: sending arms to the counter revolutionaries, sending British troops to Russia, and recognizing the government established by the counter revolutionaries. He gave speeches in public condemning the Bolsheviks, and the policy of warring against the Bolsheviks came to be seen as his alone. Following Germany's surrender Churchill was once again appointed to the cabinet and became Secretary of State for War. He then called for war against the Bolshevik government, but the British Prime Minister Lloyd George realized that if he involved British troops in a new war against Russia there would be a socialist revolution in Britain. In a vote among the members of the cabinet Churchill's plan was defeated. Lloyd George's appraisal of the sentiments of the British troops proved correct. Having served through the horror of the war, now that that war was over the troops were demanding their immediate release. Desperate to stop the revolt at home, Churchill came up with a scheme for drafting men to replace them and the revolt among them died down. 14 FEBRUARY, 1919, VERSAILLES, FRANCE. As the Russian civil war progressed troops from Britain, the United States, France, Italy, Greece, Serbia, and Japan and Czechoslovak nationalists all fought in support of the counter revolutionaries. The allies who ostensibly were now meeting to discuss the terms of the German and Austrian surrender, were also using the time to discuss whether to conduct a war against the Bolsheviks in Russia. President Wilson told Churchill that he wanted all foreign troops in Russia withdrawn. Churchill suggested that volunteers should be allowed to go to Russia and that arms should be sent to the counter revolutionaries. Wilson told Churchill that he doubted that volunteers would go and told him that the arms would be "assisting reactionaries". After the meeting Wilson would leave France and sail for home, probably with the intention of closing all further debate on the matter. But Wilson's departure from Versailles would leave the French and British able to impose harsh terms of surrender on the Germans, terms of surrender so harsh that they would later lead to tragic consequences. MARCH, 1919, LONDON. After President Woodrow Wilson left Versailles Churchill still continued the talks on Russia, until Lloyd George told him that any British support to the counter revolutionaries must be limited to arms shipments. Lloyd George felt that the British troops were on the verge of a socialist revolt; French troops in Russia had already mutinied and had had to be withdrawn. Upon Churchill's return to London Lloyd George asked him to come up with a plan for the withdrawal of British troops from Russia. Churchill proposed that a small "Rescue Force" be assembled and sent to Russia to provide aid to the British troops as they evacuated. He wanted this "Rescue Force" to be equipped with a new poison gas (which one?) which had been recently discovered. "I should very much like the Bolsheviks to have it.", he declared. Churchill's appeal to be allowed to use this new gas against the Bolsheviks was defeated by the Cabinet. 12 SEPTEMBER, 1919, MEETING OF THE GERMAN WORKER'S PARTY, MUNICH. Although they had been defeated by the Allies, the German High Command still had power. They decided that the socialists would not take control of the government of Germany, and they were now using their powers both official and legal and unofficial and illegal to stop them. The German High Command's first efforts had focused on destabilizing the socialists. After being discharged from the military hospital, Hitler found work as an Army spy. After a socialist revolt in Munich was put down Corporal Hitler was assigned to infiltrate a group of socialists and identify those that had been responsible for the murder of several members of a para-military right wing group. The people Corporal Hitler identified were arrested and executed. To further contain the socialists the German generals decided to give their troops political indoctrination courses. Hitler was assigned to this course and began to develop his theories about the Jewish financiers and bolshevists and their impact on Germany. He learned that many of his fellow soldiers shared his beliefs, and he did so well in the class that he himself was assigned to give political indoctrination courses to returned prisoners of war. As an instructor he further developed his rationalizations and arguments, and he emerged from this assignment as a persuasive orator. By this time General Ludendorff and the War Ministry were assigning soldiers to various anti-socialist para-military organizations financed by wealthy industrialists, the "Free Crops". The organization of the General Staff department responsible for propaganda and liaison with para-military and political groups was being undertaken by Ernst Roehm. A sadistic homosexual who had been disfigured in the war, Roehm had already helped to organize a para-military group called "The Iron Fist". Among his other efforts he would now organize bands of thugs from the ranks of former soldiers into another group, the "Reich War Flag". Roehm also had already visited with the German Worker's Party. The German Worker's Party had been founded on the ideas of Alfred Rosenberg. Rosenberg was an Estonian of German descent who had gone to Moscow to study architecture. After the Bolshevik Revolution Rosenberg had fled Russia for Riga, Latvia and had then tried to enlist in the German Army but had been refused. Rosenberg had then worked as a liaison between been other Russians who had fled the Bolsheviks and the German anti-Semitic Thule Society. Rosenberg became acquainted with Deitrich Eckart, publisher of the "Racist Observer" (Voelkischer Beobachter). Eckart in turn had been a friend of Anton Drexler, a Munich machinist who had actually started the German Worker's Party. Rosenberg had also become acquainted with Max Erwin von Scheueber-Richter, an adventurer who enjoyed financial support from members of the nobility, and the funds from the nobles and Russian refugees would finance the formation of the German Worker's Party. Anyone trying to study Hitler's rise to power will find confusion, perhaps because anyone trying to find a good description of Roehm's activities during this period will look in vain. Principally this is not due to a lack of records or eyewitnesses but rather because historians have been unable to face how deeply seated the ugliness of Hitler's thinking was rooted in German society. Anti-semitism had long been encouraged by the Christian churches in Germany, and it still is, because on a very fundamental level, no religion in any country anywhere can do otherwise. Reports of the British Jewish financier Rothschild's role in involving the United States in the World War were beginning to surface in corrupted in form in Germany. Many German people were impoverished and definitely noticed and resented the wealth that the war industries had provided to some. With the encouragement of the churches, the anger at Rothschild's activities and the guilt for war profits, instead of being assigned to those who had earned it, was being assigned to the Jews as a people. Alfred Rosenberg's principle contribution to this mix was the "thesis" that Communism and World Judaism were the same thing. This concept would allow the wealthy in Germany to align with those Germans whose anti-semitism was being used to divert the guilt for the war profits and with those Germans whose resentment of other economic dislocations was being similarly channeled. No one can deny that the leader of the German Army, Ludendorff, was a representative of the wealthy and that they were determined to stop Bolshevism. And no one can deny that Roehm was the man principally in charge of this effort. Roehm's contribution to the mix was to bring together Ludendorff, with his control over the force of the Army and his support from the wealthy, with the anti-semites. Most certainly on Roehm's orders, Carl Myer, Hitler's commanding officer, now sent Corporal Hitler to visit the German Workers' Party. Hitler attended his first Party meeting on 12 September, 1919 in Munich. Corporal Hitler found an almost perfect mirror of his own thinking in the party's platform, which held that Jews, on other words bolshevists financiers, were responsible for Germany's plight. With his leadership skills developed by the Army, Hitler would be invited to handle the small party's propaganda. Hitler would soon leave the Army to take control of the newly renamed National Socialist German Workers' Party, usually know by the abbreviation of its name as the "Nazi" Party. Roehm himself would join the Nazi Party a short time later. DECEMBER, 1919. The British socialist Labour Party gained support by calling for an end to support of the Russian counter revolutionaries, and Lloyd George's government was under pressure. After coming very close to victory, the armies of the Russian counter revolutionaries were defeated by the Bolsheviks. Despite the fact that Churchill was blamed for the British support of the Russian counter revolutionaries, he managed to retain his office and would oversee the reductions of the British army, naval, and air forces. 13 MARCH 1920, BERLIN. The Allied Control Commission became alarmed at the growing power of the para-military groups that Ludendorff and Roehm had organized, and at their request the German government issued an order that the units disband. Ludendorff and Roehm now staged a coup against the German government in Berlin using the troops of the "Free Corps", one of the para-military groups that German General Ludendorff had organized after the war, and they installed Dr. Kapp as the new leader of Germany. A simultaneous coup against the government in Bavaria was conducted by the Reichswehr and Free Corps units there, units which were also under Ludendorff and Roehm's control. They installed a government under the control of Gustav von Karl. Ludendorff and Roehm now chose Adolf Hitler to serve as the liaison between the groups in Munich and Berlin. Hitler left for Berlin aboard an airplane together with the racist Dietrich Eckart. But when Hitler arrived tin Berlin he was told that the socialists had organized a general strike and that Kapp was fleeing the country. Hitler and Eckart returned to Munich. While the Kapp government had already been overthrown Berlin, the German Bolsheviks would now launch a civil war and the German Army would launch a counter offensive. With Germany in civil war the Allies would drop their demand for the dismantlement of the para-military units in Bavaria, and von Karl would remain in power. While Ludendorff and Roehm failed in seizing control of all of Germany, they succeeded in seizing control of Bavaria. 1920, WARSAW. POLAND. Jozef Pulsudski was born in 1867 in a Poland which was at that time a part of the Russian Empire. His mother instilled in Pulsudski a hatred for Poland's Russian occupiers, and this hatred later led to Pilsudski's expulsion from medical school. Pilsudski had then become involved with socialists, and these connections led to his conviction in 1887 of plotting the assassination of Czar Alexander III. The Russians imprisoned Pilsudski for five years in Siberia, and Pilsudski emerged determined to start an armed revolution to free Poland. Pilsudski joined the Polish Socialist Party and began publication of its newspaper, "The Worker". In 1900 the Russians arrested Pilsudski again, but this time he had faked insanity in order to get transferred to a hospital from which he then escaped. When the Russo-Japanese War broke out in 1904 Pilsudski went to Tokyo to seek the aid of the Japanese government in his effort to free Poland, but they declined to support him. Upon his return to Poland Pilsudski found that the Polish Socialist Party was in league with the Russian socialists and that they had decided that if a socialist government was installed in Russia it would no longer be necessary for Poland to be independent. At that point Pilsudski broke with the Polish socialists. Pilsudski then robbed a Russian mail train and used the money to arm and train a para-military group. In 1910 the Austrians helped Pilsudski to make his group legal and open. By 1914 Pilsudski concluded that not only was a future European war inevitable, it could be turned to Poland's advantage: "the problem of the independence of Poland will be definitely solved only if Russia is beaten by the Austria-Hungary and Germany, and Germany vanquished by France, Great Britain, and the United States; it is our duty to bring that about." As Pilsudski predicted, war came, and until 1916 his group fought with the Austrians against the Russians. On 5 November, 1916 Austria-Hungary and Germany proclaimed Poland's independence and Pilsudski took command of the new nation's army. But Germany and Austria-Hungary had had no intention of an independent Poland, but instead one under their control. Pilsudski refused to swear allegiance to them, and they imprisoned him. After Germany and Austria Hungary were defeated they released Pilsudski. Upon his return to Poland Pilsudski was proclaimed not only commander in chief of the Polish Army but also head of state. After the Russian Bolsheviks' Red Army put down the counter revolution in Russia they turned their attention to regaining the territories they had lost by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, as well as to the prospect of consolidating a Bolshevik government in Germany. Pilsudski now held the Red Army outside of Warsaw, and then mounted a counter offensive and defeated them decisively. As a result of this defeat Lenin and the other leaders of the new Soviet Union signed a peace treaty that recognized Poland and abandoned any plans of a military movement into Europe to spread their revolution. 1920, WASHINGTON. The United States Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence became aware of an opportunity. A Japanese naval attache, Commander Yoshitake Uyeda, in an attempt to gain information had started to give parties in his quarters for secretaries from the United States Navy. When the Office of Naval Intelligence learned of this they decided to place one of their spies among the girls that Uyeda entertained. Uyeda's assistant, Lieutenant Commander Kiyoshi Hasegawa, revealed to this woman that a copy of the Japanese Navy's code book was kept in their embassy in Washington. Agents of the Office of Naval Intelligence then broke into the Japanese consulate and made a photographic copy of the code book. 29 JUNE 1921, MUNICH. With the freedom and protection of the von Karl government, and with the encouragement and support of Ludendorff and Roehm, Hitler managed to greatly enlarge the size of the Nazi Party. The von Karl government used Hitler's and Roehm's thugs to disrupt the meetings of the socialists and to beat them up, while Roehm encouraged army men to join the Nazi party and encouraged the Army itself to provide the Party with funds. With his talents refined in the Army's propaganda school, Hitler was a forceful speaker, and his speeches not only drew people into the Nazi party but also provided the party with financial support. But the Nazi Party was still a democratic organization, and in its current form Hitler knew it could not be used as a para-military organization to seize control of the government in Berlin. Hitler now forced an election which established his control as dictator over the Nazi Party. 1922, LONDON. After the failure of his campaign to involve Britain in suppressing the Bolshevik government in Russia, Churchill was re-assigned to the Colonial Office. Although he had initially opposed the establishment of Ireland as an independent country he eventually oversaw the process. In 1922 Churchill called for military action against the Turks, who were seeking to re-occupy the Dardanelles. The voters did not want to become involved in another war and they turned Churchill out of office. OCTOBER, 1922, ROME. Benito Mussolini was born in 1883. His father, an atheist and a socialist, named him for the Mexican revolutionary leader Benito Juarez. By the time he was 19 Benito had already engaged in socialist and atheist work. In 1908 he started to work as a journalist for a socialist newspaper. In 1911 Benito opposed the Italo-Turkish War on the grounds that Italy needed a class war, not a war of imperialism. He held that the aim of the socialists should be not territorial expansion but instead national development. He led an anti-war strike, been arrested, and finally imprisoned. By 1912 he gained control of the Socialist Party and their magazine "Forward". When the war broke out Benito called for neutrality, but then decided that Italy should ally herself with France and Britain. In 1914 the Socialists expelled him from their Party and stripped him of the editorship of "Forward". Mussolini then founded a new journal "The People of Italy", which was followed by "The Standard (FASCI) of Revolutionary Action". Mussolini's party would now become known as the "Fascists", or "Standard Bearers". Mussolini was called up for military service in September 1915 and was wounded while training in 1917. He had spent months recovering from his wounds, and then he returned to his newspaper, which did very well due to the support of wealthy patrons who feared socialism. In 1919 Mussolini formally founded his new political movement, establishing the "Standard Bearers of Combat", recruiting a band of thugs from among former Italian soldiers. Mussolini advocated that unions be given control of the factories, and when the first Italian Menshevik Socialist strikers occupied factories in 1920, he offered to unite with them against the industrialists, the Italian government, and the Italian Bolsheviks. The Socialists rejected his offer. Frightened by the Socialist's strike, wealthy industrialist and landowners gave Mussolini money to suppress the Socialists. The Italian government, Italian liberal reform groups, and the Catholic church all acquiesced to the attacks of Mussolini's thugs on the Socialists. In 1921 at the Third World Congress of the Communist International Lenin told the Italian Socialists that his Bolsheviks had achieved success without uniting with the Mensheviks, liberals, or anarchists, and that he refused to give the Italian Bolsheviks permission to unite with the Italian Mensheviks, liberals, and anarchists. He told them that they must instead do what the Bolsheviks had done years before: build a network. Strangely, Lenin made no mention to the Italian Socialists of the help he had received from the German General Staff in overthrowing the Czar and establishing Bolshevik rule in Russia. On Lenin's orders the Italian Socialists worked to destroy the other factions of the Italian socialist movement. With the socialists in disarray, in October 1922 Mussolini marched on Rome and seized the government. King Victor Emmanuel III immediately gave him permission to form a new government. AUTUMN 1922, MUNICH. By October, 1921 Roehm had merged his Reich War Flag into Hitler's Nazi Party where they had taken a new name, the Sturm Abteilung. Their name is most properly translated as "Storm Troopers" and they were also known by the abbreviation SA, or as the Brownshirts after the brown shirts of their uniform. While Hitler now had a greatly enlarged force, the Storm Troopers' primary loyalty was not to him but rather to Roehm, their founder. Analyzing Mussolini's efforts, he realized that he would need his own troops and in the summer of 1922 he placed his "Storm Troopers" under the nominal control of Hermann Goering. Hermann Goering was the bastard son of a Jewish baron. A pilot in the World War, he had had 22 victories in air combat and was highly decorated. After the war he had married into nobility and wealth. When he joined the Nazis in the Autumn of 1922 Hitler placed him in nominal charge of the "Storm Troopers", as he hoped that Goering would remove some of the stench from his brown shirts. "Splendid", Hitler noted, "A war ace with the Pour le Merite - excellent propaganda!" Later in the year, the German government in Berlin would pass a law banning all "extremist" paramilitary organizations, like the "Storm Troopers". While the German government ruled Berlin, their power did not now extend to the von Karl government in Bavaria. Hitler organized a rally in Munich to protest the new law. Hitler would speak to a crowd of 40,000 and would call for the hanging of the leaders of the government in Berlin. They would be unable to arrest him. 1 MAY, 1923, OBERWIESENFELD PARADE GROUND, MUNICH. Hitler studied Mussolini's march on Rome, and he and Roehm now came up with the idea of conducting their own march on Berlin. Hitler and Roehm came up with a plan, and solicited General von Lossow, the local army commander. But von Lossow then reconsidered and backed out of the march. While the Army had backed Hitler as the leader of a para-military force, they were not ready to accept him as dictator of Germany. On 1 May Hitler sent Roehm and the Storm Troopers to appropriate weapons from the army barracks in Munich, while he waited with other forces on the Oberwiesenfeld Parade Ground. But Roehm was caught while "appropriating" the arms and brought before Lossow. Lossow then ordered Roehm to abandon the march, and as a loyal army man Roehm then went to the parade grounds and conveyed von Lossow's orders to Hitler. von Lossow himself then arrived and in front of Hitler and Roehm's fully armed troops he threatened Hitler and Roehm with arrest(?). Hitler and Roehm backed down and dismissed their troops, and to avoid being thrown in jail they promised not attempt a coup against the central government. 23 SEPTEMBER, 1923, MADRID. In Spain the landed nobles of feudal times had aligned themselves with the new industrialists. Together the nobles and the industrialists were able to suppress the laborers upon whom their wealth depended and to repress any change in the government of Spain. After the success of the Russian Revolution, socialist revolts broke out in Spain, and in September 1923 General Miguel Primo de Rivera seized control of the government. After seizing power de Rivera would start massive programs for public works, and the economic deprivation of the lower classes would be alleviated, which would lead to an end of the threat of revolt. 8 NOVEMBER, 1923, BURGERBRAU KELLAR, MUNICH, GERMANY. Hitler once again attempted a coup against the government. He and his Storm Troopers captured the officials of the government of Bavaria while they were holding a meeting in a beer hall. Hitler declared himself the leader of the new government and summoned General Ludendorff and offered him control of the Army. Ludendorff acquiesced. Hitler then attempted to link up with Roehm's forces, but the police had been called in and they opened fire on Hitler, Ludendorff, and the Storm Troopers. Despite being shot at at point blank range, Hitler and Ludendorff emerged unhurt, while Goering only suffered a wound. Hitler would escape. Unlike Mussolini, Hitler had failed in his coup. He was captured, tried, and convicted, but was given a very light jail sentence by a sympathetic court. While in prison Hitler would write a political manifesto "My Battle" ("Mein Kampf), which would become one of the best selling books in Germany. 1923, MUNICH. Hermann Oberth had been drafted into the army and had been wounded during the war. Being wounded had changed Oberth's priorities, and when he returned to the University of Heidelberg it was not to study medicine but instead he entered into the study of physics. Oberth continued his studies of rocket flight and used rocket flight as the topic for his thesis but this thesis was rejected by the university. He then reworked his proposal for the development of a liquid fueled rocket for long range bombardment and resubmitted it to the German War Department, but they too had rejected it yet once again. In 1922 Oberth became aware that the American scientist Robert Goddard had already published a book on rocket flight and liquid fueled rockets in 1919. Rejected by both academia and by the military, Oberth now faced the prospect that his entire work would be made superfluous by the work of Goddard. He prepared a book containing his research, "The Rocket Into Interplanetary Space", and in 1923 he published it at his own expense. The book would be a popular success, despite the fact that it contained page after page of mathematical formula and calculations, for Oberth had included in it sketches for two rockets. One of the sketches was for a two stage Model B rocket, designed for high altitude research, and the other sketch was for the Model E, a rocket capable of space travel. 1924. Max Valier was a writer who specialized in writing articles popularizing scientific subjects for the general public. After reading Oberth's book he approached him and proposed writing a more easily accessible version, and Oberth agreed. Oberth had had enough, and would return to his family home in Transylvania, which by the terms of the Versailles Treaty was now part of Rumania. In February, 1925 Oberth would take up a position teaching at a local high school. Shortly after Oberth's return home Valier's book "The Advance into Space" was published and became a popular success. It would go through five printings over the next five years. JANUARY, 1925. Gregor Strasser had been an early member of the Nazi Party, and while Hitler was in prison he had been appointed to head it. Strasser's combination of socialism, nationalism, and racism appealed even more than Hitler's did to the members of the Nazi Party, and when Hitler was released in 1924 he was faced with a real rival for control of the Nazi Party. When the government released Hitler from prison in 1924 they also banned him from public speaking. Hitler then decided that he would try to seize power through the political process and election and he went about regaining control of the Nazi Party through private meetings with its leaders. Strangely, perhaps because of Strasser, perhaps because of Hitler, the German government allowed the Nazi Party to operate once again. Despite Strasser and Hitler's new moderation Roehm's Storm Troopers were still allowed to remain active as they were needed by the government to suppress the socialists and communists. Roehm had been briefly imprisoned for his part in the Hitler's coup attempt and then released. But in January, 1925 Roehm was caught engaging in homosexual acts and forced to resign as head of the Storm Troopers, and he would flee to South America. After Roehm's resignation in disgrace the new leadership of the Storm Troopers threw their support behind Gregor Strasser. As neither Hitler nor Roehm now had an armed force to use, politics in Bavaria would be calm for the next few years. Hitler realized that he would need a new para-military force, one that would be loyal only to him and one which could be used if the Storm Troopers were declared illegal. So Hitler set up a new group, the "Protective Echelon", the "Schutz Staffel", more commonly known as the "SS", from his own bodyguards. He appointed Heinrich Himmler to organize the SS units in southern Bavaria. Heinrich Himmler was born in Munich in 1900. Heinrich's father was a schoolteacher and his mother was a devout Catholic. Heinrich was born with a club foot and was sickly as a child. His father determined that Heinrich would be a courtier and trained him rigorously to be of service to his betters. Himmler had wanted to serve in the war, but the war was over before he could see action. After the war he returned to college and received a degree in agriculture. He then combined the knowledge he had gained from his student work on plant and animal genetics with his hatred of the Jews into a racially based anti-semitism. Himmler joined Ludendorff and Roehm's "Reich War Flag" and participated in putting down the German socialists' revolt in 1921. As Himmler had no success establishing a normal career with which he could earn a living for himself and his family, he became more and more active in German Worker's Party activities, and he came to earn his living doing minor jobs for them. When Hitler formed the SS in 1925, he appointed Himmler to organize the units in southern Bavaria. Himmler's father's training would now pay off, and he would be absolutely loyal and devoted to Adolf Hitler. 1925, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND. It is not clear why the use of chemical weapons aroused such fear. While the gases used in the First World War would disable the troops they were used against and leave them crippled for life, most of those gases' victims survived. Unlike other weapons, the gases accomplished their military objective of eliminating the enemy's strength without killing all of his troops. These gases' efficiency is not to be doubted, and their use had steadily increased until by the end of the war half of all artillery shells were filled with gas instead of explosives. Perhaps it is this very efficiency which made the use of gas so dreaded; or perhaps it is related to the fact that they killed indiscriminately both the fit and unfit young men; or maybe that they killed women and children along with the men; or possibly people realized that the next gases to be developed would be not disabling but instead would kill. Whatever the reason, efforts started during the war itself to make the use of gas contrary to international law. These efforts continued after the war, and in 1922 the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan attempted to negotiate an agreement banning the use of gas weapons. But their efforts did not meet with success. Despite this failure, in 1925 an agreement was finally reached in Geneva banning the use of gas and biological organisms as weapons of war. All of the major powers signed it, but reserved the right to respond in kind if attacked with chemical weapons. All of the major powers would also continue research on the development of new gas and biological weapons of war. 1925, LONDON. The negotiations in Switzerland gave occasion for Churchill to put down in writing some of his thoughts he had been developing for some time on the nature of modern warfare. "May there not be methods of using explosive energy incomparably more intense than anything heretofore discovered? Might not a bomb no bigger than an orange be found to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings - nay, to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke? "Could not explosives of even the existing type be guided automatically in flying machines by wireless (radio) or other rays, without a human pilot, in ceaseless procession upon a hostile city, arsenal, camp, or dockyard? "As for poison gas and chemical warfare in all its forms, only the first chapter has been written in a terrible book. Certainly every one of these new avenues of destruction is being studied on both sides of the Rhine with all the science and patience of which man is capable. "And why should it be supposed that these resources will be limited to inorganic chemistry? A study of disease - of pestilences methodically prepared and deliberately launched upon man and beast - is certainly being pursued in the laboratories of more than one great country. Blight to destroy crops, anthrax to slay horses and cattle, plague to poison not only armies but whole districts - such are the lines along which military science is remorselessly advancing." 12 MAY, 1926, WARSAW, POLAND. After a democratic government was established in Poland in 1922, Pilsudski had resigned as head of state, but remained as commander in chief. When the Polish right wing took control of the government in 1923 Pilsudski then resigned as commander in chief. The right wing leaders plunged Poland into an economic depression. Pilsudski now marched on Warsaw with a few divisions of troops. but instead of installing himself as dictator, as had Mussolini, Pilsudski turned down the offer of the Polish parliament and instead turned the government over to friend of his and took the position of Minister of Defense. Despite this nominal title, Pilsudski would remain as the true person in control of the government of Poland until his death in 1935. 1926 Willy Ley was born in 1906 in Berlin, Germany. The son of a wine merchant, Willy Ley showed a natural aptitude for math and science. He began to attend university in 1920 at the age of 14 and pursued studies in paleontology, astronomy, and physics with the intention of becoming a geologist. But after receiving a small check for sending a correction to a newspaper, he began to write on science topics. In 1925 Ley read Max Valier's popularization of Hermann Oberth's work and decided that he could do a better job. He then wrote "Journey into Space", and when it was published in 1926 it became a success as well. This success gave Willy Ley financial independence and he would soon become more and more engrossed in the study of spaceflight. 5 JUNE, 1927, BRESLAU. Willy Ley met with eight other people in the back room of a tiny restaurant in Breslau, Germany. Together they decided to found the "Society for Space Travel". While Johannes Winkler would be the Society's president, Ley would become the guiding light of the Society and its chief promoter. As well as editing its monthly magazine, "The Rocket", Ley would conduct international correspondence for the society. The society grew rapidly, and Ley would arrange for the publication of his new book "The Possibility of Space Travel" to involve the publicization of the society. 23 MAY, 1928, AVUS SPEEDWAY, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Max Valier continued to work with rockets after his adaptation of Oberth's book was published. He came up with a scheme for mounting military solid propellant rockets in an automobile and managed to obtain the support of Fritz von Opel, the automobile manufacturer, who recognized an opportunity for good publicity when he saw it. The first car they built was too heavy and its rockets too weak and it had not attained the speed they wanted. Their second car was custom built and attained a speed of (70 miles per hour), and the favorable publicity it generated led Opel to build a third car, which now achieved a speed of (125 miles per hour). 11 JUNE, 1928, WASSERKRUP, RHOEN MOUNTAINS, GERMANY. Valier also had the idea that it would be possible to fly into space if rocket engines were used to power a streamlined airplane, and he convinced Opel to back this experiment as well. Valier convinced a local glider society to provide a glider on which military solid rockets would be mounted. The experiment took place under the direction of Dr. Alexander Lippisch. FALL, 1928, BERLIN. The famous motion picture director Fritz Lang enjoyed a tremendous artistic and commercial success with his first science fiction film, "Metropolis", a movie about a future society in which a small upper class enjoyed the fruits of the labor of robots, who were a lower class of debased human machines. With the popular imagination fired by the successful books on space travel, Lang decided to make a movie about a flight by men to the moon. When Lang offered Oberth the job of technical advisor to "The Woman in the Moon", Oberth left his teaching job in Transylvania and returned to Berlin. Oberth met with Ley upon his return, Ley suggested to him that he try to obtain funds from Lang for experimental work on liquid rockets. Oberth smiled and told Ley, "I have thought of that too." Oberth persuaded Lang, and Lang persuaded the company which produced his films that it would be a good idea if Oberth were to produce a rocket whose first flight would be used to publicize his new film. With funding assured, Oberth set to work on the development of a liquid fueled rocket. 28 MAY, 1929, LONDON. The voters of Britain became fed up with both the Conservatives and the Liberals, and after the elections of 1924 the socialist Labour Party formed a coalition with the Liberals. At this point Churchill once again changed political parties and returned to the Conservatives. At the end of 1924 the Conservatives once again regained control of the government and Churchill was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. Since that time the British economy had functioned well. Though Churchill felt that the Versailles Treaty had been too harsh on Germany, he balanced the British government's budget by relying on war reparation payments from Germany, and this policy would lead to a collapse of both Germany and the world economy later in the year. Though the British economy had been functioning well by British standards, its fundamental inequities were too much for most voters. True to form, in 1926 as Chancellor of the Exchequer Churchill broke a general strike by the Trades Union Council. In the elections of 28 May, 1929 Labour gained a slight majority of seats in the House of Commons, and the Liberals decided to back them in forming a new government. Churchill and the Conservatives now lost control of the government, although he retained his seat in the House of Commons. SUMMER, 1929, LEY RESIDENCE, BERLIN. Willy Ley had an unannounced visitor. As Ley was the President of the Society for Space Flight, his visitor knew that he was the person to contact. As the President of the Society, Ley was always looking for new members, and he invited the young man in. His visitor told Ley that he had graduated from high school and was going to study physics or engineering at the university in Berlin. He told him that he was greatly impressed with the potential for using liquid propellants to power rockets and that he had decided to devote his life to that problem. Ley estimated that the young boy was wrapped up in fantasies of space flight. The Society for Space Flight had very limited funds, and Ley did not want to further damage his relationship with Oberth by sending this young man to meet him. Wernher von Braun left Ley's house disappointed but not discouraged. Wernher von Braun was born in 1912 in Posen. His father was an aristocrat with large land holdings who served in appointed government office. His mother was well educated and a multi-lingual who spoke six languages. When Wernher was seven years old he read Jules Verne's books, and he had been captivated by them. His mother encouraged him in his new interest and for his confirmation present she gave him a telescope instead of the customary gold watch. In 1920 Germany was forced by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles to cede Posen to Poland. But this presented no problem for the von Braun family, as the Baron had been called to serve the new Weimar government in Berlin. It was after the von Braun's had moved to Berlin that Wernher started to play with rockets. One of his first experiments, inspired by Valier's first attempts to use rockets to power a car, was to attach rockets to his toy wagon. The experiment was a success, but as a result of it Wernher was taken into custody by the police, who then released him to his father. when the family arrived in Berlin Wernher's father placed him in a college preparatory school. The school had emphasized not only classical languages, at which Wernher did well enough, having inherited his mother's abilities with languages, but also mathematics and physics, at which he did abysmally. In 1925, when Wernher was 13, he finally did so poorly that his father had sent him to a vocational school near Weimar. Here Wernher not only was taught a schedule of more practical courses, but he also spent his afternoons learning practical skills of carpentry, masonry, and farming. But during his first year here a dramatic had change occurred. While reading an astronomy magazine von Braun saw an advertisement for Oberth's book, "The Rocket into Interplanetary Space", which had been published two years before. When Wernher received his copy of it he realized that if he wanted to travel to space it would be necessary to do more than just fire off rockets; it would be necessary to master mathematics, physics, and engineering. Wernher von Braun threw himself into his studies, and three years later he transferred to a more advanced school. There he not only gained a year on his class mates, but e advanced so far ahead of them in mathematics that he was assigned to tutor them. Wernher von Braun did so well there that he gained admittance to the Charlottenberg Institute of Technology and he returned to Berlin, where he immediately contacted Ley upon his arrival. 1929. Hitler had long realized that the Storm Troopers, now under the control of Gregor Strasser, his rival for leadeship of the Nazi Party, were a threat to him, and that as long as this situation continued it would be impossible for him to once again establish his dictatorial control over the party. Hitler decided that he would encourage the growth of the SS, and he now promoted Heinrich Himmler from his post as organizer for Southern Bavaria to its head. When Himmler first took control the SS had only 300 members, and he rapidly recruited new members. By 1930 the SS reached 15,000 members in its ranks. As the organization grew so would its need for staffers, and because of his Nordic looks. Himmler appointed Reinhard Heydrich, a disgraced naval officer looking for a job, to head its security service, 30 SEPTEMBER, 1929. After the success of his and Valier's first glider powered by solid rockets, Opel started to develop a successor. (After a failed attempt with which the army interfered?) Opel constructed a new glider. On its first test flight with Opel himself at the controls it achieved a speed of (100 miles per hour), but the glider crashed on landing and could not be used again. Miraculously, Opel escaped unhurt from the crash but he would never pursue research with rockets again. OCTOBER, 1930, BERLIN. In an attempt to limit his rival, Hitler sent Gregor Strasser to oversee Nazi Party affairs in the north of Germany, but the Storm Troopers in Berlin now revolted from Hitler's control. Hitler now recalled Ernst Roehm from South America to resume the leadership of both the Storm Troopers and the SS, but Roehm's loyalties were dubious, and Hitler would quickly make the SS into an independent and separate organization under his and Heinrich Himmler's complete control. Though his brother Otto Strasser would form the rebellious members of the SS into a new para-military group, the "Black Front", Gregor Strasser would remain loyal to the Nazi Party and to Hitler. 15 OCTOBER, 1929, BERLIN. As the deadline of "The Woman in the Moon"'s premier approached, Oberth came to the realization that his liquid fueled rocket would not be ready in time for it unless he got some help. His first hire was 35 year old Rudolph Nebel, an air force fighter pilot who had served on the Eastern Front in the World War. After the war Nebel had received a degree in engineering from the University at Heidelburg. While most people working on rockets at this time were interested in spaceflight, not so Nebel. He had long considered that the rocket could be developed into the ultimate weapon, one so powerful that if Germany had it no one would dare attack her. Oberth's second hire was Alexander Borrisovitch Shershevsky, a dedicated communist who had been sent by the government of the Soviet Union to Germany to study gliders. When Shershevsky's visa had run out he had not returned to the Soviet Union, but instead he had stayed in Germany, supporting himself by writing small articles for professional journals. Ley had tried to get Oberth to hire him, but Oberth rejected Ley as a meddler, and for his part Ley resented Oberth's new hires. With his team in place Oberth began his experiments. At first he worked with a rocket engine that used gasoline and liquid oxygen as fuels, but an explosion persuaded him that he needed a new fuel. Oberth decided to try methane, but unfortunately methane was not available in Berlin. Oberth then decided on building a rocket which would use liquid oxygen to burn some form of solid carbon, but unfortunately Oberth could then not find a suitable form of solid carbon. With the premiere of the film and the failure of his work staring him in the face, Oberth ran away from Berlin. Oberth returned to Berlin to attend the premiere of the film on 15 October, 1929. The studio's publicity department came up with the excuse that the weather at the test site was too bad to make an experimental launch. Since the contract with the studio had never been signed, the experiments would end up using all of Oberth's savings, with the movie's director Fritz Lang paying the rest of the expenses out of his own pocket. 1929, MUNICH. Engineer Paul Schmidt began the development of a new kind of jet engine. Schmidt had the idea that gasoline could be injected into a tube which had shutters on one end. When the gasoline was ignited the shutters would close, and thus the gases created by the gasoline's combustion would be forced to go out the other end of the tube, thus providing a jet thrust. After the /combustion was complete the force of onrushing air would push the shutters open again. This meant that this engine could only be started while in motion, and to start the engine it would be necessary for it to be launched by a bomber or by a catapult. The rapid opening and closing of the shutters of Schmidt's new jet engine produced a loud buzzing noise. WINTER, 1929, OFFICES OF THE LAWYER FOR THE SOCIETY FOR SPACE TRAVEL, BERLIN. In a casual conversation after the failure of "The Woman in the Moon"'s rocket Nebel told Ley that he was thinking of founding a society to sponsor further research on liquid rockets. Ley was stunned that Nebel would consider establishing a society in competition with his own "Society for Space Travel", but then he immediately discovered that Oberth had never told Nebel of the existence of his society, despite the fact that Oberth was its president at the time. Ley immediately set up a meeting at the offices of the lawyer of the Society for Space Travel. Oberth agreed to transfer to Nebel and the Society the equipment that the film company had provided if the Society would pay for the parts of the unfinished rocket he had tried to build for Lang. Everyone agreed to this proposal, but then someone noted that the rocket would not fly, and everyone concurred with this observation. Nebel then suggested that in an attempt to regain some of the public's confidence. a military solid rocket could be placed inside the liquid rocket's body so that it could be launched. Ley and Oberth rejected Nebel's suggestion. Oberth then suggested that the rocket could be sold to a circus in his home town and the money used to build a working rocket, but this suggestion was rejected as well. Ley then proposed donating the rocket to a museum, but his suggestion was rejected too. The rocket they had developed for "The Woman in the Moon" would eventually end up in storage. The meeting now moved on to current business. Nebel proposed building a Minimum Rocket. Oberth had rejected this proposal before, when Nebel had first made it to him during their work for Lang, and he objected to it once again. But Ley supported Nebel and Nebel received permission to proceed with his design. 1929, PODLIPKI, OUTSIDE MOSCOW. Because the German General Staff had been prevented by the Versailles Treaty from undertaking research and development work on weapons, for some time they had entered into an unusual arrangement with the government of the Soviet Union whereby they were allowed to carry on such work inside the Soviet Union in exchange for sharing the resulting technology. While previous arrangements had dealt largely with aircraft, this year a joint development agreement was entered into covering a new technology: A group of Germans arrived at Podlipki to develop new artillery shells capable of carrying chemical and biological poisons. Another group of Germans arrived at the city of Volsk where they would work testing mustard gas under "Project Tomka". The Germans would stay in Russia and continue to work until 1932, one year before Hitler took power in Germany. FEBRUARY, 1930, BERLIN. Without Ley's knowledge, and without discussing it with any of the other members of the Society for Space Travel, Nebel filed bankruptcy papers in his role as secretary of the society. Despite this filing, in the future Nebel would continue to accept donations from the members of the Society for Space Travel and he would encourage Ley in his promotion of it. JANUARY, 1930, ARMY ARTILLERY TESTING GROUND, KUMMERSDORF, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Walter Dornberger was born in Giesen, Germany in 1895. The second son of a pharmacist, he followed the family tradition and enlisted in the army shortly before the start of the World War. Dornberger was transferred to the artillery, and in October, 1918 he was taken prisoner and remained in a French prisoner of war camp until 1920. After his release Dornberger was taken back into the army and in 1925 he took leave to attend the College of Engineering in Berlin. Professor Colonel Karl Becker, the Army's chief of ballistics and ammunition, had long been interested in rockets. Becker's interest had taken on new significance since Germany had been barred from developing artillery by the Versailles Treaty. In 1929, before Dornberger graduated, he was assigned by Becker to investigate and test rockets for the army. Becker tasked Dornberger to concentrate his research on two areas. The first area of research was to develop a solid rocket with a range of 6 to 7 kilometers (3.7 to 4.3 miles) as a replacement for artillery barrages. The second area Dornberger was assigned was the development of a long range liquid rocket which was intended to replace the long range cannons used in the World War. Dornberger immediately set to work, beginning with a survey of the efforts then being undertaken by the armature groups in Germany. In 1929 Dornberger graduated from college with a masters degree in mechanical engineering and in January, 1930 the army formalized Captain Walter Dornberger's assignment to work with rockets for Becker. Dornberger set up his laboratory and test stands at the army testing grounds at Kummersdorf outside of Berlin. He named his facility Experimental Station Kummersdorf West. Dornberger focused his immediate efforts on solid rockets, as they had been developed and in use for decades. But despite the fact that no liquid fueled rocket had as yet been successfully developed in Germany, Dornberger continued his investigations of the research being done by the different German amateur groups and on their developments. MARCH, 1930, BERLIN. The Society for Space Travel needed a new home. Nebel contacted Professor Colonel Karl Becker, the Army's chief of ballistics and ammunition. Becker realized that the experimenters' work might be of military use, but his boss, Oberst Karlewski, the Commander of Research Offices, would need additional proof of Nebel's abilities before Becker would be able to get any money released. Faced with this obstacle, Nebel used an assistant to Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein to set up an appointment with Einstein. Einstein immediately understood what Nebel was trying to develop and he quickly agreed to write a letter to Karlewski recommending the project. Karlewski then offered to provide 5,000 marks for the experimenters, and Becker began to try and find a launch site for Nebel's rockets. Nebel would keep these funds under his personal control and they would not be given to the Society for Space Travel. 17 MAY, 1930, HEYLANDT WORKS, BERLIN. Max Valier decided to switch from solid rocket engines to liquid rocket engines and he obtained access to an engine developed by Walter Riedel, another German researcher interested in rocket propulsion who was working at the Heylandt factory. On 17 May Valier was killed when one of Walter Riedel's liquid rocket engines exploded while it was being fired with the car in its test stand. As Valier was a public person and his death was be widely publicized; the news would lead to public fears of rocket testing. MAY, 1930, BERLIN. Wernher von Braun spent the preceding year absorbed in his academic studies at the Institute of Technology. As part of the school's course work he had been required to become an apprentice at the Borsig Works, a large machine factory. His apprenticeship started with the mastery of metal working hand tools, and then moved on to the factory's lathes and shapers, and then to the factory's foundry and forge. von Braun had then been assigned to work assembling railway locomotives. By now Oberth had turned to public fund raising, but the world wide economic depression had dried up the usual sources of funding. As he was about to assemble a window display publicizing rockets at a department store, Oberth was contacted by Wernher von Braun. Oberth accepted von Braun's offer to help with the display, and after the display was completed Wernher von Braun regularly worked as a docent at the store, answering the public's questions about rocket flight. MAY, 1930, BERLIN. While seeking funds, Nebel managed to get the Reich Institute of Chemistry and Technology to agree to run tests certifying the engine that Oberth had developed for the "Woman in the Moon"'s rocket. Nebel believed that this certification would lead to funding, and he and Oberth set to work. They were joined in this work for the preparations for the test by a recent member of the Society for Space Travel, Klaus Riedel. Nebel quickly established that Oberth's young friend Wernher von Braun was willing to pay from out of his own pocket for part of the work on the liquid rocket engine. Instead of assembling locomotives for school, Wernher von Braun was soon be spending most of his free time with Nebel, Oberth and Klaus Riedel assembling rocket engines for the certification test. 23 JULY, 1930, REICH INSTITUTE FOR CHEMISTRY AND TECHNOLOGY, BERLIN During the tests Oberth's rocket engine performed well but although the rocket engine was certified no money became available. Financially destroyed, Oberth returned home to his teaching job in Transylvania. Nebel went to a farmhouse owned by the grandparents of Klaus Riedel, where he continued to work on his Minimum Rocket. 27 SEPTEMBER, 1930, RAKETENFLUGPLATZ, REINICKENDORF, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Karl Becker managed to locate an abandoned ammunition dump where Nebel and the experimenters could conduct their tests. The army now rented it to them for a token amount and they moved their operations there. The ammunition dump also had abandoned barracks, and the experimenters themselves would move into them, saving the money that they would have had to pay for rent. Additional money for their work would come from the pocket money of Oberth's assistant Wernher von Braun, who was still a student studying for his degree. Oberth was leaving Berlin, and Wernher von Braun would now work in his spare time with Nebel at the "Rocket Flight Grounds". Money was given to him by his family as an allowance to cover his expenses as a student, and he lied to them about how much of it was going towards rockets. In the meantime Ley publicized Nebel and Riedel's firings of the engine for the Minimum Rocket through the newsletter of the Society for Space Travel. This led to significant donations from two individuals, an engineer named Dilthey and Hugo A. Huckel, a manufacturer. With sufficient resources now in hand it would now be possible for the Society to build a larger rocket. Today's rockets have their engines under the fuel tanks and the payload. The center of gravity of today's rockets is kept over the force of the engines' thrust by the use of motion sensors which control the direction of the thrust of the rocket's engines or by the use of aerodynamic surfaces on the rocket's body. Such advanced motion sensors were unavailable to Nebel, and he came up with the solution of placing the rocket's fuel tanks under the engine, thus using the engine to pull the fuel tanks and payload along. Nebel would use this design for his first rockets. The engine of the first version of the Minimum Rocket had blown up while being tested at Klaus Riedel's grandparents' farm and Nebel now began work on a second version of it. The engine of the Minimum Rocket had depended upon brute strength and careful engineering to contain the heat and force of the burning propellants, and when the second version of it blew up Nebel realized that a different principle for constructing liquid rocket motors had to be developed. He came up with the idea of circulating the liquid oxygen used to burn the gasoline around the combustion chamber to cool it. While this principle had been developed much earlier by the Russian scientist Tsiolkovsky, there is no doubt that it was Nebel who introduced it to the Germans, and thus it was Nebel who was responsible for all future German rocket engines. Nebel and Klaus Riedel would patent the next version of their engine, which would use water sealed in a jacket for cooling, instead of recirculating its liquid oxygen oxidizer. APRIL, 1931, MADRID. General de Rivera's attempts in Spain to improve the overall well being of the Spanish people had led him to take actions which had threatened the interests of the land owners and industrialists. When he had been forced to resign in 1930 the King of Spain had appointed another general to take his place. By now the ability of the old political parties to rig elections had faded, and when new elections were held the Socialists and the Republican liberal democrats managed to take control of the government. The King of Spain abdicated and the Spanish Republic was founded. 10 MAY, 1931, RAKETENFLUGPLATZ, REINICKENDORF, OUTSIDE BERLIN. When Nebel went on vacation, Ley took the opportunity to talk things over with Klaus Riedel. The first president of the Society for Space Travel, Johannes Winkler, had left the organization in 1929 in order to do work for Junkers Aircraft on stratospheric aircraft and the use of rockets to assist the take off of heavily loaded bombers. After Winkler left Junkers. the manufacturer Huckel had provided him with money and in March, 1931 Winkler succeeded in launching the first liquid fueled rocket in Germany. In the meantime Nebel had continued to work on his new rocket engine but there had not been a successful flight yet. Ley now persuaded Klaus Riedel to build a rocket using one of the earlier engines. On 10 May, 1931 the first launch of a liquid fueled rocket by the Society for Space Travel took place, when a rocket under test escaped its test stand. By 23 May a second rocket had been built, and Ley wrote a letter to the vacationing Nebel telling him of his and Riedel's success. 1931, RAKETENFLUGPLATZ, REINICKENDORF, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Klaus Riedel and Ley discussed using other fuels besides gasoline to fuel the rocket engines. Ley advocated alcohol because alcohol used less liquid oxygen to burn than gasoline. When Klaus Riedel began examining with the use of alcohol he discovered that it had an additional advantage in that it could be mixed with water and thus its burning temperature could be lowered. Reidel then moved on to examining injecting streams of the water alcohol mixture along the walls of the combustion chamber to cool it. Finally, while Nebel had used the rocket engine's liquid oxygen to cool its combustion chamber, Klaus Riedel came up with the idea of first circulating the rocket engine's fuel in a jacket around its combustion chamber. As he had been doing for the last several years, Wernher von Braun built Riedel's new experimental rocket engine. 1931, HEYLANDT WORKS, BERLIN. After Max Valier had died the work that he was doing on liquid rocket engines had continued at the Heylandt Works under the direction of Walter Riedel. Walter Riedel's engine had met with some success, producing thrusts of up to 20 kilograms (45 pounds). In view of this success Dornberger gave Heylandt and Walter Riedel a contract to continue work on their rocket engine. WINTER, 1931, RAKETENFLUGPLATZ, REINICKENDORF, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Funding from the researchers' patrons had stopped. Dilthey had disappeared, and it would later be discovered that he had fallen off a mountain while skiing and died. Following Winkler's first successful launch of a liquid fueled rocket, Huckel had decided to back his work and had cut off his donations to the Society for Space Travel. In an attempt to raise money for their work Ley left the Raketenflugplatz to give a series of lectures in East Prussia. 1 NOVEMBER, 1931, GRAND HOTEL, VERVIERS, BELGIUM. After the end of the World War there had been a several books and articles written about the role that the British and French codebreakers had played their victory. The German Army had become convinced that their hand codes needed to be replaced, and when the Enigma, an electro-mechanical machine for enciphering messages had been brought to their attention, they had analyzed it. They had concluded that messages sent by such a device would essentially be unbreakable and they adopted its use. Hans-Thilo Schmidt was a cipher clerk for the German army. He had managed to get his job with the help of his brother, who had been one of the members of the German army which had recommended their adoption of the Enigma. Unlike his brother, Schmidt hated the Nazis, and he was determined to compromise the Enigma and thereby weaken the German military. He approached the French and told them that he was willing to sell them materials relating to German ciphers, and that if they did not want them he would sell them to someone else. The French now established contact with Schmidt and entered into an agreement with him. Schmidt sold them a description of the machine and its operation and for the next 6 years he would supply them with copies of the daily keys that were used to set up the machine for its daily operations. The French would build a copy of the machine, and would succeed in reading messages sent by it, but only if they had copies of the daily settings which had been used to set up the machine that day. The French would decide to share their materials others. The British codebreakers similarly would have no luck with the machine. But the French would also share their materials with the Poles, and there the situation was much different. Rejewski, a Polish mathematician, would succeed in using advanced mathematics to reconstruct the machine and would find a method for reading its messages even without having its daily settings. SPRING, 1932, BERLIN. Wernher von Braun was finishing his courses at the College of Engineering and applied to the University of Berlin. He now met with an acquaintance of a friend of his father at the University, Professor Becker. Wernher von Braun's father's friend's acquaintance was the same Becker who had given Dornberger his assignment to study rockets in 1930. von Braun and Becker discussed the use of liquid fueled rockets as a substitute for long range cannons whose development in Germany had been banned by the Treaty of Versailles. Wernher von Braun would be accepted into the University. SPRING, 1932, HOTEL REGINA, MUNICH. The world depression had its effect on Britain as well, and the Labour government was unable to cope with it. In 1931 they lost enough seats so as to be forced in coalition with the Conservatives, and Churchill had come back to some power. Churchill had met Mussolini and had several lengthy conversations with him. Churchill admired Mussolini as an opponent of socialism and viewed fascism as a counter force to and reaction to Bolshevik communism. Churchill considered Mussolini a great man and even after the Second World War Churchill would hold that Mussolini would have been great if he had not been seduced by Hitler. Churchill had read Hitler's book "My Battle" when it had first come out. He himself viewed the Versailles Treaty as being unfair to Germany and already had had forebodings that the German people would seek to be freed of their subjugation and would seek revenge. Churchill thought that Hitler was the twisted product of those urges, but since Hitler was also against the socialists Churchill had found him acceptable. And since there had been little chance of Hitler assuming significant political power, Churchill had always before viewed him dismissively. By now Hitler had changed that appraisal. Churchill was in Germany, ostensibly and incidentally to collect material for a new book about his ancestor's ancient battles with which he hoped to earn even more money. But having set out this objective, Churchill instead spent most of his time engaged in conversations with various Germans about Hitler. And coincidentally Churchill now showed up at the Regina Hotel in Munich, a hang out of both Hitler and one of his closest confidants, Putzi Hanfstaengle, who also incidentally was fluent in English. Hanfstaengle introduced himself to Churchill, and the two engaged in a lengthy discussion about Hitler. Hanfstaengle suggested that he set up a meeting with Hitler for Churchill, and Churchill agreed. Hanfstaengle telephoned Hitler, and thus Churchill had finally succeeded in achieving the true purpose of his trip, a meeting with Hitler. As his conversation with Hanfstaengle proceeded, Churchill carefully concealed his true opinion of Hitler from him, but he could finally take no more. He directly asked Hanfstaengle, "Why is your chief so violently against the Jews? I can quite understand being angry with Jews who have done wrong or are against the country, and I understand resisting them if they try to monopolize power in any walk of life; but what is the sense of being against a man simply because of his birth? How can any man help how he is born?" With this question their conversation ended. Hanfstaengle called the next day to tell Churchill that his meeting with Hitler had been cancelled, and though Churchill waited for several more days at the Regina Hotel he was not contacted again. It was this racial theory that in Churchill's thought separated Mussolini's Fascism from Hitler's Nazism. Attempting to make some sense of Hitler's hatred of the Jews and his support among the German people, Churchill would ascribe it to the international dispersion of members of the Jewish faith as a contrast to the nationalist feelings of many Germans, rather than to the absolute failure of the development of political theory in Germany for the causes which have been outlined here previously. MAY, 1932, HOUSE OF COMMONS, LONDON. Though Churchill now held great hope that other German politicians would be able to restore a constitutional monarchy to Germany, and that the League of Nations would be able to act as a curb against any German expansionist aspirations, he was not sure that Hitler could be prevented from coming to power in Germany and that Britain might find itself in another war with Germany. Churchill would work along two tracks, first in helping the German moderates and strengthening international institutions and agreements, and second in building up Britain's strength to such a degree that whoever would come to rule Germany would know in certain that any attempt to achieve his goals through military means would lead to disaster and defeat. APRIL, 1932, RAKETENFLUGPLATZ, REINICKENDORF, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Nebel and Klaus Riedel's financial situation had grown desperate. The German economy was in a severe depression, and donations to the Society for Space Travel dropped off to nothing. Nebel sought funds for their work by holding public demonstrations of test firings of the new engines and by soliciting private donations, but this had only earned small amounts of money. Winkler had also rented a building at Raketenflugplatz to carry on his work on his own rocket, but the amount of money he paid for rent was a very very small amount. Nebel had again approached Huckel, but Huckel was only backing Winkler and his rocket. By now Nebel had completed the calculations for a rocket which would be 14 meters tall, would weigh 14 tons, and would be able to carry one ton of explosives 1000 kilometers in 12 minutes. Nebel felt that if Germany had such a rocket it would be impossible for an enemy to attack, as they would face unstoppable retaliation, and he agreed with Einstein that such a weapon would make war impossible. Nebel once again contacted Becker and presented him with a copy of his findings in a "Confidential Memo on Long Range Rocket Artillery". Becker told Nebel that he could not support the Society for Space Travel, as its work and sources of funding were publicized through the newsletters that Ley was publishing. Nebel assured Becker that the only connection between Raketenflugplatz and the Society was the fact that he used to be the Society's secretary. Becker consented to bring a team was to Raketenflugplatz to take a look at their work. When Becker went there he brought with him his ammunition expert and Captain Walter Dornberger, who he had placed in charge of the development of rockets for the army. Becker and Dornberger reviewed the work the experimenters had done and gave the team 1000 marks to prepare a rocket for a demonstration launch at Dornberger's rocket testing ground at Kummersdorf. Dornberger left the meeting particularly impressed by the son of Becker's friend. In the future Dornberger would develop an interesting relationship with Wernher von Braun. SPRING, 1932, EXPERIMENTAL STATION KUMMERSDORF WEST, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Dornberger's efforts to organize the rocket experimenters led nowhere, and his efforts to interest large German companies in the development of rockets failed as well. Dornberger now decided to take the development of liquid rockets under his own control and establish his own laboratory for the development of them, just as he had already done for the solid fueled rockets. He received approval for his plan from his superiors in the Army. EARLY SPRING, 1932, HEADQUARTERS OF THE STORM TROOPERS, STRESSEMANN STRASSE, BERLIN. The Army was not the only source of funding that Nebel made an approach to. After the World War Nebel, like so many of his fellow veterans, had joined the "Steelhelmets", another one of the para-military groups that Ludendorff and the high command had encouraged. Nebel had not been politically active and was not a member of any party, and had voted for the German National People's Party in the last election. But the economy was in crisis, the government fragmented, and Nebel had reached the conclusion that the only choice was between the Communists and the Nazis. While he did not subscribe to all of Hitler's ideas, in particular those concerning racial purity, he was not alarmed by them either, and he thought that the other members of the Nazi Party would be able to control Hitler. Nebel made his choice. Rudolph Nebel now used the offices of the "Brotherhood of German Engineers and Architects", of which he had been a founder, to arrange an appointment with Wolf Graf von Helldorff, the regional leader for Berlin-Brandenburg of the Storm Troopers. He hoped that von Helldorff would be able to convey his plan to develop the rocket as a weapon to Hitler, and thus Nebel would be able to gain Hitler's support for the rocket's development. Nebel's contact with the "Brotherhood of German Engineers and Architects" convinced von Helldorff that although most of the people at the Raketenflugplatz were caught up in the mania for liquid fueled rockets and spaceflight, this was not true for Nebel. von Helldorff agreed to a meeting. In conveying von Helldorff's reply, Nebel's contact warned him that Hitler had seen "The Woman in the Moon" and since that time he had declared to many people that spaceflight was a stupid fantasy. Nebel now met with von Helldorf and described his war rocket to him. von Helldorff understood that the rocket could replace the large guns used in the World War, and Nebel told him that he had a Seven-Year plan which would bring the rocket into existence by 1939. von Helldorff asked Nebel how much it would cost. Nebel had not prepared an estimate and making a guess he told von Helldorf that a rocket would cost 170,000 marks and the whole force would cost 100,000,000 marks. von Helldorff had heard enough. "That is a complete fantasy. Hitler will never approve of such a sum. Nevertheless I will attempt to speak with him about your work. But don't have any great hope." von Helldorff then ended their meeting. 22 JUNE, 1932, BERLIN. On 1 June von Braun's father had joined the government of Franz von Papen as Secretary for Food and Agriculture. On 22 June the government published an ordinance assigning the responsibility for the development of rockets to the army. In spite of repeated investigations no one really knows to this day how this decision came about and at whose urging it was made. JULY, 1932, EXPERIMENTAL STATION KUMMERSDORF WEST, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Rudolph Nebel, Klaus Riedel, and Wernher von Braun prepared a Minimum Rocket 2 Repulsor for the demonstration for the Army. They had all known that socialists and pacifists were among the members of the Society for Space Travel, and that these people might object to their plan to seek the support of the military. As a result they prepared their rocket without telling any other members of the Society, including Ley. The demonstration flight of the rocket was only a partial success, as the rocket went into horizontal flight at an altitude of 60 meters (200 feet). After the demonstration Nebel made repeated appeals to the Army review team for funding of the Raketenflugplatz, but the Army declined to support their work. AUGUST, 1932, RAKETENFLUGPLATZ, REINICKENDORF, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Nebel, Riedel, and on Braun had a visitor at the Raketenflugplatz. This man was Franz Mengering, an engineer who worked for the city of Madgeburg, and Mengering told the experimenters about his unusual notion that the Earth was actually inside of a hollow ball and that this could be proved by launching a rocket to collide with the ball which surrounded it. The experimenters told Mengering that they completely and totally did not share his view. SEPTEMBER, 1932, BERLIN. Wernher von Braun could not accept the Army review team's rejection of their work at the Raketenflugplatz. He now arranged to see Becker in private, and once again he made an appeal for funding of Society for Space Travel's work. Becker and Dornberger had their own plans. Becker informed von Braun that while the Army was interested in rockets, they could not accept the Society's method of conducting public displays. When von Braun replied that the displays were necessary to raise funds, Becker offered him money if the work was done in anonymity at the Army's facility at Kummersdorf. SEPTEMBER, 1932, RAKETENFLUGPLATZ, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Wernher von Braun took Becker's offer back to Nebel and Klaus Riedel. While Nebel and Klaus Riedel had not objected to accepting money from the Army, they were opposed to working as employees of the Army and they refused Becker's offer. Nebel argued that since no one but themselves knew about liquid rockets the Army would sooner or later have to finance their work on their terms. Wernher von Braun thought differently. If he had not provided money from his own family to the Society for Space Travel their work would long before have stopped. The most that could be done with private money was the development of small rockets, which they had already accomplished at Raketenflugplatz. It was hopeless to continue to try to develop rockets using only private money, and the development of larger rockets capable of manned space flight would require the resources of a large industrial firm or of the government. The Society for Space Travel would never have that much money, and for that matter they did not now even have enough money to develop the smaller rockets that would be necessary for unmanned space flight. von Braun told them that he was accepting Becker's offer and resigning from the Society for Space Travel. When von Braun finally left Raketenflugplatz for the last time Nebel told him, "You will soon find out that you won't get anywhere." For the next two years von Braun would attend the University of Berlin and study under Becker's department while he worked for Dornberger. Von Braun’s masters thesis would be a military secret. 8 OCTOBER, 1932, MADGEBURG. With their effort to obtain funds from the army so definitively rebuffed, and in dire financial straits, Nebel and Klaus Riedel reconsidered their hasty rejection of Mengering's hollow Earth hypothesis. They went to Madgeburg and found that Mengering had lined up the support of the city fathers by convincing them that a rocket flight would bring publicity to an upcoming festival celebrating the anniversary of the city. Nebel and Klaus Riedel immediately agreed to Mengering's scheme. The rocket Nebel was to build for the celebration was supposed to be able to carry a man to the altitude of 1 kilometer. A shell containing the passenger cabin and fuel tanks was to be located under another shell which would carry the rocket engine and the return parachute for the rocket in order to maintain the rocket's center of gravity. The pilot would have his own parachute and after the rocket's flight would leave the rocket and parachute to safety. The rocket was to be 8 meters (26.25 feet) tall and its engine was to have a thrust of 750 kilograms. 1932, BERLIN. Willy Ley soon learned of Nebel, Klaus Riedeln's demonstration flight for the Army through one of Nebel's assistants, most likely through Herbert Schaefer. From this point on all of the meetings of the Society for Space Travel would turn into political arguments. JANUARY, 1933, BERLIN, GERMANY. The World War had resulted in a devastating defeat for the German people, and the chaos caused by the harsh terms of the German surrender had led to the collapse of the German government. The German government's collapse had resulted in Germany's inability to pay its bonds, which had resulted in the collapse of world financial markets, which had resulted in a global disruption of commerce and a period of poverty which would later become known as the "Great Depression". The German Communist Party was now under the firm control of Moscow. When Lenin died, Josef Stalin managed to seize control of the government of the Soviet Union. Stalin continued Lenin's policy of not allowing the Bolshevik's to form alliances with the Mensheviks, liberals, or unionists. In addition, since Leon Trotsky, Stalin's principle rival for the leadership of the Soviet Union, had strong support among these groups, in 1928 Stalin had gone so far as to tell the German Communist Party that their chief target should be the German Socialist Party. As part of his strategy for gaining power Hitler decided that he would seek the financial aid of industrial magnates in his attempt to win office through election. His rival for control of the Nazi Party Gregor Strasser had always wanted to limit the power of the industrialists, and he had broken with Hitler during the elections of 1932. With Germany in the depths of a horrible depression, and the German opposition split on orders from Stalin, Hitler and his Nazi Party finally managed with the backing of leading industrialists to gain control of the government of Germany in the elections of 1932. Hitler could now show that his decision of 1924 to use the democratic processes to seize power in Germany had been the correct one. Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January, 1933, and having gained control of the state, he then reverted to form and began to use its police powers as well as his thugs to suppress the opposition political parties. Some of the members of the opposition parties were well known; while others were identified from seized records. The leaders of the German Communist Party were thrown into prison camps. Hitler had written in his book "My Battle" that Germany might not have lost the World War if "some twelve or fifteen thousand Hebrew corruptors of the people [by which Hitler meant depraved Jewish Bolsheviks] been poisoned by gas before or during the war." Now that he had won control of the government, Hitler immediately began to restrict the legal rights of German Jews. The Jews were identified from government documents, including birth certificates, and these sources were supplemented by referring to parish records, which Catholic and Lutheran priests helped the Nazis with. Heretics and homosexuals were also imprisoned. Hitler perfected his hold on power by forming an uneasy alliance with the German industrialists and the leaders of the Christian churches. While the intellectual and conservative leaders of the other capitalist countries feared and hated socialism, particularly as Leon Trotsky defined it, they understood dictators quite well, and would easily accept and tolerate Hitler just as they had Mussolini and Stalin, once Hitler had given them assurances as to his territorial ambitions. 1933, PARIS. In 1930 the Polish socialists mounted and effort to remove Pilsudski. Pilsudski countered by imprisoning all of Poland's socialists, and remained in control of Poland. For all this, Pilsudski was different from Mussolini and Hitler, and he was motivated by different goals. He knew that Hitler desired to take control of Poland, and when Hitler assumed power, Pilsudski approached the government of France about making an attack on Germany, which Hitler was busy re-arming. The government of France declined his offer. By now Hitler had gotten wind of Pilsudski's move, and Hitler suggested to Pilsudski that Germany and Poland enter into a ten year treaty of non-aggression. JANUARY, 1933, MADGEBURG. According to Nebel's account, Becker now tried to interfere with the financing of the development of the Madgeburg rocket. Ernst Reuter, a town father, saved the project by personally guaranteeing its financing, and as a result he was seized and thrown into a concentration camp on Hitler's own order. FEBRUARY, 1933, HOUSE OF COMMONS, LONDON. Churchill knew that Britain might be facing a old enemy once again, and with Hitler's accession to power his urgings to rearm and to bring international pressure to bear on Hitler and Germany became more intense. But Churchill had broken with the leadership of the Conservatives, and he could scarcely tolerate the socialists of the Labour Party. His urgings had little effect. SPRING, 1933, CAMBRIDGE. So that this story will make some sense later on, it is necessary at this point to digress from the account of the rocket experimenters in Germany and their relationships with each other, in order to recount the activities of a completely separate group of individuals. By this point in time some students at Cambridge University in Britain had been watching Hitler's growing power with alarm. It seemed to them as though the British government was just standing by and hoping that Hitler would attack socialists and the Soviet Union. Already committed to British socialism, they had been disappointed by its failures and they now saw communism as their only hope. Four of these students, Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, and Anthony Blunt, became agents of the Soviet Union's intelligence service, apparently recruited by Maurice Dobb, one their professors. Kim Philby would go to work aiding the socialists in Austria, and he would return to Cambridge and recruit Guy Burgess to aid in raising funds for them. Philby would then be formally recruited by the Soviet intelligence service and he in turn would formally recruit Burgess. Philby and Burgess would then join the Anglo-German Fellowship so that they could keep an eye on the connections of Britain with Hitler and his Nazis. In 1937 Kim Philby would go to Spain where to cover Generalissimo Franco's fascist Nationalist forces for the London newspaper "The Times", as well as for the Soviet intelligence service. In August, 1939 Philby would return to London on "holiday", just in time to be sent to cover the German invasion of France. By June, 1940 France would fall and Philby would return to Britain. Donald Maclean would be formally recruited by the Soviet intelligence service in 1934, and he would then begin work to pass the examinations for admission to the British Foreign Office. He would succeed in passing those exams and after serving in London he would be posted to Paris in 1938. Maclean would leave France after its conquest by the Germans in June, 1940 and he would return to Britain. By October, 1936 Burgess would manage to get a job for the British Broadcasting Company, and he would then started to produce a radio talk show "The Week in Westminster". This program allowed him to make contact in London with people from across the entire political spectrum, and besides filling in his audience he would also fill in the Soviet intelligence service. In 1939 Burgess would manage to gain employment with the British intelligence service itself. Anthony Blunt would be in France and would join the British army there in 1939 just before Hitler invaded Poland. While he was there he worked, with Burgess's help, to get a job with the British intelligence service. Blunt would also flee France in May, 1940 and in August, 1940 he was hired by British intelligence. Upon his return to Britain other from France Philby would try to gain admission to the British Enigma decryption operation at Bletchley Park which would be reading German machine ciphers, but he would fail in this endeavor. Burgess would then also help Philby get a job with British intelligence and in July, 1940 Philby would join his friends as yet another employee of British intelligence. Everything that would pass through these men's hands both before and during the next world war would be forwarded to Stalin. And as will be seen, this information would affect the futures of the rocket experimenters in surprising ways. SPRING, 1933, RAKETENFLUGPLATZ, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Troops of the German Air Guard, the ground support troops for the Air Force, showed up at Raketenflugplatz and announced that the facility was their drill ground. Instead of enlisting their support Nebel tried to ignore them, but their drills would continue to interrupt the experimenters' tests of rockets and rocket engines over the next year. SPRING, 1933, DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, BERLIN. Ley learned from Herbert Schaefer that Nebel had told Mengering that he had filed bankruptcy papers for the Society for Space Travel several years before. Soon thereafter Ley learned that Nebel had also told the same thing to Becker, and Ley went out to the Raketenflugplatz and seized the records of the Society. Ley concluded that since Nebel had raised money for the Society after he had declared it bankrupt, he had engaged in fraud, and he reported this to the District Attorney. When the District Attorney called Nebel in for questioning, he showed up wearing a Nazi arm band. The District Attorney then decided not to pursue the case any further. 4 APRIL, 1933, BERLIN. From 1930, when Becker and Dornberger had first begun the serious development of rockets for military use, they had been monitoring the rocket clubs in Germany. Now that they had their own laboratory set up, the independent societies would play little role, and even presented a risk to them of developing rocket technologies for the use by possible enemies of Germany. Becker and Dornberger wanted all the development of rockets under their control, and they used the ordnance of 22 June, 1932 to claim that they had "exclusive" responsibility for the development of rockets in Germany. Johannes Winkler had continued his work on rockets with the support of the manufacture Hugo A. Huckel, and it had been publicized by Ley. Gestapo agents now arrested two of Winkler's aids and charge them with high treason. One of them was held for six weeks and threatened with severe consequences if he continued his contact with foreign scientists. 29 JUNE, 1933, MADGEBURG. After many difficulties the Madgeburg rocket was finally ready to be launched. The new design had a height of 7.6 meters (25 feet) and an engine with a thrust of 1,000 kilograms. Because of the difficulties that had been encountered developing the rocket, the idea of placing a man aboard it had been dropped. When the rocket's launch finally came, it hung up in the launch stand and took off in a horizontal direction, coming to the ground 305 meters (1000 feet) away. Rudolph Nebel returned to Raketenflugplatz and used the components developed for the Madgeburg rocket to build several other rockets. For one cause or another all of his attempts to launch these rockets ended in failure. SEPTEMBER, 1933. Not only had Hitler suggested to Pilsudski that Poland and Germany enter into a pact of non-aggression, he also suggested that they enter into an alliance and attack the Soviet Union. Pilsudski rejected Hitler's offer, but he recognized a good opportunity for espionage when he saw one. He suggested to Hitler that he would have to make a careful examination of Germany's readiness for war before he could enter in to such an agreement, and an exchange of military delegations now took place. A Polish delegation under Dr. Jan Jachinowitz visited Berlin to see German preparations for chemical and biological warfare. The Germans gave them special lectures and demonstrations. They told the Poles that their dye industry was set up so that its facilities could be converted to the production of poison gas should the need arise. The Poles were also shown a laboratory under Dr. Hans Kreuger who was examining the use of biological organisms in warfare. Kreiger and is associates were studying giving soldiers ampules filled with enteric organisms, dysentery bacillus, and typhoid bacillus, which soldiers could use to contaminate water supplies as they retreated, etc. The Germans were also investigating the possibility of spreading pneumococcus and hemolytic streptococcus by spraying these agents from airplanes. In 1934 Pilsudski accepted Hitler's offer for a treaty of non-aggression, but he would continue to reject Hitler's offers to form an alliance and attack the Soviet Union, and he would even refuse to meet with Hitler. In 1935 Pilsudski died from cancer of the liver. AUGUST, 1933, BERLIN. Hellmuth Simons was a good German. He was born in 1893 in Dusseldorf, and as he had grown up other people had noticed that he was extremely intelligent. He was accepted into university, and while an undergraduate studied Mediterranean oceanic fauna at the Russian Zoological Laboratory in Villefranche. After he received his undergraduate degree, he married. At the outbreak of the World War Simons was appointed to the Pathological Institute of the Academy for Practical Medicine in Dusseldorf to carry out research on microbiology and animal and human parasitology. In 1916 Simons was appointed malaria expert to the German 7th Army and he lectured Army sanitary officers at the University of Munster. In 1918 Simons received his doctorate in zoology from the University of Freiburg, with minors in chemistry, theoretical physics and pre-clinical medicine. After the war Simons pursued work in insecticides. In 1925 he became the consulting chemist on insecticides for a flour mill in Neuss. When the German economy collapsed in 1929, the flour mill Simons worked at collapsed as well. Simons went on to pick up odd jobs, first as a contributor to a technical periodical, and then as an advisor to the patent office on flour and related foodstuffs. From these positions Simons was able to review the work of most German scientists on a problem he had become interested in while working for the German Army during the World War: the possibility of using biological organisms as weapons. It had long been suggested that biological agents could be use as weapons, and as a medical officer Simons had been aware of the danger. While in practice the danger had been much less than feared, during the World War the German Army sent out ampules of glanders to their agents to use to infect enemy horses. After the war the Allies had dismantled the German military, but scattered research on biological warfare had continued. When Bruning became the chancellor of Germany, the possibility of biological warfare was examined again by the German Air Ministry, and somehow Simons managed to get a hold of these papers. Hellmuth Simons was a good German, but he was also a Jew, and he now took his family and fled Nazi Germany, taking his collection of papers on biological warfare along with him. FALL, 1933, EXPERIMENTAL STATION KUMMERSDORF WEST, OUTSIDE BERLIN. von Braun was joined at Kummersdorf by Walter Riedel, who brought with him the rocket engine he had developed at the Heylandt Works. Walter Riedel's engine did not prove effective, so von Braun instead used Klaus Riedel's alcohol and liquid oxygen engine from the Raketenflugplatz to develop the Assembly 1 Rocket for Dornberger. Military rockets required the development of a different design than the one used by Nebel. They would have to be narrow enough to be easily transported to their launch point, and the direction of their flight had to be highly controllable. This would require that the rocket's fuel tanks be placed over the engine, instead of under the engine as Nebel and Riedel had done in their earliest rockets. von Braun came up with the idea of using a spinning payload to stabilize the rocket, but static tests showed that then the Assembly 1 Rocket's nose was so heavy that it would be unstable in flight. 1933, MUNICH. Dornberger began to fund engineer Paul Schmidt's work on his jet engine. OCTOBER, 1933, VIENNA, AUSTRIA. Quite separately from the developments in Germany, Dr. Eugene Saenger, a professor of engineering at the College of Engineering in Vienna, proposed to the Austrian Ministry of Defense that they should fund the research and development of a rocket motor for a plane that would fly 965 kilometers an hour (600 miles per hour) at an altitude of 16 kilometers (10 miles). After review, they told Saenger that his proposal did not deserve consideration because rocket engines exploded. Undeterred, Saenger began his own experiments to build a rocket engine. OCTOBER, 1933, EXPERIMENTAL STATION KUMMERSDORF WEST, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Hitler visited Kummersdorf to examine the work being done on conventional weapons. While he was there he was shown von Braun's experiments, but he showed little interest in von Braun's work, and for the next year Dornberger would struggle to keep the project alive. NOVEMBER, 1933, MADRID. Since its founding the Spanish Republic had been under attack by the industrialists, landowners, Catholic Church and the army right, and they had responded by forming a fascist party under Gil Robles. Throughout this period the Spanish Socialists were also under attack by the Spanish "anarchist" communists, who agreed with Lenin that it would be necessary to conquer the industrialists and land owners before any improvement in the lot of most people would occur. The Socialists were severely weakened, and in the elections of November, 1933 the Spanish fascists managed to gain control of the government. WINTER, 1933, RAKETENFLUGPLATZ, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Ley was fed up. At the next meeting of the Society for Space Travel he confronted Nebel and Klaus Riedel. He told them that their work was not for space travel now, but for the military. Nebel and Riedel pointed out that they at least they were still independent, not like von Braun who had gone to work for the Army. And who else but the military had any money? By the end of the meeting the Society for Space Travel ceased to exist. Ley had already made his plans. He had been in correspondence with the American Rocket Society and he knew that this was the only other place where serious work on rockets was being done. He wanted to go the United States, but there were already so many Germans seeking refuge there that he thought that it would be impossible for him to get a visa. Ley decided that he would try to get to Britain, and after that he would go to the United States. Before he left he reorganized the Society for Space Travel under a different name. 1934, EXPERIMENTAL STATION KUMMERSDORF WEST, OUTSIDE BERLIN. At the same time they had been working on the Assembly 1 Rocket von Braun and his team were developing a new, more powerful rocket engine. This pattern of work would be used by von Braun throughout his life: develop a rocket engine, and then while you are developing the airframe for the entire rocket, begin work on the rocket engine for the next rocket. When the new rocket engine was completed Dornberger invited General von Brauchitsch out to view a test firing of it. von Brauchitsch was so impressed by the engine that he gave Dornberger complete funding for the work at Kummersdorf. SPRING, 1934, RAKETENFLUGPLATZ, OUTSIDE BERLIN. The water works presented Nebel with a bill for water for the enormous amount of 1600 marks. Nebel soon discovered that water had been leaking through faulty water faucets in some of the buildings that the experimenters had not used. As there was no money to pay the bills, they would have to leave. One of Klaus Riedel's late father's friends had been looking out for him for some time. The man was a director with Siemens, and Riedel managed to get himself and some of the other assistants from the Raketenflugplatz hired there to build aircraft instruments. 1934, BERLIN. The German Air Force was watching the German Army's work on rocket and jets, and they were becoming alarmed at what they saw as an infringement on their responsibilities by Dornberger and the Army. When the Air Force approached Becker and Dornberger, they agreed that the Air Force would have complete control over Schmidt's work on his jet engine, while a part of Schmidt's funding would continue to come from the Army. 14 JUNE, 1934, LIDO AIRPORT, VENICE, ITALY. By the terms of the Treaty of Versailles the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been broken up, and Austria made a separate country that was forbidden to have ties to Germany. Since Hitler had assumed power in January he had used the resources of both the Nazi Party as well as German government to overthrow the government of Austria, then under Englebert Dolfuss. Italy had long contested with Austria its sovereignty over certain areas. As Italy had been allied with France, Britain, Russia and the United States during the World War, the Versailles Treaty had been most generous to Italy in resolving those disputes. Mussolini did not want to see Hitler in control of Austria, for then Hitler would be in a position to force an entirely different resolution. In addition, Dolfuss himself was a fascist and a friend of Mussolini's. After many years of bitter struggle, after the most recent elections the Austrian Christian Socialists had allied with Austrian fascists to force the Austrian Social Democrats from power. When Dolfuss's power to lead the government was challenged in the Austrian assembly, and he simply abolished the assembly. Mussolini had done what he could do to bring international pressure to bear on Hitler and had entered into agreements with France, Britain, Hungary and Austria itself. But the terrorist acts of the Austrian Nazis had continued. Mussolini now invited Hitler to meet with him, and as Mussolini had long been Hitler's role model, and as the meeting would mark Hitler's emergence onto the international scene, Hitler accepted Mussolini's invitation. When Hitler got off his plane at the airport, Mussolini remarked to an aid, "I don't like it." When Hitler saw that Mussolini was decked out in full Fascist regalia, he growled at his ambassador, "Why didn't you tell me to wear my uniform?" As Mussolini insisted upon acting as his own interpreter, no good record of his meeting with Hitler exists. What is known is that at first while the two men lunched they criticized each others' political theories. After lunch, the two men met privately and yelled at each other about Austria, with Mussolini advising Hitler not to meddle in Austria and threatening him with retaliation if he did, and Hitler telling Mussolini that Austria was a part of Germany and that he would rule it. The two men would part without reaching agreement. 30 JUNE, 1934, BERLIN. Hitler was faced with a problem. Ernst Roehm, the leader of the Storm Troopers, was demanding that he be placed in control of the German Army, and that his Storm Troopers be made officers. Roehm was threatening Hitler that he would abandon him and revolt and bring Strasser into control of both the Nazi Party and the government if his demands were not met. The Army was threatening to revolt if Roehm's demands were met. Hitler had used Roehm's thugs to intimidate and harass his opponents in the elections leading up to his seizure of power. Hitler had invited Roehm to share in the glory of his victory. But as Roehm still had loyalties to Strasser, Hitler had given the real power to Himmler, giving him control of Hermann Goering's newly formed "Secret State Police", known by its abbreviated German name "Gestapo". Faced with Roehm's treason, Hitler decided that both Roehm and Strasser would have to be killed. He would use Himmler's SS to attack Roehm's Storm Troopers. The lists of Storm Troopers and political enemies that were to be eliminated were compiled by Heydrich, who had by now organized his SS security operations into the "Security Service", known as the SD from its German initials. Hitler himself personally led the SS troops that arrested Roehm, and ordered the immediate execution of one of Roehm's staff and a young boy who were caught engaged in homosexual acts. Hitler returned to Munich with his prisoners and then ordered Himmler and Goering to begin the round up and execution of 150 members of the Storm Troopers. Having succeeded in purging the Storm Troopers, Hitler then ordered Himmler and Goering to arrest and execute roughly 1,000 of his other political opponents, including Gregor Strasser, his rival for control of the Nazi Party. Though at first reluctant to kill his old associate, Hitler finally personally ordered Himmler and Goering to kill Roehm. JUNE, 1934, RAKETENFLUGPLATZ, OUTSIDE BERLIN. As the Society for Space Travel was no longer in existence, nor was any work being done on rockets, Rudolph Nebel established a new office at Raketenflugplatz where he was at work on an new method of electrical heating. Two Gestapo officers now arrived at his office and demanded that he go to his flat, gather his Jewish bride, all of his correspondence, and his new brochure on "Rocket Torpedoes", and report to their headquarters. They seized everything that was in his office. When Nebel arrived at Gestapo headquarters he found that most of the prisoners were Storm Troopers. At first he thought that he had been rounded up because his friends were members of the Storm Troopers, but just before he was to be loaded on one of the transports to be taken away and shot, one of the agents pulled him aside as the person from the Raketenflugplatz. Nebel was brought before a judge and accused of making public the secret work he had done for the Army. In his defense Nebel claimed that because of inadequate support from the Army he had been forced to obtain donations from his publications, and that the judge could confirm that for himself. He was returned to his cell and a Gestapo agent went to make the call. The next day Nebel was released. He returned to the Raketenflugplatz and loaded his patent file, old rockets, and tools into his automobile and left. He then received noticed that he had been banned from further use of the Raketenflugplatz. Rudolph Nebel blamed this situation on von Braun's father, who he thought had used his influence as a minor government official to allow his son to establish a monopoly over the development of rockets in 1932. The truth was that Becker and Dornberger had established a policy of suppressing work by groups that were not under their control or influence shortly after they had begun serious work on rockets in 1930. JULY, 1934, LONDON. Hellmuth Simons fled to Britain and made the documents he had taken with him available to Wickham-Steed, a former editor of the "Times" and one of Churchill's close friends. Wickham-Steed took Simons' papers to British experts. They told Wickham-Steed that they were unable to verify them, but at the same time asked him to suppress part of them. Wickham-Steed turned the remainder of Simons' papers into an article which was published in the magazine "Nineteenth Century." The article detailed work by "German secret services known as "Air attacks with gas" and "Aerial defense with gas"" within the "Division for Air Attack" of the "German War Ministry". Wickham-Steed would then determine that the task force had begun its work when Bruning, the leader of the German Catholic Party, had become Chancellor in Germany in 1929. The first of Simons' documents, from 1932, detailed experiments made in 1931 to study the dispersion of bacteria by the subway in Paris. It also detailed experiments made with the dispersion of bacteria carrying aerosols from aircraft. Other documents in Simons' collection detailed two experiments made in August and September of 1933 which studied the dispersion of bacteria in public squares in Paris. From this time on Wickham-Steed's friend Churchill would be certain that Germany was engaged in research preparing for biological warfare. In yet another response to Simons' information, British scientists would step up their own efforts. 1934, MOSCOW. Simons and Wickham-Steed's article did not go unnoticed in Moscow. The War Medical Institute of the Red Army of Workers and Farmers under Professor Ivan Mikhailovitch Velikovnov in Vlatshisha near Moscow was turned into the Biochemical Institute and he was tasked to study the use of biological agents in warfare. Velikovnov would conduct his first experiments at the testing ground in Volsk where Germans and Soviets had earlier worked on gas weapons. In 1935 this Institute was moved to the Island of Gorodomlya in Lake Seliger and there it began to work on the use of plague, anthrax, tuleremia, typhoid, glanders, cholera, and foot and mouth disease as weapons. In 1936 Professor Velikovnov would set up a new experimental station on the Island of Voroshdenie in Lake Aral. JULY, 1934, RAKETENFLUGPLATZ, OUTSIDE BERLIN. When Ley arrived to visit Raketenflugplatz he was met by a military man who blocked his entry and told him that the Gestapo was there seizing documents and equipment. Because he feared that it would lead to his being questioned he quickly left without revealing to the man who he was. JULY, 1934, SIEMENS FACTORY, BERLIN. Nebel took his old rockets, patent files, and tools to the Siemens factory where Klaus Riedel was working, and he stored them there. Nebel was now adrift, blacklisted because of his associations with the Storm Troopers, not for having a Jewish girlfriend. That would come later. 25 JULY, 1934, VIENNA, AUSTRIA. With Roehm and Strasser dead, Hitler had now began to implement his plan to seize control of Austria. From the beginning of July Hitler had been sending reinforcements to Austria and relaying instructions to them. Unknown to Chancellor Dolfuss, Rintelin, his Minister to Italy was under Hitler's influence, and Hitler planned to have him set up the new government. On 25 July a group of Nazis in Austrian uniform burst into the Austrian Chancellery and shot Dolfuss. Another group seized the radio station and proclaimed Rintelin, the new head of government. But the years of Social Democrat control of the Austrian government had had their effect, and the Austrian police and Army remained loyal to the remainder of Dolfuss's cabinet. The Nazi groups were forced to surrender. More importantly, Mussolini immediately telegraphed the leadership of the small political party in Austria which allied itself with his idea of fascism and told them that he would support Austrian independence and publicly announced that he was sending Italian troops to the Austrian border. Hitler backed off. He placed the blame for the coup attempt with his officials in Austria and recalled them. But Hitler did not abandon his goal of bringing Austria under his control, but instead dispatched his new ambassador to Austria with a brief to organize the Nazi Party there and to subvert the government. 1934, MOSCOW. Hitler's imprisonment of the German Communist Party leaders opened Stalin's eyes to the true strength of the Bolsheviks in Europe, and he now allowed the French Bolsheviks to unite with other French socialist parties to prevent the Fascists from coming to power in France. In 1934 France and the Soviet Union signed a mutual aid pact aimed against Germany. 1934, HOUSE OF COMMONS, LONDON. By 1934 it was clear to Churchill that another war with Germany was coming, and he now spoke about the destruction of London by bombing in the next war. He immediately began to press for the improvement of Britain's air forces. But Churchill was still on the outs not only with the leaders of the Labour Party but also with the leaders of his own Conservative Party. Since these men ran the coalition government together, Churchill was out. Not only would his pleadings be ineffectual, his split with leadership of his own party would result in him being excluded from office when the Labour Party was further weakened in the elections of 1935 and the Conservatives took the lead in the "coalition government". 1934, BORKUM ISLAND, BALTIC SEA. von Braun had immediately reconfigured the Assembly 1 Rocket by moving the rotating payload to the center of the rocket. By the end of 1934 the new Assembly 2 Rocket was ready for flight testing and two of them were successfully launched at Borkum Island on the Baltic Sea. DECEMBER, 1934, VIENNA. Independently of the work at the Raketenflugplatz, Saenger had come up with a method of cooling the combustion chamber of a rocket engines by circulating its fuel around it. His rocket engine, which used diesel fuel and liquid oxygen, was an outstanding success which ran for as long 30 minutes. In December, 1934 an article showing Saenger's rocket engine appeared in the journal "Flug" (Flight). Shortly thereafter the Dean of his school forbid him to make further experiments with it. JANUARY, 1935, EXPERIMENTAL STATION KUMMERSDORF WEST, OUTSIDE BERLIN. The German Air Force had been experimenting for some years with using solid propellant rockets to assist in the take off of fully loaded bombers. When they learned of von Braun's success with liquid fueled rockets they asked for one of them to be tested as a means of propulsion. von Braun himself had given serious thought to using rocket engines to power aircraft. He was certain that a manned spaceship would have to fly to return to Earth from space, and in 1933 von Braun had learned how to fly. He now contacted airplane manufacturer Ernst Heinkel, who mounted one of von Braun's liquid rocket engines in the tail of a Heinkel 112 airplane. von Braun himself would personally test the firing of the rocket engine in the tied down plane. JANUARY, 1935, BERLIN. Hitler gave the new chief of German military intelligence, Wilhelm Canaris, his brief. He expected that he would be able to form an alliance with Britain against the Bolsheviks, and Canaris was not to endanger this by conducting espionage against them. Instead Canaris was solely to establish contacts with the British as a channel for confidential communication. Canaris very promptly obeyed Hitler's instructions, for he himself had a serious interest in establishing contact with the British for the purpose of confidential communications. Canaris despised Hitler and wanted to open up channels to British intelligence in order to betray him. His efforts would be successful, and by 1936 Canaris would be sending regular reports to British intelligence. JUNE, 1935, SIEMENS FACTORY, BERLIN. After being adrift and without income for nearly a year, Nebel finally managed to get a job at the Siemens plant, apparently through the offices of Klaus Riedel. Nebel would be shocked when he found his first paycheck garnished for the water bill for the Raketenflugplatz. JULY, 1935, WASHINGTON. As Japan was made western by its leaders, the Japanese government had decided to copy the western governments' policies of colonialism. China had been in chaos for the last one hundred and fifty years since its conquest by the northern Manchu nomads, and by the turn of the twentieth century Japanese colonial ambitions had settled on China and the territories that the Chinese government controlled. After the First World War, and again following the example of western nations, Japan both paused in expanding its colonies and it negotiated arms control treaties with the western nations. But the military and colonial faction in Japan had not disappeared, and when the effects of the collapse of the German economy reached Japan they began to regain power. Throughout their negotiations with the United States and other western nations to limit arms, a U.S. cryptographic operation under Herbert O. Yardley had intercepted and deciphered the Japanese diplomatic communications. In 1929 Henry L. Stimson became the new U.S. Secretary of State and upon finding out about Yardley's operation he immediately shut it down, saying "Gentlemen do not read other gentlemen's mail". Yardley went broke and to earn money wrote his masterpiece, "The American Black Chamber". In this book Yardley revealed that the U.S. had read the Japanese negotiators' "mail" throughout the period when Japan was negotiating with the United States a limit on the number of battleships. The book was an immediate sensation in Japan and was serialized in several Japanese newspapers. The loss of face suffered by the Japanese government had catastrophic consequences. Among many Japanese the new Fascist government in Italy and the new Nazi government in Germany were seen as being somehow "modern, and this faction concluded that their example was to be followed in Japan's drive to westernize. The humiliation Yardley's book caused was a final blow to democratic forces in Japan, and the militarist faction was finally able to seize total control of the government. The publication of Yardley's "The American Black Chamber also convinced the Japanese navy that they needed to improve the security of their communications. Like the Germans, they concluded that machine ciphers would be unbreakable, and they adopted a cipher machine developed by Ichiro Hamada. They also saw that this machine was adopted by the Japanese Foreign Office as well. The adoption of this cipher machine threw the United States Office of Naval Intelligence for a loop. While they had been reading the Japanese code for years, they were now in the dark. They rapidly came up with a plan to use the best technology available to regain their ability to read the Japanese communications. They arranged for a break-in of the code room of Captain Tamon Yamaguchi, the Japanese naval attache in Washington, and discovered a complete description of the machine. They already had a woman they had sent to spy on Lieutenant Toshikazu Ohmae, and they learned from her that he would be carrying copies of the settings of the machine from Japan. They arranged for him to be seduced, and while he was having sex with their agent they made a photographic copy of this book, which gave the settings for the machine. From these two sources Naval Intelligence was able to build a duplicate of the cipher machine. Left was the problem of recovering the daily settings which would be used to set the machine after they had gone through the list of daily settings that Lieutenant Ohmae had provided. To solve this problem Naval Intelligence established a large International Business Machine punched card facility at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. 1935, EXPERIMENTAL STATION KUMMERSDORF WEST, OUTSIDE BERLIN. The Assembly 2 Rocket demonstrated that large liquid fueled rockets were possible. But Dornberger had been assigned to develop a rocket capable of long range bombardment, and this would require an even larger rocket. Dornberger now asked von Braun to begin the design of the Assembly 3 Rocket, which would require engines more than five times as powerful as those used by the Assembly 2 Rocket. It was also obvious that a rocket with a 100 kilometer range could not be tested at Kummersdorf, and the search began for a new testing grounds. 1935, BERLIN. The German Air Force was impressed by von Braun's liquid rocket engine and came to the conclusion that rocket powered planes would be possible. When the Air Force offered the Army 5,000,000 marks to build a new test facility, Becker became alarmed. Sensing that the Air Force was attempting to establish its dominance over rocketry, he decided to appropriate 6,000,000 marks towards the new facility. OCTOBER, 1935 ETHIOPIA. Mussolini had delusions of grandeur and aspired to restore the Roman Empire that existed several millennia earlier. He intended to turn the Mediterranean into an Italian sea, and to turn north Africa into an Italian colony. As most of North Africa was already under British or French control, Mussolini's ambitions finally settled on expanding the Italian colony in Eritrea into Abyssinia, and he attacked Ethiopia. The Ethiopian tribesman proved to be better fighters and a more formidable foe than Mussolini had anticipated, and when his troops became bogged down he decided to use mustard gas. The Italian Air Force delivered the mustard gas by bombs at first, but then started to use aerial spraying to douse the unprotected Ethiopians. In response to this the League of Nations, which had been established after the First World War to prevent war, imposed very weak economic sanctions on Italy which prevented her from buying some types of goods from other countries. As most of the League's members had colonies of their own, and saw the Ethiopians, who were neither European nor Japanese, as somehow subhuman, they undertook no other action. Italy for its part simply withdrew from the League, and as the League's weakness became apparent to all it ceased to be an effective force in international relations. Britain and France, who had numerous colonies of their own, would stop their opposition to Italy and negotiate Ethiopia's surrender. 1936. The other major powers quickly concluded that gas was an integral part of Italy's arsenal and took action. The British government set as policy that gas masks would be provided for all civilians, and they built a new factory for the production of mustard gas as well. The French built a new factory to produce phosgene gas. The United States resumed production of mustard gas and phosgene gas. The Soviet Union undertook new efforts and intensified the training of troops equipped with chemical weapons. 1936, BASEL, SWITZERLAND. Hellmuth Simons had left Britain and was now in Switzerland. It appears that this was Simon's second visit, as in later German notes about a 1935 lecture by the Frenchman we find Velu's notes about a law suit: "Finally, the famous Zurich lawsuit: "Process for bombs and culture boullions of Zurich", has made it possible for us to learn, in addition to the important instructions dispatched by the sabotage agency of the German War Ministry, the content of valuable documents dealing with the applicability of the bacterial weapon and the results expected." The likely cause of Velu's note seems to be that in 1935 Hellmuth Simons had actually sued Nazi Germany in a Swiss court in an attempt to hinder their work in the development of bacterial weapons. Whether the Zurich suit was Dr Simons' or not, on 3, March, 1936 with the cooperation of the British Admiralty, Dr. Simons secured a secret patent for a "Process for testing animated and unanimated solid particles and liquid drops of the same in air and air currents in military attacks." While he was securing this patent, Dr. Simons was working with a Professor D. Keilin at the Molteno Institute for Research in Parasitology at Cambridge. Now Dr Simons was once again in Switzerland, but this time in Bern, working for Hoffman La Roche on problems with the bacterial phase of ascorbic acid production. 23 FEBRUARY, 1936, GREENWOOD LAKE, NEW YORK. Willy Ley managed to make his way to Britain as a "tourist", and with an invitation from the American Rocket Society he finally arrived in New York in February, 1935. After his arrival Ley became more familiar with the American Rocket Society, and he discovered that this Society was much different from the public group he had helped to establish in Germany. It was comprised of little more than a few experimenters who were financing their experiments out of their own pockets and then using their journal to circulate their results among themselves. Ley discovered that despite the wide interest in the United States in science fiction tales of spaceflight there was little public enthusiasm for the real thing. To earn money Ley returned to his previous job of writing of science articles for magazines. In November Ley was appointed to oversee the tests of two rocket planes designed by Nathan Carver and financed by F.W. Kessler. These rocket planes were built of aluminum, had a wing span of fifteen feet, and were powered by liquid oxygen and alcohol fueled motors. In 1931 Ley had corresponded with Friedrich Schmiedl, an Austrian who had successfully used rockets to carry mail. In an effort to build public support for rocketry Ley and the others now decided to test the new rockets with a six mile mail flight from Greenwood Lake, New York to Hewitt, New Jersey. The men made sure the planes were loaded with stamped envelopes and postcards which they hoped that they would be able to sell to stamp collectors and rocket enthusiasts after the rockets' flights. The test flights of both rocket planes ended in failure, the first when its engine's combustion chamber blew through and sent it spinning into the ground, and the second failed when its wings tore off. 1936, HERMANN GOERING INSTITUTE, TRAUEN, NEAR HANOVER. Since they had been blocked in their attempts to gain access to the Army's rocket program, the German Air Force decided to start a program of their own. The Air Force contacted Dr. Saenger at the College of Engineering in Vienna and offered him his own laboratory, and Dr. Saenger accepted. The Air Force also offered jet engine experimenter Paul Schmidt a position at the Herman Goering Institute and he would also accept their offer. Together with Saenger Schmidt would begin work on a jet powered plane which could deliver a 1 ton payload twice as far as any existing long range cannon. Saenger would soon realize that Schmidt's jet engine was less costly to build and more reliable than his own rocket engine. MARCH, 1936, EXPERIMENTAL STATION KUMMERSDORF WEST, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Dornberger invited the Commander in Chief of the Wehrmacht, Major General Werner von Fritsch, to Kummersdorf for a demonstration of the newly perfected engine for the Assembly 3 Rocket. The engineers showed von Fritsch their plans and then they demonstrated their rocket engines for him. von Fritsch was so impressed by the demonstration he uttered the magic words which every engineer loves to hear. "How much do you want?", he asked them. SUMMER, 1936, EXPERIMENTAL STATION KUMMERSDORF WEST, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Now that they had money, von Braun, Walter Riedel, and Dornberger began to discuss their next rocket. In 1930 Dornberger had been assigned to develop a liquid fueled rocket to replace long range cannons. The Assembly 3 Rocket which was currently under development came close to doing that, but not entirely. Dornberger now set up the requirement that the new rocket should have twice the range of the Paris Gun, the largest German cannon of the World War: this rocket should also be able to carry 1 ton (1.1 ton) of explosives to its target 257 kilometers (160 miles) away. Dornberger and von Braun assigned Walter Riedel the responsibility for doing a systems specification for the new rocket. Since the amount of power produced by their liquid oxygen and alcohol engines was known, and since the weights of the engine, fuel, the fuel tanks and structure for the rocket could estimated, Walter Riedel was soon able to determine the specifications for the Assembly 4 Rocket. As this rocket would also have to be able to be transported to its launch point by railroad, and thus have to pass through railway tunnels and bridges, its overall dimensions were soon determined as well. The rocket would be 14.3 meters (46 feet) in length, and have a diameter of 1.65 meters (5 feet 5 inches), and fully fueled it would weigh 12.8 tons (14 tons). With Riedel's system specifications for the rocket in hand, Dornberger was then able to assign Dr. Walter Thiel, who was in charge of engine development, to begin work on the design of a new engine for the new rocket. 2 APRIL, 1936, PEENEMUNDE. While on vacation in December von Braun had mentioned the need for a new proving ground to his mother. His mother had suggested to him that he examine his father's old hunting grounds on an island at the mouth of the Peene Channel into the Baltic. After a joint Army-Air Force meeting General Kesselring gave his approval for the acquisition of Peenemunde as a joint Army-Air Force testing ground, and a representative was immediately dispatched to purchase the island. MAY, 1936, BERLIN. Rudolph Nebel was contacted by the Gestapo, who insisted that he sign a document renouncing research on rockets for the rest of his life. Nebel signed, but he still had hope that his previous patents would be recognized. 1 JUNE, 1936, BERLIN. von Braun thought that it would be nice to have a small plane to make travel between the new test site at Peenemunde and Berlin easier. As the Air Force was requisitioning all new planes, von Braun simply joined the Air Force as a pilot. In this way, not only would he get his plane, but at the same time he would be able to also fulfill his obligation for military service. 22 JULY, 1936, VILLA WAHNFRIED, NEAR BAYREUTH. After their election in 1933 the Spanish fascists rolled back the reforms that the socialists had made in the Spanish economy. The effects of this on the working people were so bad that when new elections were held in February, 1933 a coalition of Socialists and the Republican liberal democrats once again managed to gain control. During this entire time various Spanish fascist groups had been raising and arming private armies. The fascist groups aligned themselves around the royalists, who wanted a return of the King; the Catholics, who saw the new coalition party as a threat to their ability to use the government to enforce their religion; and around those who felt their economic positions threatened. The Spanish army also was opposed to the new ruling party, and in July, 1936 they once again attempted to seize control. But by this time the Republicans and Socialists managed to place enough of their own supporters in the army that despite the army's ability to seize rural areas, the Republicans and Socialists managed to keep control of the cities. The "Spanish" Army and fascists now sent their representatives to Villa Wahnfried to ask for help from Hitler. Hitler immediately launched "Operation Magic Fire" and his aid would ensure their success. One of Hitler's first actions would be to send German transport aircraft to North Africa to ferry Spanish colonial troops under the command of General Francisco Franco back to Spain. The transports would be followed by ships, arms, German troops, and aircraft for air support of the "Spanish" Army's troops when they would attack government positions. Mussolini, who had initially refused aid to the Spanish fascists, now joined Hitler in supporting them. JULY, 1936, MOSCOW. The Republican-Socialist Spanish government also appealed for foreign help, but Catholic Church leaders in France, Britain and the United States effectively blocked their efforts. That left the Republican-Socialist government with the Soviet Union as their only possible source of aid. Stalin now faced a problem. He realized that war was coming and that if he backed the Republican-Socialist alliance he stood the chance of loosing the support of France and Britain as allies against Hitler's Germany. In the end Stalin decided that he would back the Republican-Socialist alliance, but only as long as it did not lead to any threat to the friendly administrations in France and Britain. Stalin would also demand the gold reserves of the Spanish government as payment for the arms sent. AUGUST, 1936. After Hitler had achieved power in Germany he had begun implementing aspects of American science fiction writer Edward Bellamy's vision in his version of a National Socialist, or "Nazi" society. But the Government Ministry of Economics and German businessmen had been blocking his large scale economic plans. Hitler now decided that a centrally planned economy was necessary, and he had a Four Year Plan drawn up, and appointed Minister Goering to oversee it. Hitler outlined his thinking in a memo: "The world is moving with ever increasing speed towards a conflict with Bolshevism. Bolshevism's essence and aim is solely the elimination of those strata of mankind which have heretofore provided the leadership, and their replacement with world wide Jewry. "At present only Germany and Italy are firm against Bolshevism. If one considers how rapidly the Red Army has been growing in power, one can clearly see how menacing it will be ten, fifteen or twenty years from now. In the face of that danger, the German Army must be transformed into the first army in the world. "The final solution to these problems lies in extending overpopulated Germany's living space and/or the sources of its raw materials and food supplies. "The German Army must be operational, and ready for war in four years." SPRING, 1937, BERLIN. Dr. Gerhard Schrader had been working on the development of new insecticides. At the end of 1936 he had found a particularly potent new gas, but testing had revealed an unfortunate side effect: extremely small amounts of the new gas would kill any animal that came into contact with it. Schrader realized the potential of this compound as chemical munition and he contacted the military. They immediately summoned him to Berlin to make a presentation to representatives of the German Army. Earlier gases had worked by burning their victims, and although injured most people would survive an attack made with them. But Schrader's new gas "Tabun" was different: it worked by attacking the nerve system and the smallest amounts were inevitably fatal. After Schrader's presentation, Wehrmacht Colonel Rudriger, head of the Army's poison gas installation at Spandau, immediately ordered the production of Tabun for "field trials". He also set up Dr. Schrader in his own laboratory where he was to continue the development of poison gases. 1 MAY, 1937, PEENEMUNDE. von Braun received an official demand to join the Nazi Party. He was given a simple choice: he could join the Nazi Party, or he could give up his life's work on rockets. von Braun made his decision, and on 1 May, 1940 Wernher von Braun joined the Nazi Party. SPRING, 1937, PEENEMUNDE. As the new rocket facility required additional workers von Braun now contacted Klaus Riedel and all the other people from the Raketenflugplatz who were working at Siemens and offered them jobs, except for Rudolp Nebel. von Braun told Riedel that he had not made an offer to Nebel because he did not think that Nebel was a very good engineer. It seems more likely that von Braun did not want to hire Nebel was because he viewed him as threat to his authority, for in the event Riedel insisted that Nebel would have to be compensated before he would go to work for von Braun. Dornberger and von Braun had been worried for a long time that Nebel would claim that the rockets they were building were infringing his patents. Previous rockets they had built had used engines with the combustion chamber built into the liquid oxygen tank, but Thiel's new engine for the Assembly 4 Rocket was of a new design and it used a cooling jacket through which the engine's liquid oxygen was circulated to cool it. This presented the direct threat of violating Nebel's patent, and von Braun and Dornberger came up with the scheme of purchasing the patent rights for such engines from Nebel and Riedel. 1937, UNIVERSITY OF MOSCOW, SOVIET UNION. From Germany, Dr Hellmuth Simons fled to Britain. From Britain, Simons went to Zurich. Simons then returned from Zurich to Britain, and had gone once again to Switzerland, and now he was in Moscow. Simons would later claim that he had worked as a lecturer and researcher on malaria and leishmaniasis while in Moscow. But surely the Soviets must have done the same thing in Moscow that the British had in London: pump Dr. Simons for everything he knew about German research in biological warfare. MAY, 1937, SPAIN. After the Socialist-Republican alliance successfully held off the coup attempt of the "Spanish" Army, the more radical members of the alliance began without authorization to kill their opponents in the areas they held. Similar murders had been carried out by the fascists in the areas that they held, but only more methodically and on a much larger scale. Due to the fascists ability to control the foreign press, their killings were barely reported overseas while those of the Socialist-Republican alliance were given wide play. Stalin realized that he could not afford to have hostile parties take control of the governments of France and Britain, whose help he would need against Hitler's Germany. He wanted the purges in Spain stopped. The Spanish socialists under Trotsky's influence had concluded that no help was going to come to Spain from France or Britain and they were not worried about the survival of the Soviet Union. They held that the only way that the Spanish revolution could be won was if their most active opponents were killed. With aid from Stalin, the Spanish Communists now managed to seize control of the alliance and they set about suppressing and killing those Spanish socialists who were under Trotsky's influence. Since these formed the bulk of the most active troops confronting the "Spanish" Army, the communists' position began to erode despite the supply of even greater amounts of arms from the Soviet Union. MAY, 1937, GERMAN EMBASSY, LONDON. In May, 1937, Count Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's new ambassador to Britain, invited Churchill to meet with him at the German Embassy. von Ribbentrop presented Churchill with a proposal: Germany and Britain should ally. If Britain would give Germany a free hand in Eastern Europe, Germany would stand guard for the British Empire. Churchill asked Ribbentrop what he considered as Eastern Europe, and Ribbentrop told him it meant Poland, Western Russia, and the Ukraine and he went to a map and pointed out the areas which they intended to annex. Churchill told Ribbentrop that the German claims were preposterous. "In that case, war is inevitable. There is no way out. The Fuehrer is resolved. Nothing will stop him and nothing will stop us," Ribbentrop told Churchill. "Do not underrate England. She is very clever. If you plunge us into another great war, she will bring the whole world against you like the last time." Churchill argued. "No, England will not bring the world against Germany," Ribbentrop replied. Churchill left the Embassy convinced that war would come. But as his party was out of power, and he would be limited in what he could do. 2 JULY, 1937, BERLIN. von Braun and Dornberger made their offer to Nebel. Nebel and Klaus Riedel would receive 75,000 marks for the use of the patents until the end of June, 1939. Of the 75,000 marks, Nebel would receive 50,000 marks and Riedel 25,000. Nebel knew that the only course open to him was to accept von Braun and Dornberger's offer. He took the money and voluntarily gave 5,000 marks of it to those who had helped him at the Raketenflugplatz. The rest he put into a new project for the development of a robot, the "Automatic Worker", designed by Karl Saur, his fellow engineer at Siemens. Nebel and Saur would establish their factory with the help of the new "Aid for Inventors" program set up as part of Hitler's new Four Year Plan. FALL, 1937, GRIEFSWALDER OIE ON THE BALTIC SEA. The Assembly 3 Rocket was ready to be tested, but the facilities at Peenemunde were still being built. If tests of the Assembly 3 rocket were held there they would interfere with the construction work. Dornberger located Griefswalder Oie, a small island on the Baltic and built a small test facility there. The three test launches of the Assembly 3 rocket all ended in failure. It was soon determined that the control systems were inadequate to control the rocket. As the current design for the Assembly 4 Rocket used some of the same control systems as the Assembly 3 Rocket, von Braun realized he would have to stop work on the Assembly 4 Rocket and iron out the problems with the control system before it could be built. Since the engine of the Assembly 3 Rocket had worked well, von Braun decided that it would be used to power the new test bed. But instead of using the Assembly 3's body, von Braun decided he would also be able to gather aerodynamic data if he used a smaller version of the Assembly 4's body. This new combination would be called the Assembly 5 Rocket. OCTOBER, 1937, LEAGUE OF NATIONS, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND. The Japanese had begun their first experimental production of mustard gas in 1928. Following the establishment of the Army Chemical Warfare School at Narashimo in 1933, their efforts to develop gas weapons had been drastically escalated. The Japanese had wanted to establish China as a colony from ancient times. In much more recent times they had taken advantage of the chaos caused by the civil war between the Communists and the Nationalist Party there to launch an assault. Though they were meeting with military success, the leaders of the Japanese Army now decided to use gas against the Chinese. While Japan had signed the Geneva Protocol, the Army leadership could see that the use of gas by the Italians in Ethiopia had gone almost unpunished. The Army leadership also shared the opinion of their countrymen that the Chinese, as well the Koreans and several other peoples, were racially inferior; and since they were somehow subhuman, the use of mustard gas against the Chinese did not carry the same moral weight with the leadership as using it against westerners would have. Apparently the Japanese leadership's racial opinions were shared by the western nations, for when the Chinese protested Japan's use of mustard gas at the League of Nations, nothing was done about it. 1937, BERLIN. Rudolph Heydrich increased the strength of the SD, the party security organ, and he changed it from a party security organ into the national security organ. He was also threatening to usurp the functions of military intelligence. Canaris, the head of military intelligence, came up with a plan. He now called Heydrich into his office and sprang his trap. He told Heydrich that he had assembled a dossier on him, which showed that Heydrich had Jewish ancestors and that he had engaged in homosexual acts. He told him that he had sent the dossier to a friend in Switzerland, who was to give it to the New York Times [a Jewish publication] if anything happened to him or his family. Heydrich left Canaris's office. He would not again bother Canaris for several years to come. Heydrich would not inquire about Canaris' "friend" in Switzerland. It is fortunate that he did not, for he might have discovered that Canaris had opened up "channels of communication" with the Americans as well as with the British. 4:30 P.M., 5 NOVEMBER, 1937, REICH CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Hitler called together his Foreign Minister, War Minister, and the Commanders of the German Army, Air Force, and Navy. After swearing them to complete secrecy, he set out his plans for the expansion of the territory available to the German people. They would either annex by diplomatic means or conquer by military means Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. After this they would conquer Russia. Hitler expected that Britain and Franc would not interfere. Operations were to begin in 1938 and be finished by 1943. He told them his decision was final, and they were to immediately begin the planning of those operations. The commanders of the Army told Hitler that his proposal would lead to war with Britain and France and that the German Army would loose that war. His Foreign Minister reminded Hitler that he had promised Hindenburg not to involve Germany in another war. The commander of the Navy told Hitler that the Navy would not be ready to undertake such a campaign for a decade. Hitler told them that France and Britain were too weak and decadent to oppose him, but even if they did he was determined to proceed. He had given them his orders and he expected them to carry out those orders. NOVEMBER, 1937. The Commander of the Army and the Foreign Minister met with General Beck, the Chief of the General Staff of the Army, and discussed how they could stop Hitler. Beck went to Canaris, the head of German intelligence, and suggested that the British should be notified. Canaris informed the representative of British intelligence in Berlin about Hitler's plans. 2 JANUARY, 1938, LOBAU. Shortly after returning into Germany from a ski vacation in Czechoslovakia with his Jewish girlfriend, Rudolph Nebel was stopped by the police and instructed to return to Lobau. The next day he was confronted by a Gestapo agent who accused him of traveling to Czechoslovakia in order to hand over the secrets of his rocket engine. Nebel would be detained for a week in Bautzen and then for three weeks in Dresden. After the police had completed their investigation and confirmed that Nebel had indeed been on a skiing vacation, he was told to never leave the country again, and given a 20,000 mark fine. More was to follow. Since it had been discovered that Nebel had a Jewish girlfriend, the government withdrew its support for his and Saur's work on their "Automatic Worker" robots. Nebel and Saur would have to continue their work on the project using their own resources. 4 FEBRUARY, 1938, BERLIN. After his military leaders told him that they were opposed to his plans, Hitler immediately began efforts to remove them by blackmail and criminal charges. Realizing the difficulties involved in removing the officers one by one, Hitler finally decided to flank them entirely. He created a new Supreme Command with himself at its head and placed General Wilheim Keitel, his loyal supporter, in charge of it. He then removed from command the military leaders who opposed him. MARCH, 1938, AUSTRIA. The successful annexation of Austria presented Hitler with a problem. While he had been persecuting the Jews of Germany for several years, the Jews in Austria had not been persecuted. Hitler assigned the SS the job of ridding Austria of Jews, and the SS assigned this job to Adolf Eichmann. Adolf Eichmann was an unsuccessful traveling salesman when he joined the SS in 1932. Looking for the kind of status that had evaded him in society, Eichmann had applied to join Heydrich's security organization. He had been accepted and had soon been tasked to collect information on Jews. Eichmann became fascinated by the Jews and threw himself into his work, to the extent that he learned Hebrew and took a Jewish mistress. By now Eichmann had become the SS's resident Jewish expert. Over the next year and a half he would sell exit visas to half of Austria's Jews. Hitler would accept his work, and when Czechoslovakia would be overrun a year later, Eichmann would be assigned the same task there: rid Czechoslovakia of Jews. MARCH, 1938, PRINCETON. The first story that British government told about their cryptographic work, which they told to cryptographic workers in 1939, and which was released to the public in 1974, was not entirely truthful. According to this story, the British had not met with success in their attempts to break the Enigma and had abandoned work on it in 1932. But then "Richard Lewinski", who was a Polish Jewish mathematician who had worked at the factory in Berlin where the Enigma cipher machine was built had approached them. As the story went "Lewinski" had been expelled from Germany because of his religion and they had quickly struck a deal with him. They had then reconstructed the Enigma and proceeded to break it with the help of the Poles and French. What actually occurred was much different. The British, like the French, had been able to use the keys provided by Hans-Thilo Schmidt to read the commercial version of the Enigma which at the time was used by part of the German military. In 1937 the British codebreakers had managed to extend their work to compromise the commercial Enigma machines used by Italy and Spain as well. As international tensions had heightened, the head of the codebreakers, Captain Alistair Denniston, realized he might need more codebreakers and began a search for candidates. Denniston's foresight would pay off in an unexpected way. Neither the British nor the French had been able to reconstruct the rotors used in the full military version of the Enigma cipher machine, and they had been lost when Hans-Thilo Schmidt had been reassigned shortly before the Germans had changed their methods of setting up the Enigma for each day’s use. By March 1938, the same time that Hitler annexed Austria, the British and the French had completely lost their ability to read the messages of the German military Enigma. Denniston called up his recruits, and among them was Alan Turing. As part of the solution of an advanced mathematical problem Turing had described a type of binary computer and how it would process numbers. At the time of his call up Turing was working at Princeton in the United States at the Institute for Advanced Studies under John von Neumann, where he was building an electronic multiplier. Inspired by Turing, von Neumann would later go on to set out the specifications for the world's first general purpose stored program computer, the EDVAC. Turing himself had other more pressing work that needed to be done immediately. The other head of the British codebreakers, Dilwyn Knox, had gone to talk with the Poles about their work on the Enigma but the Poles had refused to share it with him. At that point British intelligence managed to set up a meeting between Turing and Knox and either a worker at the plant where the Poles had managed to duplicate the German military Enigma or with Rejewski himself. Of all the Polish codebreakers, Rejewski would be the only one later allowed to work with the British codebreakers. Taking the information their source provided, the British would get the French to duplicate the rotors of the German military Enigma. By the end of 1938 the British would also be able to give the British Tabulating Machine Company plans for another machine, one which duplicated the Pole's "bombes", the machines which the Poles used to generate punched cards to find the daily settings for the military Enigma. These would be run by Gordon Welchman, a mathematician and a linguist who had studied ancient Greek and Latin. 1938, WASHINGTON. In Japan in 1936 Rear Admiral Jinsaburo Ito had developed a new type of cipher machine, one that used telephone relays instead of rotors to encipher a message. At the beginning of 1938 this machine was adopted by the Japanese diplomatic corps, and the United States Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence was once again thrown for a loop. The United States had been reading Japanese communications almost continuously since 1920, and now that tensions were rising they had to re-establish that ability. The director of the Office of Naval Intelligence now approached William Friedman, the United States Army's chief cryptographer. Friedman had been the first to develop the mathematics for breaking ciphers generated by machines that used rotors. Hen would drive himself to exhaustion over the next year and a half trying to crack the new Japanese machine, until one of his team, Harry Lawrence Clark, would realize that the new Japanese machine used telephone relays instead of rotors. Within a month Friedman's team would complete a reconstruction of the machine and would set up a method for determining the daily key by which the machine was set up. Then Friedman would have a nervous breakdown. 1 APRIL, 1938, BERLIN. After the annexation of Austria, Hitler ordered the preparation of a plan for the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Many leaders of the German army had felt that such a move would lead to catastrophe, and among them was General Beck, the Chief of the General Staff. Beck now paid a visit to Hitler and asked for guarantees that Hitler did not intend to start a war. "It is not the army's duty to question its orders," Hitler told Beck. "I will not execute orders of which I do not approve," Beck replied. Beck returned to his office and prepared his resignation. He gathered together his colleagues and told them that Hitler was like Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, who had led his army from one military adventure to another until finally it perished on the steppes of Russia. "A war begun by Germany will immediately call into the field other states than the one she has attacked, and in a war against a world coalition she will succumb and for good or evil be at that coalition's mercy." Beck left Hitler’s office and began the plotting his overthrow. Beck would make contact with the civilian opponents to Hitler, and among them would be Fabian von Schlabrendorff, a young lawyer. He would enlist members of the Wednesday Club, a group of conservative intellectuals, into the new group of conspirators, the Black Orchestra. The most prominent member of the Black Orchestra would be Wilhelm Canaris, who Beck had used two years earlier to alert British intelligence of Hitler's plans. 1938, COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, VIENNA, AUSTRIA. The German Air Force continued its efforts to enter the field of rocketry and after the annexation of Austria they called Hermann Oberth back to work on rockets. 21 JUNE, 1938 PARIS. For some reason Stalin decided to let Simons go. Perhaps the Soviets had concluded that Simons would be of little use to them; or perhaps they suspected he was a double agent. Or perhaps the Soviets simply wanted the French to be warned and to start work on biological weapons. Simons went to Paris, and it seems likely that he contacted French authorities and that they heard him. The French would begin to conduct experiments with bombs that used both mustard and anthrax, but despite this they too would follow the British and Soviet leads and would not employ Simons at their center for chemical warfare, nor would they let him know about their work or who was doing it. Simons concluded that the French were doing little and he decided to contact the Americans. He approached a Mr. Murphy at the United States Embassy in Paris. Disturbed by this strange walk in, Murphy asked Simons to write up a memo which he could forward to the State Department describing what he was offering. Simons' memo was so bizarre that it is included here in full so that in the future others may have better luck in unraveling it. "Paris, June 21, 1938 "As I explained yesterday to Mr. Murphy, I am in constant contact with a large illegal organization, the aim of which is the overthrow of the Hitler government. In order to re-establish after that a really democratic government and peace loving Germany. This organization is above parties and is interdenominational. More detailed data regarding the organization are prohibited for reasons self evident. [Was this the Wednesday Club?]. "Friends within this organization called my attention several months ago to the fact that the Nazis, together with Japan and Italy, have now transferred their espionage to the U.S.A.. No one is better informed on that point than the Government of the U.S.A. itself as the large numbers of arrests made recently has proved. "It is indeed a specially fortunate circumstance that this organization has in its ranks a police officer who works in the Gestapo, in order to watch it in an anti-Nazi sense and to disintegrate it. I have known this officer personally for a long time and was introduced to him by one of my most intimate friends, who also works in this organization. Both gentlemen are Christians. "At an interview in a foreign country as early as February, 1937 [this was when Simons was in Switzerland] this police officer called my attention to the fact that the German General Staff is engaged in organizing a system of espionage against the U.S.A. on a very large scale. In May of this year [after Simons had arrived in France], in another conversation, the same officer informed me of the following as the purposes of this espionage system, which has been carried on partly in conjunction with Rome and Tokyo since the formation of the Axis". "The German General Staff well knows that the U.S.A. could not and would not remain neutral in the coming world war, but would again stand on the side of the "accursed democratic powers", as Hitler once expressed himself in private. [Here Simons is intimating that his contact has access to the German General Staff at a very high level: with those in contact with Hitler.] A direct attack on the territory of the U.S.A. would be impossible for Germany from a military standpoint, and even Japan, which has been pursuing that aim for a long time, feels herself at this time too weak for a direct attack on the coasts of the U.S.A. or even air attacks on important cities of the U.S.A. "It has therefore been concerted that the industrial power of the U.S.A. is to be crippled, so that she would be eliminated as an ally in the future war or would be ineffective. "The Berlin army leaders (and now Rome and Tokyo also) intend to reach this goal by a series of systematically executed acts of sabotage against American manufacturing and by sabotage of railroad structures, harbor works, and other industrial structures of military importance. Disturbances of all kinds are also to be created, and the public brought into a state of panic, as soon as a European world war appears to the "axis" ready to break out. "At the time of our conversation in 1938, mentioned above, I asked the police officer whether he could give me concrete data, for I considered it my duty to warn the government at Washington, which has shown itself so magnanimous toward innumerable [Jewish] refugees from Germany and always has been the palladium of European democracy. "I am glad to say that the police officer was able to give me such concrete data! "Thus we could make known the following important military matters to the American War Office: "1. Trouble ray senders, against the magnetos of airplane engines. The places in Germany where they are located can be given in part. [This statement undoubtedly made anyone who read it doubt Simons sanity, but perhaps he was talking about German radar] "2. A new anti-tank projectile... "3. A new anti-aircraft shell... "4. Entirely accurate data on the German preparations for bacteria warfare. The new Himmler bomb, which is made according to Dr. Silten's system. [Was this something that Simons picked up while working at the Patent Office?] "Also the exact methods by which the German Navy has undertaken tests of bacteria warfare in the Baltic Sea, in cooperation with airplanes. Data are also possible on the design of the new bacteria shells, 360,000 of which are already finished and on hand at Spandau [Which indeed was a German center for chemical warfare.] , Koenigsberg and Troissorf (in the ammunition plants there). "5. The writer of the memorandum has made application for a secret patent in London, which he has worked out for the Admiralty. He has secured permission from the Admiralty to make this patent known also to any democratic power that will be sure to stand on the side of the United Kingdom and British Empire in the future war. Hence he can also do this for the government of the U.S.A.. "The application, with the original stamps, has been shown to Mr. Murphy. Its title is: " Process for testing animated and unanimated solid particles and liquid drops of the same in air and air currents in military attacks" (date March 3, 1936; number of application 6390). The application is kept secret. "6. The writer of this memorandum has probably one of the best collections of writings on bacterial warfare in the world, as he studied the literature for years in London and at one time drew up a memorandum for the British Government, which he could also submit to the Government of the U.S.A. "The writer of this memorandum has likewise proved to Mr. Murphy that he possesses the original documents that Mr. Wickham H. Steed published in 1934 on the German secret tests with harmless bacteria by German agents. As is well known, they were testing the currents of air in the London and Paris subway systems with a view to subsequent gas and bacteria attacks on those cities. Very many things in these documents were not published by Mr. Steed at that time for good reasons. They can, however, likewise be made accessible to the Government of the U.S.A." Was Simons simply crazed by now by the persecution he had suffered, or by his fears about the approaching war? Had these fears led to delusions of grandeur? Or was Simons just being fed bad information? Or was Simons just desperately trying to secure a refuge for himself and his family? 17 AUGUST, 1938, LONDON. Hitler went forward with the planning of the military conquest of Czechoslovakia. Beck and Canaris now sent Ewald von Kleist Schmenzin to offer the British government a deal. If the British government would assure them that an invasion of Czechoslovakia would lead to war, they would "remove" Hitler from power. von Kleist Schmenzin now met with a representative of British intelligence and warned him that Hitler intended to invade Czechoslovakia at the end of September. He relayed Beck and Canaris's offer and described to him the Black Orchestra's plan for a coup against Hitler. The representative could not give Kleist the promise that he needed. Kleist next met with Churchill. Churchill was not a member of the cabinet and he also could not promise Kleist that Britain would declare war, but he did give Kleist a note that in which he stated that that was his personal belief. 30 SEPTEMBER, 1938, MUNICH. Chamberlain was alarmed by the warning he received from Beck and Canaris. The armed forces of neither Britain nor France were ready for war, and the people of Britain and France had no intentions of getting dragged into another one. Chamberlain immediately began negotiations with Hitler. He initially proposed that elections would be held to determine which areas of Czechoslovakia would become part of Germany, but the government of Czechoslovakia rejected this. For his part Hitler did not trust that the results of the elections would be favorable for him and he demanded that the traditionally German part of Czechoslovakia just be given to him. Finally Mussolini set up a meeting in Munich between himself, Hitler, Chamberlain, and Daladier, the Prime Minister of France. Chamberlain and Daladier would recognize Germany's claim for part of Czechoslovakia, in return for which Hitler promised that any future territorial claims would be submitted to an international commission. Chamberlain returned to London and while waving a copy of the agreement before a crowd told them, "I believe it is peace for our times". Churchill despised Chamberlain for leaving the Czechs at Hitler's mercy and told him so to his face several days later: "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You have chosen dishonor and you will have war". OCTOBER, 1938, GRIEFSWALDER OIE ON THE BALTIC SEA. The Assembly 5 Rocket was ready for its first tests. Though the control systems were not ready the rocket could be fired on a regular ballistic trajectory relying on gravity and aerodynamic pressures to keep it on course. The new rocket was equipped with a parachute so that it could be examined after it had been fired. 30 JANUARY, 1939, GERMANY. As per his plan, Hitler embarked on a course of territorial expansion. He established control over part of the border area with France, all of Austria, part of Czechoslovakia, and he started to threaten Poland. But contrary to Hitler's expectation France and Britain entered into a defensive pact with Poland and war appeared imminent. Britain, France, and United States President Roosevelt and a part of the leadership in the United States were now firmly opposed to Hitler. Hitler had formed his own idea of where the fault lay. Hitler's limitation of the rights of the German Jews had grown progressively worse. While some German Jews had managed to escape to neighboring countries as their rights to earn a living, to hold property, and to marry had been restricted, most of the Jews of Germany had become isolated impoverished starving fugitives hiding in fear in their own country. The Jewish communities in other countries were well aware of their plight and had been actively working against Hitler. In a public speech Hitler now threatened them: "And one other thing I wish to say on this day, which perhaps is memorable not only for us Germans: In my life I have often been a prophet, and most of the time I have been laughed at. During the period of my struggle for power, it was in the first instance the Jewish people that received with laughter my prophecies that some day I would take over the leadership of the state and thereby of the whole people, and that I would, among other things, also solve the Jewish problem. I believe that in the meantime that hyenic laughter of the Jews of Germany has been smothered in their throats. "Today I want to be a prophet once more: If international finance Jewry inside and outside Europe should once again succeed in plunging nations into another world war, the consequences will not be the Bolshevization of the Earth and thereby the victory of the Jews, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." MARCH, 1939, MADRID. Spanish communists under Stalin's control had continued their suppression of the Spanish socialists under Trotsky's influence, and Franco's army consolidated its position in the meantime. Generalissimo Francisco Franco established his complete control over Spain in March, 1939. MARCH, 1939, EXPERIMENTAL STATION KUMMERSDORF WEST, OUTSIDE BERLIN. Hitler was preparing for war and he wanted to know about the Army's progress in the development of rockets. Accompanied by von Brauchitsch and Becker, Hitler now made a visit to Dornberger's facility at Kummersdorf. von Braun had learned a lot about demonstrations during his time at the Raketenflugplatz, and his and Dornberger's demonstration for Hitler began with test firings of the 300 kilogram (660 pound) and 1000 kilogram (2200 pound) thrust rocket engines. The party next moved over to a cut away Assembly 3 Rocket suspended in a test stand, where von Braun explained to Hitler the function of each of the rocket's components. They then moved on to a cutaway version of the Assembly 5 Rocket. Hitler interrupted von Braun's presentation to ask him what kind of "payload" the missile could carry. von Braun admitted that the Assembly 5 Rocket was just a research vehicle, but that with the technology they had developed larger rockets carrying substantial "payloads" could be developed. Hitler now seemed interested and von Braun continued. von Braun revealed to Hitler their plan for the Assembly 4 Rocket, the rocket which would carry a ton of explosives over twice as far as any long range cannon. At last Hitler showed real interest, and he asked von Braun how long it would take to develop such a missile. von Braun turned the question over to Dornberger, who told Hitler that with the present level of resources it would take considerable time. Hitler nodded and the demonstration continued, concluding with the firing in a test stand of the Assembly 5 Rocket. The party adjourned for lunch, and Hitler discussed the rocket with Becker. Once again Hitler asked Dornberger how long it would take to develop the Assembly 4 Rocket, and about its range. Hitler asked if steel instead of aluminum could be used to build the rocket, as aluminum would be needed for aircraft production, and Dornberger told him that it would be possible. Hitler finally asked Dornberger, "How long it will it take to move the A 4 [Assembly 4 Rocket] from the drawing board to the firing troops if it is not possible to use steel instead of aluminum for the fuel tanks?" Dornberger told Hitler that the substitution was possible for the alcohol tank but that it would delay the development of the rocket considerably. At this Hitler made up his mind: the aluminum was needed for aircraft production, and therefore the Assembly 4 Rocket would certainly not be ready in time to be used in the coming war. He turned to Dornberger and sighed, "Well, that was certainly impressive." And that was the end of the discussion of the Assembly 4 Rocket as a weapon. Hitler now spoke about space flight. He told them that he had met Max Valier in Munich, and that Valier had been a dreamer as far as he was concerned. Dornberger compared the work being done on rockets to the early work done on airplanes and dirigible balloons, at which Hitler pointed out to him that while airships had great performance they were useless because they exploded. "Spaceflight is a long way off", Dornberger assured Hitler, thus steering the conversation back to the use of the rocket as a weapon. After lunch Hitler politely thanked von Braun and Dornberger for their demonstration and he and his inspection party got into their cars and left. MAY, 1939. In March, 1939 Hitler seized the rest of Czechoslovakia, and now Britain and France entered into an agreement to exchange military information. Among the information the British and French shared was their technology for the manufacture and use of chemical weapons, but neither of them had nerve gases and both were unaware that the Germans did. MAY, 1939, LONDON. In the 1890's the British Jewish financier Edmond de Rothschild had begun to finance the settlement of Jews in the Ottoman Turkish colony of Palestine. During the course of the First World War, de Rothschild had persuaded British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour to support the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. After the First World War the British had taken control of Palestine from the Ottoman Turks and Jewish immigration into Palestine had continued and increased. Since Hitler's persecutions had begun Jewish refugees had been flooding into Palestine. In 1936 the Palestinians began a revolt and Britain had been suppressing their revolt since then. Now members of Chamberlain's cabinet tasked to study this problem concluded that Britain would be unable to fight both Hitler and the Palestinians at the same time. It would be necessary for Britain to stop the emigration of Jews into Palestine. Churchill was opposed. He felt that this was a betrayal of the deal the British government had made with de Rothschild and the Jews. He proposed that instead the Jewish emigres should be armed and that they should be used to maintain control of Palestine. But the cabinet defeated Churchill's proposal and decided to accept the committee's recommendations. Even after he became Prime Minister, Churchill would be unable to change this policy and it would remain a part of Britain's strategy throughout the coming war. JULY, 1939. With war approaching the Poles finally fully shared with the French and the British the techniques they had developed for reading messages sent by the German military Enigma cipher machine. While the French immediately adopted the Poles techniques, for obvious reasons the British did not reveal how far their own work had progressed. For his part Turing had already turned to the development of a special computer called the "Oracle" which would break the ciphers on a daily basis. By early 1940 the "Oracle" would be operational and throughout the war its decryptions would provide Churchill, and later the top allied military commanders, with absolute knowledge of Germany's plans. 23 AUGUST, 1939, THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW. France and Britain tried to get the Soviet Union to join them in their defensive pact with Poland. Stalin viewed the French and British overtures as an attempt by the capitalists to provide Germany with a justification for an attack on the Soviet Union and instead proposed his own British-French-Soviet pact, which would guarantee the freedom of all of the states bordering the Soviet Union, including Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland and Poland. The government of Poland rejected Stalin's offer because it would allow the Soviet Union to move troops into Poland to meet the Germans and the British agreed with Poland's objections. In response to this rebuff, in May of 1939 Stalin appointed Molotov as his new Foreign Minister and began to try to seek agreement with the Germans. That same day the Poles blocked agreement again. On August 14, 1939, the Germans proposed to begin negotiations. Stalin accepted the German's offer and issued an invitation. Hitler wasted no time in replying: he planned to invade Poland in September, and German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop shortly arrived in Moscow. The agreement that Stalin negotiated contained two parts. The first part was a public declaration of non-aggression. The second part was a secret partition of eastern Europe, in which the Soviet Union would be allowed to occupy Latvia, Estonia, Finland, the eastern part of Poland and part of Rumania. By this agreement Stalin had assured himself that the war that would break out would not be a war of the west against the Soviet Union, but instead that Germany would attack Poland, and that Britain and France would then declare war on Germany and that Germany would have to fight them first, before any attack on the Soviet Union. 1 SEPTEMBER, 1939. Having secured his eastern flank, on 1 September, 1939 Hitler invaded Poland. During the first hours of their invasion the German Air Force quickly established command of the air by destroying most of the Polish Air Force on the ground. By the end on the month the Germans would be in Moscow asking Stalin when he was going to occupy eastern Poland. The Germans would also propose to Stalin that they trade territory: Lithuania would be added to the areas controlled by the Soviets, and more of Poland would be added to the area controlled by Germany. Stalin would accept their and sign a "Frontier and Friendship Treaty". The Soviet Union then occupied the eastern part of Poland, taking many soldiers and officers prisoner. An assistant to Marshall Timoshenko offered the captured Polish officers the options of their freedom or of joining a new Polish army being raised in France. As Stalin did not want to offend Hitler, in a show of good faith he ordered Beria to kill the 15,000 Polish officers who had chosen to join up with this new Polish Army. Beria secretly killed them and buried them in the Katyn Forest. The Soviet Union offered the Baltic countries mutual aid pacts which they accepted and they were immediately occupied by the Red Army. In the middle of 1940 they were incorporated into the Soviet Union and 100,000 families of leaders in politics, religion, and intellectual life were deported to Siberia. Stalin offered the Finns a similar pact of mutual aid and personally negotiated with the Finns for military and naval bases. When his proposal was turned down by the Finns he launched a surprise attack on Finland, but the Finns repulsed the Red Army's attack and inflicted heavy losses on them. 3 SEPTEMBER, 1939, LONDON. Neville Chamberlain, the Conservative Prime Minister of Britain, finally realized, as Churchill had much earlier, that Britain could not take on Germany alone, and he had realized that Britain would need time to re-arm. Churchill had continued to call for massive increases in Britain's military strength but the people of Britain had remembered the terrible cost of the last world war and they had rejected his calls. Seeking to avoid war, when Hitler had begun his campaigns of conquest Chamberlain had appeased him. His final appeasement had been the "Munich Pact", in which Chamberlain had acceded to Hitler's claims to a part of Czechoslovakia in return for Hitler's promise to stop making territorial demands. At the same time Chamberlain had begun to strengthen Britain's armed forces, and he sought to build an international coalition that would be capable of stopping Hitler. Poland's reluctance to have Soviet troops stationed on its lands, combined with territorial disputes throughout Eastern Europe, had brought Chamberlain's diplomatic efforts to nothing, while Hitler had succeeded in blocking Chamberlain by making his deal with Stalin. When Germany finally attacked Poland, Chamberlain recalled Churchill to the government and made him First Lord of the Admiralty. The signal was sent to the fleet: "Winston is back". SEPTEMBER, 1939, GRIEFSWALDER OIE ON THE BALTIC SEA. In 1938 the Assembly 5 Rocket had been tested without the new control system. von Braun had realized then that for the rocket to be effective its control system had to function effectively, and three different control systems for the rocket had been developed. Now 25 Assembly 5 Rockets had been manufactured, and as Peenemunde still was not ready, they were test flown at Griefswalder Oie. The tests were a complete success, and all three control systems worked correctly. Surprisingly the parachute recovery system worked so well that after being recovered from the Baltic some of the rockets could be launched again for later tests. 1 SEPTEMBER, 1939, BERLIN. Hitler now had his chance to begin the extermination of the perverted diseased Jewish Bolsheviks that he hated so much. Using the twin rationalizations that the resources of the state needed to be mobilized for the war and that hospital beds needed to be freed to treat wounded German soldiers, and in order to enlist the cooperation of his confederates, Hitler authorized the killing of "incurably" diseased patients as "a life worthy of annihilation". Hitler included among the incurable not only the deformed, insane, and those terminally ill, but also permanently professional criminals and unreformable political prisoners. Hitler maintained the fiction that these deaths were merciful by ordering the head of his personal Chancellery Phillip Bouhler and his personal physician Dr. Karl Brandt to extend the powers of certain doctors so that they could accord the "incurable" a merciful death. The charter which Hitler gave Dr. Brandt made no mention of the political prisoners and the criminals that were to be killed as well. These murders were to be kept secret and conducted under the cover name of "Transport Organization for the Common Good". In practice the program for the "mercy" killing of medical patients would be known as Action T 4, for 4 Tiergartenstrase, the address of the agency which would oversee it. The programs for killing the "incurable" and political prisoners would be known as Action 13 f 14, respectively. At first the incurably insane and deformed to be put to death under Action T 4 would be killed by injection. Then experiments in killing would be conducted at the first killing center in Brandenburg using both Cyclon B, a fumigant used to clear buildings of rats and insects, as well as carbon monoxide poisoning from engine exhaust fumes. Brandt would report personally to Hitler about the results of these experiments. Since injection was so difficult, other "doctors" would simply begin to lock their victims into prisons and castles where they would be starved to death. As this took a long time, gas chambers using exhaust fumes would be immediately adopted after the first experiments. When it was reported that the patients were resisting the chambers, Phillip Boulhler would come up with the ruse of disguising the gas chambers as shower rooms, and by the spring of 1940 gas chambers using carbon monoxide would be set up at all the "mercy" killing centers. The concentration camps had been in existence for years. Under Action T 13 f T 14 some 20,000 political prisoners would be killed, usually by being hung or shot. The current concentration camp commanders would show no initiative in designing new forms of death. SEPTEMBER, 1939, TRUPPENHUBENGSPLATZ, RAUBKAMMER, OUTSIDE MUNSTER, GERMANY. In 1938 Dr. Gerhard Schrader, working at his new Army laboratory in Elberfeld, had discovered "Sarin", another even more potent nerve gas. The Army had begun experimental production of Sarin and by this time samples of the new gas were being delivered to the Army in Berlin. As the first production batches began to arrive, General Hermann Oschner, commander of all German chemical troops, wrote a position paper advocating the use of nerve gas against industrial concentrations and large cities: "There is no doubt that a city like London would be plunged into a state of unbearable turmoil which would bring enormous pressure to bear on the enemy government." 5 SEPTEMBER, 1939, BERLIN. General von Brauchitsch prepared a memo in which he proposed that Peenemunde be given high priority "in case of mobilization". Since the country and the Army was already mobilized and had already invaded for Poland, it is not clear what kind of "mobilization" von Brauchitsch was talking about. 13 SEPTEMBER, 1939, LONDON. In 1938 Chamberlain had asked for the construction of plants able to produce 300 tons of mustard gas a week. This production target was re-affirmed by the War Cabinet, which now included Churchill. 19 SEPTEMBER, 1939, DANZIG. In his speech to a crowd of recently "liberated" Germans, Hitler threatened the Allies with new German weapons against which they would be defenseless. Hitler knew what he was talking about: experiments had already shown that gas masks were useless against Tabun and Sarin, as the smallest amount of them could be absorbed through the skin and would inevitably be fatal. At the end of the month construction would begin on a new plant capable of manufacturing 1,000 tons of Tabun a month. The plant would be built at Dyhernfurth near Breslau, Poland on the Oder River. As I.G. Farben feared the consequences and did not wish to be intimately involved in the production of the gas, it would aid the Army in setting up front companies for the production of chemical weapons under the umbrella of a "Montan Company". The Tabun factory would be under the control of Otto Ambros, who had direct access to Hitler. In its final form the plant at Dyhernfurth would be capable of manufacturing 3,000 tons of Tabun a month. SEPTEMBER, 1939, BERLIN. In March the German Air Force withdrew its support for Peenemunde and construction there slowed down. Hitler now appointed his favorite architect, Albert Speer, to complete the construction of Peenemunde. Albert Speer was born in 1905 in Mannheim, Baden. The son of an architect, he followed his father's footsteps and by 1927 became the assistant of a professor at the College of Engineering in Berlin. At the end of 1930 he attended a rally at which Adolf Hitler spoke, and was so impressed that he had joined the Nazi Party in January, 1931. Early in 1932 Speer left the College of Engineering and returned home to practice architecture. There he met with no success, and in the summer of 1932 Speer returned to Berlin and won a commission to rebuild the Nazi Party's district headquarters. After Hitler took control of the government in 1933, his propaganda minister Goebbels assigned Speer to reconstruct the Propaganda Ministry, and this work had been followed by commissions to design the settings for bit a May Day celebration and the July 1933 Congress of the Nazi Party. In the fall Hitler assigned Speer to the staff of his personal architect Troost, where Speer worked on the rebuilding of the Reich's Chancellery. In January, 1934 Troost died and Speer became Hitler's personal architect. A close personal relationship between the two men soon developed. Hitler had always wanted to be an artist, and Hitler saw Speer as a way of fulfilling his unrealized dreams. Speer needed power to realize his goals as an architect, and Hitler gave him power. t was a perfect match. Speer's next commission was to design the settings for a Nazi Party rally held at Nuremberg in 1934. This was followed by a commissions to reconstruct the German Embassy in London, and then by the design of the German pavilion at the Paris World's Fair of 1937. In January, 1937 Hitler appointed Speer to carry out his great dream of rebuilding Berlin. Hitler and Speer spent many hours going over the drawings and models for this new Berlin. As if this were not enough, Hitler also assigned Speer the task of drawing up plans for the rebuilding Nuremberg, Heidelberg, and other German cities. As a part of the rebuilding of Berlin came a commission for the design of an entirely new Reich's Chancellory, which unlike Speer's other designs would actually be built and completed in 1938. Now Hitler assigned Speer the task of completing the construction of Peenemunde. As Speer set in motion the completion of the construction, he became strangely enamored by von Braun's vision. He designed a new massively expanded complex, one which could not only build rockets for the military but which could also build rockets that would allow manned flight into space. Not only would Speer design a massive expansion of the test facility at Peenemunde, he would also design a huge underground factory for the production of the rocket. Speer's design would be for a facility at which rockets could not only be assembled, but where they then could then be immediately rolled out and launched. Speer would draw up his plans and make models of them and present them to Hitler, who would then give them his approval. SEPTEMBER, 1939, BERLIN. The Germans knew from their own studies to use ampules filled with biological warfare agents to contaminate drinking water wells and livestock feed in case of retreat, and they knew that they had shared that research with the Poles many years before. The Chief Medical Officer of the SS ordered the Director of Hygiene for the Waffen SS to prepare a memorandum on the use of biological warfare agents. This memorandum was prepared and given to Hitler, who then ordered that no preparations be made for undertaking biological warfare, but that instead that every effort was to be made to prepare defensive counter measures. Why Hitler did this remains a mystery, but some of the factors involved appear to be as follows. Germany's armies were on the offensive, not the retreat, and under these circumstances developing biological warfare agents to commit sabotage made no sense, as the contaminated areas would soon be German. Experiments to use sprays from airplanes to distribute biological warfare agents had had little success, and since German armies would soon be occupying the grounds on which the sprays would be used, there was a good chance that as well as the enemy they themselves would be infected by them. If chemical or biological warfare became necessary it would make much more sense to use the nerve gas Tabun, which would soon dissipate from the battlefield and leave it safe for the advance of the German army. However, it could be expected that the Poles would indeed use biological weapons to hinder the German advance, and under these circumstances every precaution needed to be taken. Another reason may exist for Hitler's refusal to start the development of biological weapons. Since 1934 Hellmuth Simons had been embarrassing Hitler with his heavily publicized claims that Germany was involved in the development of biological weapons. Hitler may possibly have stopped German work on biological weapons as a result of Simon's efforts. Hitler may also have thought that both Britain and the Soviet Union were watching Germany very carefully in this field. Or perhaps because Simons was Jewish, Hitler had by now concluded that biological warfare was just a Jewish science. Lacking definitive records, it is impossible to say exactly what was going through Hitler's mind at this point, but whatever it was he forbid the development of offensive biological weapons. And of course Hitler already had the deadly nerve gasses Tabun and Sarin. LATE SEPTEMBER, 1939, PEENEMUNDE. The General Staff of the German Army was alarmed by both General Hermann Oschner's report and by Hitler's orders to begin construction of the new Tabun plant. They pointed out to Hitler that Germany's cities were vulnerable to air attack and that their civilian populations had no bomb shelters. As for the use of gas on foreign cities, they could expect retaliation for this, and the people of Germany almost completely lacked gas masks. And if they used gas against enemy troops, it would remain on the battlefield and slow down the German Army, which depended upon rapid advance for its success. Hitler accepted the General Staff's arguments and in late September he ordered that the German Air Force would not make attacks against cities. Hitler would also accept the General Staff's recommendations to cross the construction of the Assembly 4 Rocket plant off the list of urgent undertakings, and the order to cut appropriations for Peenemunde would be issued on 13 November, 1939. But by this time, according to his version of events, Speer claimed that he became completely caught up in von Braun's vision, and despite Hitler's order he continued the construction of the installation at Peenemunde on his own authority. Speer would also claim that he did not learn about the existence of Tabun and Sarin until several years later, but then it is also well known that Speer sometimes lied. WINTER, 1939, PEENEMUNDE. When Dornberger moved the rocket research group to Peenemunde, von Braun reorganized the staff into separate groups and established a new group, the Special Projects Office, under Ludwig Roth. While the staff of Special Projects Office was nominally in charge of initial systems studies for the next generation of military rockets, other members of the scientific staff could freely visit and they would often use it as a place to indulge in their dreams of space flight. The first assignment of the Special Projects Office was to find a means to extend the range of the Assembly 4 Rocket. Roth and his team came up with the idea of using a booster to launch the Assembly 4 Rocket, in other words a two stage rocket. For the layout of the rocket Roth's team borrowed Oberth's design for his Model B rocket of 1923, and here a problem arose. Oberth had designed the Model B as an atmospheric research rocket to be launched straight up, and thus the second stage of his rocket would also be launched straight up. But Roth's two stage rocket would be required to fly a ballistic trajectory to carry its warhead to its target, and both stages of it would require fins in order to control the direction of their flight. And if the shroud of Roth's rocket were opened at the high rate of speed that the rocket would be traveling, the air pressure on the fins and their structure would cause the entire rocket to spin out of control. To solve this problem, Roth proposed that the entire rocket use the same shape as the Assembly 4 Rocket, which they knew to be capable of stable flight at high speeds. The entire top part of the rocket would be a shroud, which the second stage would remain attached to it while the first stage separated. After the first stage had separated, the second stage would then separate by traveling backward out of the shroud. While it appeared that Roth's solution might be possible to implement, it also appeared that it was barely workable. Work continued at the Special Projects Office on trying to find other methods of extending the range of the Assembly 4 Rocket. 30 OCTOBER, 1939, ARNHEIM, HOLLAND. After Germany's invasion of Poland and the declaration of war on Germany by Britain and France, the war in Europe had settled into a "Phony War". Except for limited air strikes, neither the British nor the French forces had undertaken any offensive actions. The peoples of France and Britain and their leaders still hoped that there would be some solution: Hitler would pull his troops out of Poland, Hitler would renounce the further use of military force, a peace would be negotiated, and tens of millions of people would keep their lives. In addition, the conservative governments of Britain and France were both interested in seeing Germany remain as a bulwark against the Soviet Union and communism and socialism. The British government made at least five different approaches to the German government seeking to negotiate a peace. They could accept that parts of Poland and Czechoslovakia would become German, but the German Army would have to withdraw from those countries and their governments re-established. There would also have to be some change to the government in Germany. For his part, Hitler was still an Anglophile. He admired Britain, and thought that it was good that they had an empire. As a matter of fact, Hitler wanted an empire for Germany as well, where the colonial territories that he wanted would have to come from France. He also wanted some lands under French control that were adjacent to Germany to be returned to Germany. Since the French were unlikely to go along with this, Hitler had concluded that war with France was inevitable. There also could be no question of any changes in the government of Germany. In October, 1939 two members of German counter intelligence posed as German Army officers and made contact with the two heads of British intelligence operations in the Netherlands. The British agents told them that after Hitler was overthrown the British government would negotiate a peace settlement and gave them the terms. On 8 November an attempt would be made to assassinate Hitler with a bomb while he was addressing old members of the Nazi party in a beer hall. The attempt would fail when the bomb went off after Hitler had already left the hall. When the two British agents went to Venlo, a Dutch town on the border with Germany, to meet again with their "army officers" they would be kidnapped and taken across the border into Germany. 1939, BLETCHLEY PARK. Another loss related to this capture of British agents would be the loss by British intelligence of a carefully cultivated naval code clerk who was gathering material for them on the German naval Enigma. Turing was assigned with breaking the naval version of the Enigma, and the lack of this source of information to start the process would combine with greater naval cipher security to provide Turing with a problem which would occupy him until the very end of the war. 10 JANUARY, 1940, MECHELIN, BELGIUM. In October, 1939 Hitler had asked his generals to prepare for an attack on France for November, 1939, but they had told him that after the invasion of Poland the army needed to rest and re-equip before it invaded. The generals then came up with a plan to invade France through Belgium in the spring of 1940. On 10 January a plane carrying a staff officer and a copy of this plan got lost in bad weather and landed in Belgium, and the officer and his copy of the plan were seized. Hitler realized that his generals' plan had been compromised and he would personally draw up a new one. Hitler proposed that the German Army's attack would be launched through the Ardennes in the center of the British and French line, and thus drive a split between the British and French armies. 25 JANUARY, 1940. Hitler had carried on continuous conversations with Himmler about the methods for killing the Jews, and Himmler had come up with his own plan. He could make himself rich by working Jews to death and taking the profits generated by their labor. SS troops would provide the manpower for the prisons, and Himmler now put his close associate Pohl in charge of the camps. Himmler decided that a concentration camp capable of holding 10,000 prisoners would be built near the Polish town of Oswiecim, known as Auschwitz in German. Himmler decided that the main center for killing the Jews would be at Auschwitz, because the victims could be sent there by rail and because it was remote enough that his SS's activities could be concealed. A former Polish military barracks was located for the camp, and after Rudolph Hoess, the Commander of the Sachsenhausen Camp, made an initial site evaluation he was chosen as the new camp's Commander. Hoess was instructed to expand and develop the camp by using its prisoners as laborers. FEBRUARY, 1940, WASHINGTON. Franklin Roosevelt was running for a third term as President of the United States. Anti-war sentiment was strong in the United States, and many voters there thought that he was trying to bring the country into the war on the side of France and Britain. Roosevelt hoped he would be able to begin peace negotiations, and with this intent he sent Assistant Secretary of State Sumner Welles on a mission to Europe. The British government did not want the United States and Roosevelt interfering with their interests in the terms of any peace and they gave Welles conditions for peace that they knew Hitler would find unacceptable 13 MARCH, 1940, LONDON. Churchill now decided that Britain would go to war not only with Germany, but also with the Soviet Union. Churchill proposed to Chamberlain that Britain should join with the Finns in their war with the Soviet Union. The British could use their "defense" of the Finns as a justification for an attack on Norway and Sweden and thus deny the Germans the resources of those countries as well. Chamberlain and the cabinet accepted Churchill's proposal, and the invasion was scheduled for 20 March. But on 13 March the Finns decided to negotiate a peace settlement with Stalin. It is not known how much Stalin learned about this plan through his Cambridge spies in the British government. SPRING, 1940, PEENEMUNDE. As the funding for work on the Assembly 4 Rocket was reduced, Dornberger finally acceded to the Air Force's demands and transferred to them all responsibility for Saenger and Schmidt's work on the unmanned jet powered plane. APRIL, 1940, PEENEMUNDE. Goering's Air Force was not the only organization that wanted to establish some control over the rocket program. The program had attracted the attention of Himmler by now, and he instructed the local SS leader, Colonel Mueller, to contact von Braun and tell him that Himmler wanted him to join the SS. When Mueller delivered Himmler's request to von Braun, von Braun told him that he was too busy with his work on rockets to spare any time for political activity. Mueller told von Braun that being in the SS would take none of his time at all, and that he would be made a lieutenant upon joining, and that Himmler definitely wanted him to join. von Braun asked for some time to think it over. von Braun went to Dornberger and told him about Himmler's request. Dornberger explained to him that for some time Himmler had been trying to get his fingers into the pie of the work on the rocket. When von Braun asked Dornberger what he should do, Dornberger explained to him that if he wanted to continue to work on rockets, he had no alternative but to join the SS. Dornberger told von Braun that their old relationship would help them to avoid any future difficulties that could arise. von Braun delayed, hoping that Himmler would drop the effort. But he then received one letter from Mueller, followed by another. It was clear that Himmler would not stop. Himmler was offering 28 year old Wernher von Braun a simple choice: either join the SS, or someone else would take his place as director of the research facility at Peenemunde. von Braun made his decision. He submitted his letter requesting to join the SS. The letter was forwarded to Himmler and on 1 May, 1940 von Braun received Himmler's reply, accepting him into the SS and making him an SS lieutenant. MAY, 1940, COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, DRESDEN, GERMANY. At the invitation of the German Air Force, von Braun visited Oberth in Vienna. When von Braun arrived he found that the Air Force had provided Oberth with little funding and that Oberth had not accomplished much. Shortly thereafter Oberth received an order transferring him from the Air Force to the Army, and from the College of Engineering in Vienna to the College of Engineering in Dresden. von Braun now assigned Oberth the development of an alternative fuel pump for the Assembly 4 Rocket, and while many years later Oberth would deny that he knew about the Assembly 4 Rocket at this time, the British cryptographers at Bletchley Park immediately learned from the Air Force orders that had transferred Oberth that a 30 ton rocket with a 160 mile range was under development near Stettin. For security reasons all the scientists at Peenemunde were German citizens, and it would be necessary for Oberth to obtain German citizenship before he could work there, so Oberth now filed an application for German citizenship. 7 MAY, 1940, HOUSE OF COMMONS, LONDON. Seeking to secure his northern flank and to assure Germany the resources of Norway, Hitler launched an invasion of Denmark and Norway. After the Finns surrendered, Churchill came up with a new plan to gain the same advantages from Norway for Britain. The two invasion forces now met and Britain's forces were defeated. Leo Amery rose in the House of Commons and confronted Chamberlain. "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go." Hitler began the invasion of France via the Ardennes on 9 May. Churchill became Prime Minister on 10 May. 14 MAY, 1940, PARIS, FRANCE. The Americans had not answered Dr. Simons plea. When he pressed the American authorities at the Embassy, they told him that his application for asylum was under review. Simons had left his daughter in Britain in 1935 when he had first fled Germany. After his return from Moscow his wife had left him and fled to Lima, Peru. Simons’ son had joined the French Foreign Legion so as to be posted to North Africa, well away from the Nazis. Like the British and the Russians, the French had not employed Dr. Simons directly in work on developing biological weapons, but instead they had used their own people and kept Dr. Simons well isolated from their own work in this field. It appears that by now Dr. Simons' own life was in a spin, as he had only managed to find work in a succession of short term jobs as a laboratory assistant. Simons had worked on diagnostic methods for tropical diseases at the Pasteur Institute, the Parasitology Laboratory of the Faculty of Medicine, at Professor Mollaret's Malarial Laboratory, at the Saltpetriere Hospital, and at Professor Chevallier's Hematological Laboratory at the Hospital Cochin. Simons had also picked up odd money working as an abstractor for the American publication Biological Abstracts. Not knowing about the work on biological weapons that the French were carrying on in their laboratories at Le Bouchet, Dr. Simons concluded that the French were making no progress in this area. He continued to bother the government of France, and on 10 May, 1940 he received a letter from Deladier and Reynauld's office asking him "to investigate the possibilities and eventual consequences of German bacterial warfare". While most likely this letter was simply a method that the office used to stop Simons from bothering them, Simons took it as a license to begin work on the problem. But it was too late. The Germans were closing in, and on 14 May Simons fled Paris for Switzerland. 16 MAY, 1940, FRANCE. The German combined air and tank attack worked exactly as Hitler expected. The French and British armies were separated and thrown into rout. French Prime Minister Reynaud asked Churchill to send more fighter planes to France but the number of fighter planes remaining to the British were the minimum necessary for the defense of Britain, and Churchill refused Reynaud's request. 24 MAY, 1940, LONDON. On 23 May the French government asked British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax to open a channel of negotiations with Hitler by using Roosevelt to contact Mussolini. Mussolini had helped to negotiate the "Munich Pact" and had sought to negotiate a compromise over Poland, although without results. In addition, Churchill had been on very good terms with Mussolini and had held him in the greatest respect. On 24 May the British cabinet approved an approach to the Italians, and in addition to going to Roosevelt, Halifax also directly contacted the Italian ambassador in London, who told him that Italy would be prepared to host an international conference. 26 MAY, 1940, LONDON. By the morning of 26 May Churchill had concluded that France would fall. A large part of the British army was trapped in France and it was not clear if he would be able to evacuate them or if they would be captured. Churchill now asked his chiefs of staff if Britain could resist an invasion, and if it would pay for Britain to continue to resist on the continent. However pressing the military situation, Churchill was faced with an even more immediate problem. A large part of the cabinet thought that Britain should immediately negotiate a peace settlement with Germany. Churchill did not, and he called a cabinet meeting to debate the issue. Churchill argued that while he felt that Britain would have to negotiate a peace settlement, the time to do that would be in several months, after they had inflicted some casualties on Germany's armed forces. On the other hand, Foreign Secretary Halifax had concluded that the only way that France could be saved was if a peace was immediately negotiated with Germany and Italy. The cabinet estimated that Italy would want the British colonies of Gibraltar, Malta, and Suez and that Germany would want Somalia, Kenya, and Uganda. The cabinet also agreed that there could be no question of disarming Britain. Halifax asked Churchill if he could accept those terms. "If we can get out of this jam by giving up Malta and Gibraltar and some African colonies, I will jump at it, provided we retain the essentials and the elements of our vital strength.", Churchill replied. But later in the afternoon he returned to his position that since France was already done for, Britain should at least fight on alone for several months. "It is best to decide nothing until we see how much of the army we can re-embark from Europe", he finally concluded. 27 MAY, 1940, LONDON. The cabinet debate continued, with a gridlock between Churchill and Halifax. After the discussions finished Halifax went to Churchill's home to offer him his resignation. Churchill declined Halifax's offer and spent several hours talking to him. 28 MAY, 1940, LONDON. At the same time Halifax had contacted the Italian ambassador, he had also asked Roosevelt to open a channel to Hitler through Mussolini. Roosevelt's envoy did not have the ability to offer territorial concessions, and his efforts were rejected by the Italians. In London, the Italian ambassador once again had raised the possibility of achieving peace if territorial concessions were made. When the cabinet met, Chamberlain now carried Churchill's argument. Churchill's point was carried, and Chamberlain and Halifax sent a message to the French government telling them that Britain would not negotiate at this time. Britain was looking out for its own interests, and Reynaud knew that France had lost this war. 1940, DUNKIRK. Hitler was an anglophile. He thought that since he had no desire to take British colonies, and since he was a bulwark against socialism, that Britain would surely negotiate a peace settlement with Germany. He wanted to leave Britain able to negotiate a peace settlement, and he knew that if his army annihilated the British army trapped in northern France that option would be closed. Hitler stopped his army, the British successfully evacuated their troops, and Churchill would never again tolerate any discussion of peace negotiations. 17 JUNE, 1940, PARIS. As the French forces continued in their collapse, Churchill became worried that the Germans would capture intact whatever was left of the French air force, navy, and army. To forestall this he proposed a French-British Union. If there was a Union and France fell, he would gain control of all of the military assets which could be evacuated from France as well as those which the French had overseas. The French government rejected Churchill's plan and on 13 June asked for permission to withdraw from an agreement it had made with Britain not to seek a separate peace. On 16 June the British government granted its permission, and the hero of the First World War Marshall Petain replaced Reynaud as Prime Minister. On 17 June France began surrender negotiations with Germany. 17-19 JUNE, 1940, LONDON. Halifax undertook on his own initiative to enter into negotiations with Germany. When Churchill found out about his efforts he stopped him, and turned the matter over to counter intelligence. In December,1940 Churchill would replace Halifax with a new Foreign Minister. None the less, Halifax's efforts had confirmed Hitler in his belief that Britain would seek to negotiate. Hitler decided against an immediate invasion of Britain, and instead ordered an air attack which he thought would bring Britain to the bargaining table. In July, in a speech to the German parliament, Hitler publicly offered to negotiate a peace. 30 JUNE, 1940, LONDON. The enemy was at the door. On 15 June Chief of the Imperial General Staff Sir John Dill wrote a paper advocating the use of gas to repel the Germans if they invaded. His proposal was rejected by other military leaders, not because of their fear of German reprisal, but instead because of the effects on British civilian morale and international relations that the use of gas would produce. Churchill did not share their concerns. He immediately asked for information on the amount of gas on hand. "Supposing lodgements were effected on our coast, there could be no better points for application of mustard than these beaches and lodgements. In my view there would be no need to wait for the enemy to adopt such methods. He will certainly adopt them if he thinks it will pay. Home Defence should be consulted as to whether prompt drenching of lodgements would not be a great help. Everything should be brought to the highest pitch of readiness, but the question of actual employment must be settled by the Cabinet." Churchill had no idea that the Germans possessed the nerve gases Tabun and Sarin and that if he used mustard or phosgene they would not only reply in kind but use these nerve gases as well Britain would have been defeated. JULY, 1940, LONDON. Besides advocating the use of gas, Churchill ordered the production of tubes capable of spewing flaming oil on an approaching enemy. These were to be mounted in the water off all the beaches where an amphibious assault might possibly be made. The production and deployment of these tubes became one of Churchill's prime goals and he did not rest until they were in place. What Churchill never discussed with his staff was the fact that these tubes could also be used to spray mustard gas on German troops making an amphibious assault. JULY, 1940, LONDON. When the army reported back to Churchill on British poison gas supplies they had bad news. Despite the orders of the War Cabinet in 1939, the production of mustard gas had not been increased. They only had enough gas on hand for one day's combat. Churchill ordered an investigation. He also ordered that weekly reports on the supplies of gas be delivered to him personally. 16 JULY, 1940, BERLIN. With his offers to negotiate with Britain rejected, Hitler decided that he would increase the pressure on Britain by moving troops in place as if they were going to invade. It rapidly became clear that for an invasion to succeed it would be necessary for Britain's air force and navy to be destroyed. On 1 August Hitler would issue orders to Goering and his air force to accomplish those tasks. JULY, 1940, BERLIN. As the German military forces had succeeded in the field, even less importance than ever had been attached to the development of the rocket by Peenemunde. Hitler now saw Peenemunde as little more than an Army research establishment whose products would play no part in winning the current war. JULY, 1940, PEENEMUNDE. While Dornberger was the commander of the Army's research organization at Peenemunde, that was only a small part of the operations there. Overall command was held by Colonel Zansen, an Army officer who had small respect for "Corporal" Hitler and who was also a Catholic who held very serious moral doubts about Hitler's actions. Himmler had long wanted to assert some measure of control over Speer's scientists at Peenemunde, and now that the importance of the rocket program had been reduced he saw his chance. von Braun's launch expert, Kurt Debus, received the same choice that von Braun had been given earlier, and like von Braun he also joined the SS. Pressure was also applied to Dornberger, but Dornberger successfully used his army rank to hold off Himmler's attempts to assert control over him. It was a technique that would serve him well in the future. JULY, 1940, WASHINGTON. Throughout the 1930's, as the people of the United States watched Japan's attempts to conquer parts of China and establish colonies, they had become more and more hostile towards her. As the German armies had swept across France in May, 1940, Roosevelt and his Secretary of State Hull realized that the United States was the only power left that could restrain Japan. The people of the United States were not interested in fighting a war to preserve the colonies of Europe, but they did not like Japan. Roosevelt and Hull began to work to cut Japan off from the raw materials for her war industries, and by July, 1940 Morgenthau, Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury had come up with a plan for stopping both Germany and Japan by cutting off their supplies of oil from the United States. In addition, Morgenthau planned that the Dutch would destroy their oil fields in Java and the British would bomb the German synthetic oil plants. The British and the Dutch government in exile would resist Morganthau's plan because they realized that it would mean that Japan would also go to war with them while they were already having a difficult enough time fighting Germany and Italy. For his part Roosevelt realized that a war between the United States and Japan would endanger his chances of re-election, but once he had been re-elected the situation would be very different. 24 AUGUST, 1940, LONDON. Despite the fact that Hitler had used his air force to destroy several cities in Europe when they had resisted the advance of the German army, Hitler had continued to ban the bombing of cities as a tactic in and of itself. Goering's air attacks on Britain had focused on shipping, airfields, radar installations and other military targets. Churchill had limited his air attacks to military targets as well. Since Hitler had air superiority in Europe, Churchill's bombers had suffered severe losses in their daylight attacks against military targets. When Churchill had shifted the attacks to night bombing it proved impossible for the bombers to hit their targets. The only way that his bombers could effectively be operated at night was if they bombed cities, and the accidental bombing of London by one German plane on 24 August provided Churchill with exactly the excuse he needed. On 25 August Churchill ordered an air attack on Berlin, and from this point on the bombing of cities became an acceptable method of warfare. In reply to Churchill's action Hitler ordered Goering to shift from the bombing of military targets to the bombing of Britain's cities. Hitler also restored high priority to the Assembly 4 Rocket, but in October,1940 he would once again reduce the rocket's priority as he began to marshal resources of Germany for the invasion of the Soviet Union. SEPTEMBER, 1940, LE BOUCHET, PARIS. German scientists now conducted an inspection of the French laboratories for chemical warfare. Undoubtedly in response to Simons' warnings, besides working on chemical weapons the French had also done work on shells which could be filled with biological agents as well as on using aerosols to distribute those agents. A Professor Kliewe, who had been assigned by the German Army to investigate various laboratories in Warsaw, was now assigned by the Army to look for evidence of French preparations for biological warfare. Kliewe found them. 17 SEPTEMBER, 1940, BERLIN. The attacks by Goering's air force on Britain failed to destroy enough of her air power, army, and navy to enable an invasion to be mounted. The attacks on Britain's cities had also failed to bring Britain to the bargaining table, but Hitler thought that this would still happen. His armies were defeating the British in their colonies in North Africa, and Britain was so weak that it could not mount an invasion of Europe across the Channel. Hitler called off the "invasion" of Britain. 27 SEPTEMBER, 1940, TOKYO. The government of Japan had been watching Germany's victories and had come to a conclusion. Germany was attacking the British, French, Dutch, and Belgians, all of which had colonies in Asia. In recognition of the change in European power, by June, 1940 Japan had already started to consolidate its efforts to turn all of their colonies into its colonies. It made demands on Britain, the Vichy French government, and the Dutch colonial government in Java, and cut off China from outside help. Germany and Italy had professed no desire for Asian colonies, and the Japanese government had entered into an "Anti-Comintern Pact" with Germany in 1936. As the Japanese wished to make territorial demands on both the Soviet Union and upon the parts of China controlled by the Chinese Communists this made sense to theme. Their enthusiasm for Hitler cooled when he had made his pact with Stalin in 1939 without consulting them. By July, 1940 Hitler's victories convinced the Japanese government that an even stronger alliance with Germany and Italy would be in their interest. The matter had been firmly sealed when U.S. President Roosevelt announced on 25 July that all exports of oil and scrap iron would be subject to licensing. On 27 September, 1940, the Japanese government entered into the "Tripartite Pact", which is brief enough: "Article I: Japan recognizes and respects the leadership of Germany and Italy in the establishment of a new order in Europe. "Article II: Germany and Italy recognize and respect the leadership of Japan in the establishment of a new order in Greater East Asia. "Article III: Japan, Germany, and Italy agree to cooperate in their efforts on the aforesaid lines. They further undertake to assist one another with all political, economic, and military means when one of the three contracting parties is attacked by a power at present not involved in the European war or in the Sino-Japanese conflict. [in other words, the United States] "Article V: Japan, Germany, and Italy affirm that the aforesaid terms do not in any way affect the political status which exists at present as between each of the three contracting parties and Soviet Russia." 22 AUGUST, 1940 LONDON. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had some bad news. Britain had only enough money to continue to fight for a few months. Roosevelt would not be able to give them aid until after he had won the election, and in the meantime there was nothing to do but wait. Lord Beaverbrook had a better idea. In a repeat of Rothschild's strategy of the First World War, he suggested that they step up the rate of their purchases in the United States. More orders would make the American economy and financial system hostage to the success of Britain in the war. After the victory, it would make little difference whether Britain would be able to pay for its purchases or not. WINTER, 1940, WASHINGTON. Despite Churchill's orders Britain's supply of gas was still inadequate in his view. Approached by a British military attache, representatives of the United States Army and chemical manufacturing concerns had proposed manufacturing gas for Britain in the United States in British owned plants. Churchill had opposed this deal, fearing that if it had become known Roosevelt would loose the election and Britain would thus loose their strongest, if still undeclared, ally. After Roosevelt won re-election the gas plants and stocks were immediately transferred to British ownership and gas shipments began from the United States to Britain. But there was another reason for the United States' efforts besides that of helping Britain. Roosevelt knew, as did many members of the United States military, that the United States might soon find itself at war with Japan, a war which it would fight almost alone, given the situation in Europe. They had had good reports of the Japanese use of gas weapons in China, and they knew that United States military forces might soon find themselves under attack with Japanese chemical weapons. If this were to occur, it would be essential for the United States to have on hand large quantities of chemical weapons with which it could retaliate. The United States now began the production of chemical weapons on the scale which only American industry could do. 18 DECEMBER, 1940, BERLIN. Hitler had always placed Jewish Bolsheviks first on his list of people he thought had betrayed Germany, with Jews following, and Bolsheviks in third place, followed by Gypsies and Slavs as races. For Hitler Moscow was the heart of Bolshevism, and he had concluded that a rapid coordinated air and tank attack would overrun the European part of the Soviet Union in less than a year. And after the European part of the Soviet Union was conquered, Moscow would fall. Hitler also thought that while a two front war must be avoided at all costs, by now he had concluded that Churchill would not negotiate a peace as long as their was a great power on the continent with which Britain could ally. And in this Hitler was correct, for many years before Churchill had concluded that the best course for Britain was to ally itself with the second most powerful power on the continent, and now that France had fallen, the Soviet Union was the second most powerful nation in Europe. Only if the Soviet Union was defeated would Britain be forced to surrender before the United States came into the war on their side. On 18 December Hitler ordered the General Staff of the Army to begin planning an invasion of the Soviet Union for the spring of the following year. A month before Hitler issued his order, Stalin's spies in Berlin had already notified him that Hitler was considering an invasion of the Soviet Union. 13 JANUARY, 1941, GERMANY. Kliewe, who had discovered the French experiments with biological weapons at Le Bouchet, was appointed to head of research on biological weapons in Germany. Kliewe was appointed to both the Surgeon General's Office as well as to the German Army's Weapons Testing group's chemical weapons section. 29 JANUARY, 1941, WASHINGTON. Now That Roosevelt had won re-election, he could enter into the kind of agreements that both he and Churchill wanted without the fear of losing office. Military representatives of the United States, Britain and the countries of the British Commonwealth met in Washington and decided that if war came the United States would focus its military efforts on Europe and only fight a defensive action in the Pacific. 1 MARCH, 1941, AUSCHWITZ. In early January, 1941 Otto Ambros paid a visit to Auschwitz and decided that I.G. Farben should build a synthetic rubber plant there. SS leader Heinrich Himmler then paid a visit to Auschwitz and after a brief inspection informed camp Commandant Rudolph Hoess that I.G. Farben was going to set up a plant there for the manufacture of synthetic rubber, and that 10,000 prisoners were to be made available immediately for the construction of this plant. Furthermore, the area for holding prisoners of war was to be expanded to hold 100,000 prisoners who would work in the factory, and the concentration camp was to be expanded to be able to hold 30,000 people. Hoess and others had already pointed out to Himmler the lack of water, sewerage, and housing, and they now raised their objections once again. "Gentlemen," Himmler told them, "This project will be completed. My reasons for this are more important than your objections." Himmler had realized that constructing the concentration camps and factories required for the "Final Solution" would be a major task and he had often discussed it with his trusted aid Pohl. Pohl had been directing the SS construction office himself, but he had realized that a job this size would need someone else to manage it. Pohl now made Hans Kammler, who had been directing construction for the Air Force for Goering, the Chief of Construction for the Economic Headquarters of the SS. Over the coming months Kammler would draw up the plans for and set up the construction schedule for the expansion of the concentration camp at Auschwitz. 1 MARCH, 1941, LONDON. Hitler's planned invasion of the Soviet Union was delayed by Mussolini and Italy's need for German aid in the conquest of Yugoslavia and by the necessity of driving the British Army from Greece. These delays gave Hitler's enemies time to become aware of his plans for invasion and allowed them to prepare for it. Decryptions of messages sent by the German Enigma cipher machine convinced Churchill that the Germans intended to attack the Soviet Union. After Roosevelt won re-election cooperation between the United States and Britain had increased and in April the United States would start exchanging its decryptions of messages sent by the Japanese Purple cipher machine for Britain's decryptions of messages sent by the German Enigma cipher machine. The messages the United States gave Britain included those sent to Tokyo by its ambassador in Berlin and they would give further notice of Hitler's intention to invade the Soviet Union. A large part of this Japanese ciphered information was sent on to Stalin by the Cambridge spies in London. 13 MARCH, 1941, BERLIN. The General Staff of the German Army was proceeding with its planning for the invasion of the Soviet Union, and Hitler now issued a strict instruction to them. As the German Army progressed into the Soviet Union it was to be followed by "Special Task Groups" who would have strict responsibility to immediately kill all "Jews in the service of the Party or State". MARCH, 1941, BERLIN. Hitler realized that if the invasion of the Soviet Union failed he would be in a two front war. Such a situation would call for the most extreme measures, and he returned the project for the development of the Assembly 4 Rocket to the highest priority. 30 MARCH, 1941, GERMANY. Professor Kliewe decided to duplicate the French work on bacterial and chemical weapons, and he assembled the necessary resources. But Dr. Stantien, the Surgeon General of Germany, was completely opposed to the development of biological weapons and he forbid Kliewe to go forward with his experiments on the grounds that an Air Force man whose aid Kliewe had enlisted was not qualified to carry these experiments out. 10 MAY, 1941, NEAR THE DUKE OF HAMILTON'S ESTATE, OUTSIDE GLASGOW, SCOTLAND. When the French had exchanged information with British in May, 1939, the French had advised the British on their techniques for using double agents. They advised the British that if one allowed the enemy's "agents" to operate and send "messages", one could establish control over his espionage operations and use them to deceive him. The French lecturing the British about double agents was somewhat like a man telling a fish how to swim, as at that time the British were already "operating" most of Germany's spies in Britain. In June, 1940 Churchill had turned over to his counter intelligence service Halifax's independent attempts to make contact with Germans to try to begin peace negotiations. On 20 September, 1940 Albrecht Haushofer, an associate of Rudolf Hess, attempted to open a channel of negotiation by sending a letter to the Duke of Hamilton. Hess was an old Nazi Party member and a close associate of Hitler's, and Hitler had made him Deputy Fuehrer. Haushofer was a member of the Wednesday Society, and had been introduced to Hess by Carl Langbehn. Haushofer's letter to the Duke of Hamilton was intercepted by the British and turned over to counter intelligence, who had then begun a correspondence with Haushofer without the Duke of Hamilton's knowledge. In January, 1941, the British realized that a more effective way of "operating" their German agents needed to be devised, and they had established the Twenty Committee, named after the Roman numeral sign for twenty, which is a double cross, XX. British counter intelligence in turn passed their contact with Haushofer over to the XX Twenty Committee after it was established. The XX Twenty Committee immediately sent a message via Carl Burckhardt, Swiss president of the International Red Cross, that the British were interested in making peace, but not with Hitler. It appears that Hitler, Himmler, and Hess had discussed the offer and sent Albrecht Haushofer to meet with Burchkhardt. On 25 April, 1941 the XX Twenty Committee contacted the Duke of Hamilton and told him about the correspondence they had been conducting on his "behalf", and they asked him to volunteer for their plan. On 26 April, with the complete knowledge of Hitler, Himmler, and Hess, Haushofer again met with Burckhardt who had told him that a well connected Briton had contacted him and had suggested that the members of certain British circles were interested in peace and had suggested him as a channel of contact. Haushofer went to Spain and met with the Duke of Hamilton, who told him that certain circles in Britain were fed up with Churchill and desired to negotiate a peace settlement. Haushofer returned to Germany and reported to Himmler, and Himmler passed the Duke of Hamilton's "message" on to Hitler and Hess. Hitler decided to allow Hess to fly to Scotland to make contact with the Duke. Hess shared Hitler's idea that the British were ready to negotiate, and as early as September, 1940 had begun to learn how to fly. On 10 May Hess flew to the Duke of Hamilton's estate and was immediately arrested. As the British hoped to learn more about Hitler's plans to invade the Soviet Union they would thoroughly interrogate him. The entire details of Hess's capture would soon be passed from London on to Stalin by the Cambridge spies, but Stalin had been influenced by the Cambridge spies' earlier reports of Churchill's plan to ally with Finland, and Stalin would continue to believe that Churchill and Britain would enter into negotiations with Germany which would free Germany to attack the Soviet Union. 21 JUNE, 1941. In March, 1941 the head of Soviet military intelligence made a report on German troop concentrations in the west; in May, 1941 the Soviet naval attache in Berlin reported that an attack was imminent; Richard Sorge, a Soviet spy in Tokyo, had sent back a complete description of the impending German attack; Soviet field commanders had filed reports that the Germans were concentrating forces in the west; and a captured German agent had stated during interrogation that he was supposed to report by June because military operations against the Soviet Union were possible after that. Stalin's agents inside the British government had also been sending him regular reports about the German's plans. On 5 May Stalin told the graduating class of a military academy that war was inevitable and that they must prepare to destroy Fascism. Later in that month Marshall Zhukov gave Stalin a battle plan that called for the destruction of German forces in Poland and Prussia. In the preceding months the Germans had made extensive overflights of Soviet positions in the west. Stalin had not wanted to give the Germans provocation for an attack, and their flights had not been stopped. In June Churchill had warned Stalin that an attack was coming. Earlier on the evening of 21 June, 1941 several German soldiers crossed over to the Soviet's line and told the local commander that German forces would attack at dawn the next day. The local commander informed Commissar for Defense Timoshenko, who then telephoned Stalin. Stalin told him to come to the Kremlin with Marshall Zhukov, the Chief of the General Staff. The Politburo had already assembled. "Well, what now? ", Stalin asked. No one responded. Commissar Timoshenko suggested issuing an order alerting all commands. Stalin then ordered Marshall Zhukov to read the order Zhukov which had already prepared, but then demanded that the order be rewritten, warning the troops not to provoke the Germans to attack. The first orders placing the Soviet armies in the west on alert were sent out at half past midnight, and the Politburo went home at 3 A. M. on 22 June. By this time most of the German Air Force was airborne, on its way to bomb the Soviet Union. 4 A.M., 22 JUNE, 1941. 3,000,000 German troops poured across the border. Soviet troops reported being attacked but were told not to retaliate because the Germans might use their self defense as a pretext for war. No commander would act without explicit orders from Stalin, and by this time Stalin was frozen by the realization of what he had done, and of what was to come. Marshall Zhukov telephoned Commissar Timoshenko, and Timoshenko told him to telephone Stalin. Stalin told Zhukov to return to the Kremlin, and also told the members of the Politburo to return. At 4:30 A.M. Stalin told Foreign Minister Molotov to call the German ambassador. When Molotov returned from his call he told Stalin and the Politburo that Germany had declared war. At 7:15 A.M. the order to attack was finally given to the troops of the Red Army, but the troops were still forbidden to cross the frontier into enemy territory. Stalin still did not wish to give the Germans a justification for invading. Stalin was unaware that by this time in the places where the Red Army was not already pinned down fighting overwhelming German forces it was in full rout. Stalin ordered the Air Force to first conduct reconnaissance first and then to bomb the German forces. Stalin was unaware that nearly the entire Soviet Air Force in the west, more than 1,200 planes, had already been destroyed on the ground by the German Air Force. He had not alerted them. At noon Molotov finally made an announcement over radio telling the people of the Soviet Union that they were being attacked. Later in the day Stalin dispatched new commanders to the field and issued orders directing Soviet troops to destroy the enemy. He also instructed them that if it were necessary, they could even cross the border to do it. 23 JUNE, 1941 THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW. Deputy Chief of the Red Army General Staff Vatutin reported to Stalin. With their complete control of the air space over the Soviet Union, the German forces had blocked all attempts to rally the Red Army. Now, by the second day of the air attack, the German armies were advancing on major cities of the Soviet Union and were at the gates of Minsk. "What was that you said? What's happening at Minsk? Have you got his right? How do you know this?", Stalin demanded. "No, Comrade Stalin, I'm not getting mixed up.", Vatutin replied, "The western front has virtually collapsed." Stalin's problem was that when he had ordered the Soviet Union's defensive line moved west to include the recently occupied lands in eastern Europe, he had ordered his then current line of defenses stripped to equip the new one. But Stalin had mistakenly estimated the time when the Germans would attack, as well as how long it would take him to complete his move. The Germans attacked before Stalin had completed his move, and when their attack came, Stalin had no defensive line. 26 JUNE, 1941, THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW. As the rout continued Stalin collapsed with nervous exhaustion and went into reclusion at his house outside of Moscow. It was clear to Foreign Minister Molotov that if Stalin continued in this condition the country would be defeated and the Germans would slaughter the leadership itself. Molotov now proposed to the other members of the Politburo that they create a State Defense Committee to take over for Stalin. Everyone agreed and they went to Stalin's palace. "What have you come for?", Stalin asked them. Molotov told Stalin that they had agreed a new committee had to be set up to ensure rapid decision making and to get the country back on its feet. He also told Stalin that Stalin should head the new authority. "Fine", Stalin told them. He raised no objections. 29 JUNE, 1941 THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW. On 29 June Stalin returned to Moscow and received a briefing on the military situation. He then stormed out in rage, and after he returned he started cursing the military staff. He ordered the arrest of the generals who had commanded the central part of the front in the west, and they would later be tried and executed. As Stalin left from the Defense Commissariat building he turned to the Politburo and told them, "Lenin left us a great inheritance and we, his heirs, have fucked it all up." 1 JULY, 1941, STALIN'S RESIDENCE, OUTSIDE MOSCOW. By 26 June Minsk surrendered. The Germans then destroyed the city and massacred its citizens. When Stalin heard about this he had become very depressed and had called in Foreign Minister Molotov and Chief of State Police Beria for a meeting. Stalin pointed out to them that they were being soundly defeated. When Lenin had been faced with the same situation he had signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and had traded territory to the Germans for peace. Due to Lenin's actions the Soviet state had survived and after the war it had regained its territories. Stalin now proposed to Molotov and Beria that they should do the same thing. If they offered the Germans the Baltics, Moldavia, the Ukraine, and Belorussia, the Germans might stop their attack. 2 JULY, 1941, THE BULGARIAN EMBASSY, MOSCOW. Molotov and Beria agreed with Stalin and Molotov suggested that they use the Bulgarian Ambassador to try and reach the Germans. Molotov then set up an appointment with the Bulgarian Ambassador Ivan Stamenov and the next day Stalin, Molotov, and Beria presented their plan to him. Ivan Stamenov refused to take their offer to the Germans. "Hitler will never beat the Russians. Comrade Stalin, you should not worry about such a thing. Even if you retreat to the Urals, you'll still win in the end." 3 JULY, 1941 THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW. Thus it was Bulgarian Ambassador Ivan Stamenov who first set out the strategy that the Soviet leadership would use to defeat Germany: a war of attrition. The strategy had immediate appeal to Stalin: since socialist theory viewed Hitler as the same type of phenomena as Napoleon Bonaparte, it made sense that Hitler could and would be defeated by using the same type of strategy that the Czar had used a century earlier. For the first time since the invasion Stalin could finally see his way out of this mess. On 3 July Stalin made his first address to the nation since the Germans had attacked. It was coherent and lucid; it was a great speech that rallied the nation; it presented Ivan Stamenov's plan to defeat the Germans. All Soviet factories would be moved to the east out of the reach of the Germans. When the Red Army retreated, they would leave behind a wasteland. Guerrilla units would attack behind the German frontlines the truck convoys and trains carrying supplies the long distance from Germany. And then winter would come. JULY, 1941, LONDON. Despite Churchill's direct orders his supplies of gas were still inadequate. He now issued another order, "The absolutely maximum effort must be used with super priority to make, store, and fill into containers, the largest possible quantities of gas. Let me know exactly who is responsible for this failure. At any moment this peril may be upon us." JULY, 1941, BERLIN. After Britain closed off Palestine to Jewish emigration in May, 1939, Hitler and the German government had begun to negotiate with France for the use of some of their colonial territory as a "homeland" for Jews. The government of France had refused their request, and they had even refused it again after they had been conquered. Many Jews had fled to the United States, but the people of the United States resented the new immigrants, and as the number of refugees had increased Roosevelt and the Congress had left the previous restrictions on Jewish immigration in place and had begun to enforce them. On 23 April, 1941 Roosevelt and the State Department placed an absolute ban on the issuance of immigration visas to European Jews. This action had left one final route open to the Jews of Europe. As immigration had been restricted, European Jews had begun to use visitors visas in their attempts to flee Hitler's Germany. In response to this on 27 June, 1941 Roosevelt and the United States government had placed an absolute ban on the issuance of tourist visas to European Jews. Hitler now entered into discussions with his confederates Air Marshall Hermann Goering and SS leader Heinrich Himmler. Together they concluded that the only way to rid Europe of Jews would be to kill them. After their discussions Hitler issued the order for "The Final Solution of the Jewish Question", the extermination of the Jews in Europe. "All Jews without exception are to be destroyed." Himmler talked to Heydrich, and Heydrich called in Adolf Eichmann and told him that the Jews were going to be killed. Eichmann was shocked when Heydrich gave him the news. He had thought that the efforts to negotiate with the British would succeed, and that he would be the governor of the Jewish province in Israel. When that plan for a Jewish province had failed he had thought that a Jewish province would be established on the French African island of Madagascar. Now Heydrich told Eichmann that instead of that he would be placed in charge of the round up and transport to Auschwitz and the other camps of the Jews and others from all the territory under German control. Eichmann accepted the order. Auschwitz Commandant Rudolph Hoess was called in and he was told that he would oversee the extermination. JULY, 1941, POLAND. As the German Army had rushed east it had been followed by "Special Task Forces" of SS troops that had been tasked to kill "Jews in the service of the (Communist) Party or (Soviet) State". The "Special Task Forces" were now given new instructions: they were to kill all of the Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and socialists of entire villages. The SS troops of the "Special Task Forces" would be joined in this job by many willing people of the lands the German Army conquered. Particular mention should be made of the many Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Ukrainians who whole heartedly supported the killing of Jews, Gypsies, and Russians. The usual method used at first by the "Special Task Forces" to kill their victims was to shoot them dead. But as this method required a large amount of ammunition as well as well as a large number of troops. The SS troops also did not enjoy this work. Later someone would come up with the scheme of putting the victims into a van, into which the hose from the van's engine exhaust would be led. With the use of this method the victims would be dead by the time they arrived at their burial ground. JULY, 1941, BERLIN. While the Catholic Church could tolerate the persecution of the Jews and the murder of political prisoners under Action T 13 f 14, the killing of the incurable under Action T4 was a different matter. A storm of protest erupted when knowledge about Action T 4 became public. Hitler knew that he could not fight the British, and the French, and the Catholic Church at the same time, and he concluded that he would have to stop the killing of the incurable. In August,1941 Hitler announced the end of Action T 4. 31 JULY, 1941, BERLIN. Himmler realized he could be accused of stealing from the state if it were discovered that he had set up the labor camps himself. He sought the aid of Hermann Goering, and Goering then assigned Himmler's subordinate Reinhard Heydrich the task of planning the other aspects of the operation: "Supplementing the task assigned to you by the decree of January 24, 1939 [shortly after Hitler's speech cited earlier here], to solve the Jewish problem by means of emigrations and evacuation in the best possible way according to present conditions, I hereby charge you to carry out preparations as regards organizational, financial, and material matters for a total solution of the Jewish question in all the territories of Europe under German occupation. "Where the competency of other central organizations touches on this matter, these organizations are to collaborate. "I charge you further to submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative, material, and financial measures necessary for carrying out the final solution of the Jewish question." 3 SEPTEMBER, 1941, AUSCHWITZ. The "incurable" had at first been killed by starvation, then by injection, and finally by funneling engine exhaust fumes into "showers". Jews, socialists, and other political prisoners had been killed at first by shooting. Then an aid to Eichmann, Walter Rauff, had come up with the idea of killing them by channeling back into the transport vans their exhaust fumes. While carbon monoxide exhaust fumes had proven the most efficient way to kill their victims, Auschwitz Commandant Hoess realized that they did not have enough gasoline to kill the number of people that would be required for the "Final Solution". Hoess discussed the problem with Eichmann when he made a visit, and it seems likely that Eichmann reported on the experiments with Cyclon B that had been carried out at Brandenburg two years earlier. Eichmann and Hoess selected a farmhouse at Auschwitz to be converted into the first gas chamber, intending it to be used with exhaust fumes. On 3 September, 1941 Camp Deputy Commandant Karl Fritzsch conducted the first experimental gassing of victims with "Cyclon B", a prussic acid insecticide. The first Polish army camp at Auschwitz had been severely infested with lice, vermin, and rats, and Cyclon B had been used to fumigate its buildings. The camp doctor, Dr. Edward Wirths, had been disturbed at being required to kill prisoners by injection. Dr. Wirths and Camp Deputy Commandant Karl Fritzsch conducted the first experimental killings at Auschwitz with Cyclon B. Their victims would be 250 sick prisoners and 600 Soviet prisoners of war. Wirths and Fritzsch would be doing nothing out of the ordinary, as other people had already killed many incurably sick people under Action T 4, and yet other people were using Soviet prisoners of war to test the effects of chemical weapons at Spandau, with special preference being shown for Communist political officers. Wirths and Fritzsch's new victims were moved into the cells of a jail and Cyclon B was thrown in by troops wearing gas masks. When the Duty Officer checked on 4 September, some of the victims were still alive. More Cyclon B was thrown in, and when they checked again on 5 September all of their victims were dead. Their corpses were removed by prisoners wearing gas masks, then stripped and burned. They found that it took too long to air out the jail, so they would conduct further experiments to determine the minimal necessary dose of Cyclon B necessary for the extermination. For these experiments they would use the morgue of the camp's crematory, converted into a gas chamber. They gased to death 900 Soviet prisoners of war in this facility, and would finally determine the correct dosage of Cyclon B necessary to kill those intended for death. After they found the necessary dose of Cyclon B, they converted a farm house into a large gas chamber. They again used the same ruse that they had used to fool the victims of Action T 4: the gas chamber was disguised as "showers". Their victims would not know their fate until it was too late. Jews from the same area as their victims would work to calm their victims' fears, in the same way as "Judas goats" were used to lead cattle into a slaughterhouse. Periodically the "Judas goats" themselves would be slaughtered as well, so as to eliminate the witnesses of their murders. To maintain the illusion, any person who showed any resistance along the way would immediately be pulled aside and quietly beaten to death or shot. The "showers" of the converted farm house would go into use in January, 1942, and they used them to murder the Jews of Upper Silesia. SEPTEMBER?, 1941, PEENEMUNDE. Hermann Oberth had at last succeeded in obtaining German citizenship. When he arrived at Peenemunde he found that his student, young Wernher von Braun, had already succeeded in perfecting the rocket as a means for long range bombardment. The rocket which Oberth himself had proposed to the German War Department in 1917, the rocket which they had then turned down, had finally seen the light of day. Rocket science had taken great steps at Peenemunde, but Oberth had played no immediate role in making those steps as his skills were hopelessly out of date. There was nothing for him to do, as development of the rocket was complete and construction of the first test articles had already begun. Instead von Braun gave Oberth the assignment of making theoretical calculations. OCTOBER, 1941, BERLIN. Dr. Schumann, Head of the Armed Forces Science Branch, wanted to begin work on biological warfare agents and he went to Surgeon General Stantien in an effort to get Kliewe transferred to his control. Surgeon General Stantien would foil Schumann, and both Kliewe and the responsibility for biological weapons would remain under his personal control. FALL, 1941, BERLIN. Hitler received reliable reports about British work on biological agents. They claimed the British had made experiments in Northern Scotland in August and September with spray instruments. In September, the British had sprayed several the horses and animals in several valleys in Iceland with anthrax and glanders, and obtained favorable results. Lacking complete records it is impossible to know what Hitler thought about these reports, but it seems likely that the XX Twenty Committee succeeded in convincing Hitler that Britain had already developed biological weapons. 1 NOVEMBER, 1941, BERLIN. The "Final Solution" presented Kammler with a unique engineering problem: by the estimates of the SS's residing expert, SS Lieutenant Colonel Eichmann, the "Final Solution' would require the efficient murder of 11,000,000 Jews. But Kammler's problem was solved when he had learned of the results of Fritzsch's experiments at Auschwitz with Cyclon B. Kammler now arrived at Auschwitz with urgent orders from Himmler for Commandant Hoess to expand the camp, and on 1 November, 1941 he gave SS Major Karl Bischoff the responsibility for building the gas chambers and barracks at Auschwitz. 9 NOVEMBER, 1941, PEENEMUNDE. The news of the beginning of the construction of the first test models of the Assembly 4 Rocket at Peenemunde had not escaped Himmler's notice. To him this could only mean one thing: the rocket would soon be ready for production. Combined with warheads loaded with the new nerve gases, Germany would soon have a weapon of incredible power. Such performance should be rewarded, and on 9 November, 1941 Himmler made Wernher von Braun a Lieutenant-Colonel in the SS. 24 NOVEMBER, 1941, MEETING OF INTERDEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE NUMBER 2, WASHINGTON. Representatives of the United States government held a meeting to decide whether to allow Hellmuth Simons into the country. As an aid to future historians the record of their meeting is included here: "SIMONS, Hellmuth. Disapproved for immigration visa. War Department, O.N.I. [Office of Naval Intelligence] and F.B.I. [Federal Bureau of Investigation] representatives voted disapproval for the following reasons: This applicant has a twenty-one year old son who is presently employed in the French Military Office in Algeria, Africa. It is common knowledge that the French military machine is under Nazi domination in that territory. The applicant is sponsored by individuals who do not know him personally. It is further noted that the Emergency Rescue Committee, 122 W, 42cd St., New York City, is interested in this case. There is considerable derogatory information contained in the files of the F.B.I. concerning this committee and several of its representatives. [This is another way of saying that the F.B.I. suspected the Emergency Relief Committee of being communist and that Simons was a communist plant.] It is noted that from the record that the applicant has a wife who has been in Peru since 1938 and a daughter in England since 1935. U.S.I.S. [United States Immigration Service] and State Department representatives vote approval." 6 DECEMBER, 1941, LONDON. While the British chemical warfare scientists had not discovered nerve gases, thanks to Simons' warnings since 1936 they had been hard at work developing biological weapons. By now they had developed an anthrax virus weapon. The anthrax virus was to be put into pellets, which would be eaten by animals and thus spread on to the civilian population. The director of this program now proposed to Churchill that 2,000,000 anthrax filled feed pellets be manufactured. If Germany were to attack Britain with gas, these pellets would be scattered over Germany by bomber. As there was no prophylactic for anthrax, and there was no cure for it, and as it would continue to thrive in the soil indefinitely, the use of these pellets would forever render Germany into a primeval forest incapable of supporting animal life. Churchill approved the plan to begin production of the pellets and increased the number of pellets to be produced from 2,000,000 to 5,000,000. 7 DECEMBER, 1941, PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII. Roosevelt had realized that a war with Japan would endanger his chances of re-election, but once he had been re-elected the situation had become different. Following Secretary of the Treasury Morganthau's plan Roosevelt started to work towards an oil embargo, and the government of Japan had started to develop a plan for taking the United States out of the war by destroying its Pacific fleet with a surprise attack. The Japanese preparations for war had included changes in their codes, so the exact timing of their attack would be unknown to Roosevelt or the U.S. military. But thanks to Friedman's efforts, throughout this period Roosevelt and the military had been able to read the diplomatic messages sent between Tokyo and its embassy in Washington. These now provided enough information to allow the aircraft carriers of the United States to escape being destroyed in the surprise attack. The embargo came, and the surprise attack on the United States' fleet in the Pacific came on 7 December, 1941. Roosevelt asked the Congress of the United States to declare war on Japan, and they did. Isolationist sentiment in the United States was still so strong that Roosevelt still would not ask Congress to declare war on Germany, but Hitler freed him from this problem by declaring war on the United States on 10 December, 1941. DECEMBER, 1941, PEENEMUNDE. Dornberger and von Braun's plans called for the construction of the first Assembly 4 Rocket by February, 1942 and the beginning of mass production by April, 1942. This left Dornberger faced with a shortage of labor and he now called upon an old friend in an attempt to find a solution. von Brauchitsch, who had been an early supporter of their work, had been appointed Commander in Chief of the Army, and Dornberger now approached him and asked for help. von Brauchitsch authorized the establishment of a new battalion at Peenemunde. In addition to the labor provided by the members of the new battalion, a prisoner of war camp would be built near Peenemunde at Trassenheide and filled with captured Soviet soldiers. Some of these prisoners would work at manual labor, while the more skilled among them would be employed in the manufacture of graphite control vanes for their rocket. 20 JANUARY, 1942, WANASEE, SUBURBS OF BERLIN. Reinhard Heydrich called together a meeting to present his plan for the final solution of the Jewish problem. The meeting's attendees included Baron Ernst von Weizsaecker of the Foreign Office, who would comment on the aspects of the plan under international law; Roland Friersler of the Ministry of Justice, who would comment on aspects of the plan under German law; Georg Liebbrandt and Alfred Meyer of the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territory; Dr. Josef Buhler, Governor General for occupied territories of the Foreign Office assigned to the staff of the Governor of Poland; SS Lieutenant General Dr. Eberhard Schongarth, Commander of the Security Police of Poland; SS Major Dr. Fritz Lange, Commander of the Security Police of Latvia; SS Major Viktor Arajas, Commander of the Latvian Security Police; Freidrich Kritzinger of the Reich Chancellery; SS Colonel General Klopfer of the Party Chancellory; Dr. Stuckart of the Ministry of Interior; Dr. Neumann, Director of the Four Year Plan; SS Major General Hofmann of the Racial and Settlement Office; SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann, the commandant of Auschwitz, and his superior SS Major General Heinrich Mueller. Heydrich presented his plan. They would separate the Jews into those who were able to work and those who were unable to work. They would gas to death the Jews who were unable to work. They would work to death those Jews who were able to work. They would sterilize half breeds. To remain in compliance with German law, they would conduct this process under the "Nuremberg Laws", the laws which the Nazis had developed and used since 1933 to persecute the Jews. To Heydrich's mind the plan had the advantage that if they just moved the Jews of Europe to the East and worked and starved them to death, they would be able to kill them and to give the appearance of Germany remaining in compliance with international law. Heydrich even hoped that they would be able to raise money from foreign Jews for the "resettlement". Although Heydrich did not mention it to the delegates, according to the plan Heydrich's boss Himmler would become rich from the profits generated by the use of the slave labor. Heydrich's plan was accepted by all the attendees. The other attendees, having been notified earlier of the purpose of the meeting, had given some thought as to how these goals could be accomplished and they now offered their own suggestions. Later Heydrich would make a feeble attempt to remove from the minutes of the meeting most of the direct evidence of their intention to slaughter the Jews, but he was too stupid for such a massive undertaking. There would later be no doubt as to what occurred; when Eichmann was caught many years later he would admit that when the meeting's participants had adjourned for cocktails and lunch, they had discussed whether it would be more efficient to kill the Jews by shooting them or by gassing them with carbon monoxide. 8 FEBRUARY, 1942. Dr. Fritz Todt, Hitler's Minister of Armaments and Munitions died in a plane crash while on an inspection tour in the east. Whether or not this was an assassination is not known. Hitler immediately called in Albert Speer, who had been designing air raid shelters and arms factories, and offered him Todt's job. Hitler offered Speer the second most powerful position in the country, and Speer, ever hungry for power, quickly accepted the offer. If Speer had not known about the nerve gases Tabun and Sarin from his earlier conversations with Hitler, or from his work designing civil defense works and armaments factories in 1939 and 1940, it is certain that he soon learned of them. For as Minister of Armaments Speer would oversee the production of both Tabun and Sarin. MARCH, 1942, BERLIN. Hitler had concluded in 1940 that night bombing against a country with radar and an organized air defense system was not effective. By the end of 1941 Churchill had reached the same conclusion and he had put an end to its use. But the escape of three German battleships from British bombers in February, 1942 had led to the replacement of the commander of the bombers with a new man, Arthur "Bomber" Harris. While Harris thought that bombers could be employed in precision strikes against military targets such as weapons factories, power plants, oil refineries and railroads, he also thought that the key role of bombers would be "to render the German industrial population homeless, spiritless and as far as possible, dead." Churchill backed Harris and once again allowed strikes against German cities and at the beginning of March the first of them was carried out against the German city of Essen. Hitler needed to respond to the British bombing, but a reply in kind was impossible. When the Germans had invaded North Africa, and then the Soviet Union, they had had to shift parts of their Air Force away from Britain in order to support their invading armies. Hitler now did not have enough planes or pilots available to bomb Britain. This left the Assembly 4 Rocket, but it had not even been tested yet. None the less, Hitler instructed Speer to ask Dornberger to report on the feasibility of producing and launching 3,000 Assembly 4 Rockets a month. 18 MARCH, 1942, PEENEMUNDE. The first static test of the Assembly 4 Rocket ended in failure when its engine blew up. 19 MARCH, 1942, BERLIN. As they viewed it as an infringement by the Army on their responsibilities, for many years the German Air Force had resented the Assembly 4 Rocket. The failure of the first Assembly 4 Rocket now provided them with an opportunity to stop it and they requested that they be allowed to conduct a review of the rocket program. But Speer rejected the Air Force's proposal, and Hitler would back Speer's decision, as well as repeat his request for the feasibility study for the production and launch of 3,000 rockets a month. Despite Hitler's rejection of their proposal to "review" the Army's rocket program, the Air Force would give increased effort to the cruise missile being developed for them by Saenger and Schmidt. Schmidt's engine would be given over to the Argus firm for development and production, while the firm of Gerhardt Fiesler would be given the task of developing the air frame for the cruise missile. MARCH, 1942, BERLIN. While "Bomber" Harris's raid on Essen failed, it had been followed by a strike with incendiary fire bombs on Lubeck which nearly completely destroyed that city. Hitler was livid, and he now asked that the Dornberger report examine the possibility of launching of 5,000 Assembly 4 rockets a month. SPRING, 1942, PEENEMUNDE. Hitler's renewed interest in the Assembly 4 Rocket prompted Himmler to act. He visited Peenemunde and met with the military commander of the development works, Lieutenant Colonel Gerhard Stegmaier, a fanatical Nazi and a member of Himmler's own SS. Himmler discussed with Stegmaier the state of things at Peenemunde and his and Hitler's plans for the production and use of the rocket. APRIL, 1942, BERLIN. Dornberger's submitted his report on 27 March and it was now circulating in Berlin. While a rocket and a bomber both required about the same amount of resources to build, Dornberger had earlier claimed and had claimed once again that since the crew of the bomber would be lost on average after only eight missions the rocket would actually turn out to be cheaper to use if the cost of training the bomber's crew was factored in. Dornberger ignored the fact that by the time they were destroyed the bomber would have delivered 8 tons of explosives more or less precisely on target while the rocket would have delivered only 1 ton more or less in the vicinity of the target. Dornberger also ignored the fact that in Germany's isolated state it would be easier to train pilots than to produce airframes. Despite these obvious oversights, Dornberger had begun to face some of the restraints on the use of the rocket. Dornberger stated that launching 5,000 rockets in a month was out of the question, as not enough liquid oxygen could be produced to fuel them. Furthermore, Dornberger pointed out that rocket launching troops would have to be trained and equipped before a rocket assault could be launched. Hitler now concluded that using the rocket with warheads armed with conventional explosives would not be possible, but he continued development of the rocket as it still might be necessary to use it to deliver nerve gas. For security reasons all but a few copies of Dornberger's report would be recalled. APRIL, 1942, DYHERNFURTH. Construction of the plant for the production of Tabun was completed and production of the nerve gas began. Though the planned capacity of the plant was for the production of 1,000 metric tons of Tabun a month, in practice the plant's output would be around 700 metric tons a month. 23 MAY, 1942, BERLIN. In April the Germans received intelligence reports that the Allies were making preparations to drop potato beetles and Texas fever ticks on Germany. This information was forwarded to Hitler, who once again re-issued his order from 1939 forbidding German preparations for offensive biological warfare. "The Fuhrer, upon interview with the Supreme Command, has ordered that no preparations for BW [Biological Warfare] are to be made by us. The Fuhrer, however, had requested that every effort be made in respect to defense measures against possible enemy attacks. "Therefore urgent information is desired concerning present and future measures for combatting against the potato beetle and Texas tick by the responsible civilian and military agencies." Schrader, who had discovered Tabun while looking for insecticides, received orders to begin work on insecticides which could be used against the Allies' insect attack. 27 MAY, 1942, PRAGUE, CZECHOSLOVAKIA. In 1941 Heydrich had been appointed military governor of Czechoslovakia. He had moved to crush Czech resistance and had rounded up most of the Czech underground. During the roundup he caught Czech agents who were a part of one of Canaris's links to British Intelligence. The British immediately set in motion an operation to assassinate Heydrich, and by December, 1941 the assassination team was parachuted into Czechoslovakia. Heydrich had managed to trace the chain of agents back to Canaris's immediate link to them, and British Intelligence's need to assassinate him became even more urgent when Heydrich had confronted Canaris a few days earlier on 21 May, 1942. Heydrich had demanded a new distribution of intelligence functions between himself and Canaris. He told Canaris that his own organization, the SD, would now be responsible for counter intelligence, and that he would have the ability to question members of Canaris's military intelligence. Although he had not shown it to Canaris, Heydrich had even drawn up a plan to merge their organizations and thus take over Canaris's authority. After entering Czechoslovakia in December, 1941, the assassination team spent several months establishing Heydrich's routine and travel routes. On 27 May, 1942 they ambushed Heydrich while he was traveling in his car. One of the members of the team opened fire with his machine gun, but it jammed. Another one of the assassins threw a hand grenade, but only a few splinters from it wounded Heydrich. Heydrich was operated on to remove the small bomb splinters, and seemed to be recovering. His doctors became puzzled, however, when he started to fail and then died. They did not know that the hand grenade that the assassins had used was covered with a botulin poison that British chemical warfare experts had developed several years earlier. 30 MAY, 1942, COLOGNE. "Bomber" Harris came up with a new tactic. Instead of using a limited bombing fleet, he would launch an attack on a single city with 1,000 planes at a time. In this way he would overwhelm the German air defenses with sheer numbers and the target city would be totally crushed. On the evening of 30 May, 1942 over a thousand of Harris's bombers took off for an attack against Cologne. While the bombing's initial effects brought Cologne to a standstill, it would soon recover. Harris would then launch two more massive air attacks, one against Essen and another against the submarine base at Bremen, but neither of these attacks would have the devastating effect that Harris desired. SUMMER, 1942, AUSCHWITZ. The development of the prison factory at the same time as they were developing the extermination facility had proved too much for Kammler, Bischoff, and Hoess. Himmler's goals conflicted: the prison factory needed healthy prisoners, but at the same time he also wanted the prisoners to be worked to death. Himmler now paid a visit to Auschwitz to see how operations were going. While the synthetic rubber plant and the barracks for its prisoners had been built and were functioning well, the extermination facility was in chaos. Kammler gave Himmler a thorough presentation outlining all of the difficulties that expanding and operating the camp had presented them. Kammler, Bischoff, and Hoess all told Himmler about the terrible conditions that had been caused by the too rapid expansion of the camp. "I don't want to hear any more about any existing difficulties", Himmler told them. "For an SS officer there are no difficulties. His task is always to immediately overcome any difficulty by himself. "As to how? That's your headache, not mine." SUMMER, 1942, AUSCHWITZ. When the "Special Task Groups" conducted their first massacres in Eastern Europe they buried their victims in mass graves, but this had taken too long and had required too much labor. They had often had to force their victims themselves to dig their own graves. After the Germans found the bodies of Stalin's Polish victims at Katyn they realized that the bodies of their own victims could be used as evidence of their crimes. Still, when the Jews of Upper Silesia arrived at Auschwitz in January, 1942 and been gassed, their bodies had been buried in enormous mass graves. At the same time that experiments on Cyclon B had been conducted at Auschwitz, experiments to develop an effective method of cremation had been conducted at the concentration camp at Chelmno by SS Colonel Blobel. After Himmler made his visit to Auschwitz, he sent Eichmann who in turn sent Blobel to Hoess to show him how his methods for the open burning of the bodies of the dead worked. Hoess would implement Blobel's techniques, and the bodies of their earlier victims at Auschwitz would be exhumed and burned on pyres. Their victim's ashes would then be ground up and scattered. At first it would appear to Eichmann that he had found a solution to his problem, but the burning pyres of dead bodies could be seen by the British bombers at night. After some more experimentation Hoess and Bischoff developed an effective design for a crematoria oven and in the winter of 1942 Kammler and Bischoff would oversee the building of large crematoria to dispose of the bodies of their victims. 13 JUNE, 1942, PEENEMUNDE. Speer invited the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force to a demonstration test launch of the Assembly 4 Rocket at Peenemunde. The rocket thundered away from the test pad, and then von Braun began to describe to them the incredible distance the rocket was travelling. While von Braun was talking the assembled dignitaries noticed a faint whistling noise, which became louder. Then they glanced up and saw the rocket falling back towards them. Its guidance system had failed, and instead of turning on to a ballistic trajectory it had just gone straight up, and its tail section had torn off, and it now fell tumbling straight back down. The chiefs stood frozen as the rocket crashed back to Earth only a half mile away. "Well, at least we've solved the take off problem.", von Braun joked. After the chiefs returned to Berlin they would discuss the test with Hitler, and Hitler would then conclude that the rocket's guidance system might never be developed to the point where it could be used as a weapon. 19 JUNE, 1942, BERLIN. The second failure of the Assembly 4 Rocket provided the Air Force with another opportunity to establish its control over long range bombardment weapons. On 19 June representatives of the Fiesler and Argus companies met with Field Marshall Milch and convinced him to give high priority to their cruise missile. According to their plan, production of 1,000 cruise missiles a month would begin in the summer of 1943. 23 JUNE, 1942. Speer also now reported to Hitler on the second failure of a test launch of the Assembly 4 Rocket. Hitler suggested that the rocket's guidance system might never be perfected, and he then began to talk about the Air Force's work with guided bombs (the cruise missile), the Messerschmitt 163 rocket powered bomber interceptor, and the Messerschmitt 262 jet powered aircraft. JUNE, 1942, WASHINGTON. United States troops had engaged the Japanese forces on Guadalcanal and stopped their advance. President Roosevelt now feared that the Japanese would use gas against the US troops as they had done in China, and he warned the Japanese. "I desire to make it perfectly clear that if Japan persists in this inhuman form of warfare against China or against any other of the United Nations, such action will be regarded by this government as though taken against the United States, and retaliation in kind and in full measure will be meted out." 6 JULY, 1942, BERLIN. Hitler and the High Command of the German Army held a conference. Since records are lacking it is not known what brought them on, but the results of the conference are available: "The use of BW [biological weapons] against England is out of the question. Preparatory steps must therefore not be taken. [This is probably the result of the Twenty [XX] Committee's work, which had convinced Hitler that Britain already had biological weapons.] "On the other hand, the Fuehrer had ordered intensive work by German scientists on the control of destructive biological agents. Instructions for combatting harmful animal and plant agents will come from [the] Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, and the Reich Biological Institute. The Armed Forces are to maintain close contact with these agencies. Concerning the methods of cooperation, a joint suggestion by the Veterinary Inspectorate and the Armed Forces Science Branch [in other words Dr. Schumann was asking for permission to study the British methods] must be submitted to the Supreme Command. Similar suggestions about the distribution of authority are also to be submitted." JULY, 1942. Kliewe, with help from Goering's Air Force, carried out experiments with biological warfare agents at Munster Lager [camp]. Different combinations of contaminated foodstuffs were successfully released by time fused bombs dropped from an airplane. 16 AUGUST, 1942, PEENEMUNDE. The third test of the Assembly 4 Rocket ended in failure when the nose of the rocket broke off after its engines cut off. AUGUST, 1942, LUBLIN, POLAND. The Germans discovered forty five crates in the Lublin railroad terminal containing dynamite, poisons, and ampules of bacterial cultures. They were unable to identify the source of the crates, and as of this time it is still unclear whether the crates were supplied by the British or if they represented the final arms cache of the Polish Army. The Germans also captured 11 members of a resistance group in Byalistok who had in their possession instructions for the use of the cultures. FALL, 1942. The German Army also captured a Soviet document which revealed that the previous spring Stalin had ordered that biological weapons were to be placed along the Volga River for use against the Germany Army in the last resort. 18 SEPTEMBER, 1942, PEENEMUNDE. von Braun received a letter from the Inspector of Anti-Aircraft Artillery asking about the possibility of using rockets for defense against the Allies' bombers. In response to his request von Braun put some of his team members to work on the problem. 21 SEPTEMBER, 1942, BERLIN. Surgeon General Stantien had heard about Kliewe's experiments and forbid him to repeat them on the grounds that the Air Force had no authority to conduct research on biological weapons. Most likely at Stantien's urging, on 21 September the Supreme Command [Keitel] issued a new directive "The Defense against BW [Biological Weapons]" "Responsibility for defense against BW [biological weapons] will be divided as follows: 1. Surgeon General's [Stantien's] Office (a) Defense against BW [biological weapons] used against troops (b) In collaboration with the Armed Forces Science Branch [Dr. Schumann] responsible for cooperation of the Armed Forces with the Ministry of Interior regarding protection of the public health against BW [biological weapons]. 2. Army Veterinary Inspectorate (a) For combatting BW [biological weapons] used against animals [in other words the anthrax and glanders sprays which the British had convinced Hitler they had developed] (b) In collaboration with the Armed Forces Science Branch [Dr. Schumann] responsible for cooperation with the Ministry of Interior (in certain cases with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture) [in the cases of potato beetle and Texas tick] 3. The Armed Forces Science Branch [Dr. Schumann] responsible for cooperation with the [Reich] Biological Institute and Ministry of Food and Agriculture for protection of vegetation and plant food supplies against BW [biological weapon] agents. [In the case of potato beetle.] The coordinating agency for groups 1, 2 and 3 is to be the General Staff of Supreme Command [Keitel]. Weapons Research Office." 3 OCTOBER, 1942, PEENEMUNDE. The fourth test of the Assembly 4 Rocket was a complete success. The rocket flew over 193 kilometers (120 miles) and landed within 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) of its target. The flight was so successful that Dornberger was moved to exclaim, "This afternoon the spaceship was born!" But the real targets were somewhat closer. 14 OCTOBER, 1942. Speer informed Hitler of the successful test launch of the Assembly 4 Rocket. Speer proposed that they develop two versions of the rocket, both the current one and another one that would only fly for a shorter distance, 161 kilometers (100 miles), but carry a much heavier payload of conventional explosives, 5 metric tons (6 tons English measure). The ballistics of this rocket to carry a heavier payload of conventional explosives had been calculated by von Braun and his team. Whether the request for the study of this variant had come from Hitler, Speer, or von Braun is not known. It is also not known whether this proposal was intended to provide an alternative to the use of nerve gas warheads, or simply an attempt to increase the efficiency of the rocket if it was armed with conventional explosives. Hitler realized that he could now use the rocket as a weapon, but once again he insisted to Speer that 5,000 of the rockets would have to built before they could use it. Hitler knew that he had about 5,000 tons of nerve gas on hand at this time, and he also realized that if he was going to use rockets to deliver nerve gas on London he would have to use them in such massive numbers as to ensure that the British would be too devastated to take retaliation on Germany with conventional gases. [One might think that it was also remotely possible that Hitler simply wanted an attack with conventional explosive warheads, but as will be seen shortly that this was not likely.] OCTOBER, 1942, PEENEMUNDE. Speer discussed the situation with von Braun and Dornberger. Dornberger was assigned the task of setting up a Production Planning Directorate as well as the task of finding someone to lead it. Dornberger was also assigned to draw up an initial plan for the rockets' use. Despite von Brauchitsch's earlier authorization, during 1942 the Army battalion at Peenemunde had grown slowly. Dornberger was now also assigned the task of completing this battalion’s formation. Speer also gave additional directions to both von Braun and Dornberger. Besides working on the Assembly 4 Rocket, von Braun's team at Peenemunde had been working on several other projects. One of those projects had been started by the German Air Force's request in 1935 that von Braun develop a liquid rocket engine to power a fighter. That year von Braun had personally ground tested a Heinkel 112 equipped a liquid rocket engine, and this plane had been successfully flight tested in 1937. Members of von Braun's team had then gone on to develop an aircraft entirely powered by rocket engine, the Heinkel 176. Ludwig Roth's Special Projects Office had continued its efforts to improve the Assembly 4 Rocket's range and payload capacity, and Dornberger and von Braun's engine specialist, Dr. Walter Thiel, had become involved in this effort. Thiel had fired the engine of the Assembly 4 Rocket using the self igniting normal temperature hypergolic fuels visol and nitric acid instead of the alcohol and super cold liquid oxygen that the rocket normally used. The rocket's engine had performed much better with the new fuels, increasing its thrust by nearly 20 per cent, from 25,400 kilograms to 30,390 kilograms (56,000 pounds to 67,000 pounds). The new effort for perfecting an Assembly 4 Rocket fueled with visol and nitric acid had become known as the Assembly 6 Rocket. Roth's team had also researched another different method for increasing the range of the Assembly 4 Rocket. In 1940 a member of von Braun's team had suggested that the rocket could be equipped with wings to extend its range. Wind tunnel tests had demonstrated that the Assembly 4 Rocket could indeed be equipped with wings and that if this were done it would double the range of the rocket to 435 kilometers (270 miles).To test this concept Roth and Thiel had developed the Assembly 7 Rocket test bed, which was like the Assembly 5 Rocket, the one third scale model of the Assembly 4 Rocket, but this version of the Assembly 5 had been equipped with wings and lacked an engine. They had dropped this Assembly 7 Rocket test bed from bombers to see how well an Assembly 4 Rocket equipped with wings would fly. The success of their tests with the Assembly 7 Rocket had led Thiel to the preliminary designs of the Assembly 8 Rocket, which was to be an Assembly 4 Rocket equipped with wings and powered by the hypergolic visol and nitric acid, and the Assembly 9 Rocket, which like the Assembly 8 Rocket was to be an Assembly 4 Rocket with wings and powered by the hypergolic fuels visol and nitric acid, but with the addition of engines modified for a slower, long duration flight. Finally, Thiel and Roth's team had examined the possibility of using a first stage to increase the range of the Assembly 4 Rocket. They had worked on two variants of this concept. Their first concept had used an Assembly 6 Rocket, the Assembly 4 Rocket with visol and nitric acid as fuels but without wings, as its second stage. With the success of the drop tests of the Assembly 7 Rocket, work on this had been abandoned in favor of using the Assembly 9 Rocket, the Assembly 4 Rocket with wings, visol and nitric acid as fuels, and a long range engine, as the new rocket's second stage. Roth's team's calculations had shown that if a winged Assembly 9 Rocket were launched from France, Portugal, or the north west coast of Spain by a separate first stage, it would be able to carry a one ton of payload to the cities of New York, Washington, or Pittsburgh in the United States. This design had become the Assembly 10 Rocket. The total length of the intercontinental Assembly 10 Rocket would be 24.5 meters (80 feet), to which the Assembly 9 Rocket would contribute 14.3 meters (46 feet) and the first stage 10.2 meters (34 feet). The first stage would have a diameter of 4 meters (13 feet), just large enough across to support the fins of the rocket's Assembly 9 Rocket second stage. The wings of the Assembly 9 Rocket second stage would be about 5.7 meters across (19 feet). Dr. Thiel had estimated that while it would take about three years to develop a new motor for the rocket, in the mean time they could use 6 Assembly 4 Rocket engines clustered together and fueled with visol and nitric acid to power the Assembly 10 Rockets first stage. By Thiel's estimate they could immediately begin the development of the Assembly 10 Rocket. Dornberger now came to Roth and Thiel with new orders straight from Hitler and Speer. They were to stop work on all of these projects, and to devote the full resources of Peenemunde to perfecting the Assembly 4 Rocket. For unknown even to most of those working at Peenemunde, if Hitler was going to have to have 5,000 rockets on hand before his rocket assault could begin, production would have to start soon, and that in turn meant that it was essential that the design of the Assembly 4 Rocket be perfected. 2 NOVEMBER, 1942, PEENEMUNDE. von Braun obeyed his orders. He stopped work on the Assembly 10 intercontinental rocket, and he transferred the work on the Heinkel 176 rocket powered airplane to Gerhardt Fiesler, who would continue to work on the plane as the Fiesler 166. von Braun also prepared a preliminary report on his team's work on anti-aircraft rockets. He proposed that three rockets be developed. Two of the anti-aircraft rockets would use self igniting hypergolic fuels, which unlike liquid oxygen could be stored in the rockets' fuel tanks, and would allow them to be held in constant readiness for instant launch against enemy bombers. One of these rockets would be based on the airframe of the Assembly 5 Rocket (the one third scale model of the Assembly 4 Rocket) but the other rocket would require the development of a new airframe. Unlike his first two anti-aircraft rockets, the last anti-aircraft rocket von Braun proposed would be powered by solid propellant. Despite the order to shut down all projects except the Assembly 4 Rocket, von Braun received permission to begin work on the anti-aircraft rockets and their development would soon start. Between the lack of resources and problems with their guidance systems these anti-aircraft rockets would be delayed and none would reach operational status before the end of the war. 7 NOVEMBER, 1942, NORTH AFRICA. After the United States entered the war it adopted the strategy that had been devised at the January, 1941 meeting of the British and American military representatives: Europe had first priority, and a holding action would be mounted against Japan. Stalin had demanded an invasion of Europe, but it had been decided that it would be impossible for the United States to mount this, as the United States was still arming and did not have sufficient troops trained and equipped. Instead the Allies decided to invade North Africa and attack the German Army there, and Dwight Eisenhower was chosen to lead this invasion. Dwight Eisenhower was a typical American. Like most Americans, his father worked in agriculture, in his case at a creamery. Unlike most Americans, Dwight's father had had one year of college, but he had dropped out of college to marry Dwight's mother. Dwight's father had lost the family farm in Kansas when his business partner had taken off with the assets after the bankruptcy of a general store they had bought together. His father had then gone to Texas to work for the railroad, and Dwight had been born there in 1890. Other family members had soon arranged a job for Dwight's father at a creamery back home in Abilene, Kansas and his father had then taken then the family back there. Like most American families Dwight's father had been a strict disciplinarian, while his mother had been very warm. A typical American family, but Dwight's father had been a little more strict in his discipline than typical. As a matter of fact, Dwight's father sometimes burst into a white hot rage, and Dwight had inherited this talent from him. Unlike his father, Dwight would strive for the rest of his life to control it. Dwight was a typical schoolboy. But unlike many boys, by the time he was in elementary school his sense of powerlessness in the face of his father's rages found an outlet in the study of military history and the powerful commanders of ancient times. Eisenhower did well as a student, and worked at odd jobs, and had taken a keen interest in athletics. After high school he gained admittance to the United States Army's college at West Point by placing second in a competition. If he had of won first place Dwight Eisenhower would have gone into the Navy. At West Point Eisenhower was a typical student. He played football until injuries sidelined him. Eisenhower had then taken up cheerleading, which had given him his first experience in public speaking, and then coaching, which had given him his first experience in command. After graduation from West Point the Army posted Eisenhower to Texas, where he had met, fell in love with, and married Mary Doud, also known as Mamie. He would remain married to Mamie for the rest of his life. When the World War started the Army assigned Eisenhower to training brigades and rejected his persistent appeals for overseas duty. Like most American families of that time, Eisenhower's family was a Christian family of European descent, but unlike most families they were of German Christian European descent. The Army finally appointed Eisenhower to train troops for the newly invented "tanks". But unfortunately for Eisenhower the Army did not have any tanks, and it was not until October, 1918 that they gave him given him orders for Europe. In November, 1918 the World War ended. Eisenhower had then gone to Army graduate school, where he joined classmate George Patton in developing a theory of tank warfare. They foresaw a future in which tanks would be far more powerful and much faster than those currently available, and which would be used to rapidly burst through an enemy's defensive lines. While at graduate school Eisenhower met Fox Conner, who was generally held as the brains behind Pershing's army in Europe during the World War. When Conner was assigned to Panama he requested that Eisenhower be sent there with him. Conner warned Eisenhower that the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles would lead to another world war and he began to train Eisenhower for it. Conner arranged for Eisenhower to be given command of tanks, but not knowing of Conner's efforts Eisenhower requested reassignment. Conner then arranged for Eisenhower to be sent to the Army's Command and General Staff School. There Eisenhower placed first in his class, a class composed of the best officers in the United States Army. Eisenhower was next assigned to historical duties, the writing of Pershing's memoirs and of guides to the World War's battlefields in Europe. After his historical duties Eisenhower was assigned by General Douglas MacArthur to design a plan for the mobilization of the United States economy in the event of war. While doing this he met the leaders of most of the corporations which manufactured munitions. Like most Americans, when the depression came, Eisenhower indicated his support for Roosevelt and the New Deal. When MacArthur used armed force to break up a demonstration by impoverished veterans of the World War who were seeking immediate payment of the benefits promised to them, Eisenhower obeyed his orders despite the fact that he objected to them. The nation was furious at MacArthur's action, but after Roosevelt won election he kept MacArthur as Chief of Staff of the Army for an additional year and Eisenhower stayed with him. MacArthur was then posted to the Philippines to build up an army there of native Phillipinos and he asked for Eisenhower to be sent there with him to help him. Eisenhower was frustrated by his work in the Philippines. His wife had stayed at home, MacArthur had been arrogant, there were not enough resources to build an army capable of defending the Philippines, and the local officers were corrupt. Like many Americans Eisenhower had many Jewish friends; and he knew what Hitler wanted, he detested him, and he let people know it. But when his Jewish friends approached him to work to help secure refuges in Asia for German Jews Eisenhower turned their offer down. He knew that he belonged in the Army. Unlike many of his fellow officers in September, 1939, Eisenhower did not see the war in Europe as an opportunity. He had been away from Washington and kept separate from the politics there. While he had seen Japan as a threat to the Philippines, he did not understand how much Roosevelt wanted to help Britain and France. He thought that the stalemate of the "phony war" might allow time for negotiations, and he did not appreciate how near the United States was to war. He thought that this war could lead to the destruction of the nations of Europe through poverty, crime, disorder, anarchy, and Communism. As the United States slowly built up its forces, in 1939 the Army recalled Eisenhower to the United States to train part of their new troops. In doing this Eisenhower demonstrated both an excellent rapport with his men as well as a natural talent with the press. At the beginning of the United States' involvement in the war General Marshall, the Chief of Staff, called Eisenhower to Washington. After his arrival Marshall immediately asked Eisenhower, "What should be our general line of attack?" "Give me a few hours," Eisenhower replied. A few hours later Eisenhower told Marshall that while the Philippines could not be saved, honor demanded that some effort should be made to do it. Eisenhower recommended that it would be necessary to build up Australia as a base from which the Philippines could be retaken, and that reinforcements should be sent to Australia and the line of communication to Australia defended. This plan must have satisfied Marshall, for he then appointed Eisenhower to conduct the Washington end of the defense of the Philippines for Marshall's War Planning Department. Eisenhower had not known that the policy of fighting a holding action in the Pacific had already been decided upon between Britain and the United States, and he would not receive enough resources to conduct a graceful retreat from the Philippines. MacArthur was also not the kind of general able to lead a retreat, and he got his troops trapped on Corregidor. MacArthur felt abandoned and he repeatedly publicly criticized Eisenhower. Eisenhower added these rebukes to his existing dislike of MacArthur, and this dislike would play a role for many, many years to come. Despite the fact that the Philippines fell and that many troops were taken prisoner, and despite the fact that Eisenhower had no field combat experience, by this time Marshall had concluded that Eisenhower was capable of command and he had made him head of the War Planning Department. As head of the War Planning Department Eisenhower was tasked to coordinate with a British delegation, and soon thereafter he fully realized that the war with Japan would have to take second priority. After some wandering, Eisenhower concluded that the United States needed to keep the Soviet Union in the war in order to prevent the Germans from breaking through to India. He proposed and designed an invasion of Europe that could be mounted with the resources at hand if it became necessary to draw the German Army to the west and away from the Soviet Union. Otherwise, Eisenhower proposed a plan for this invasion to take place in 1943, after the United States had moved sufficient forces into place. Marshall approved Eisenhower's plan, but he also knew that the plan would need someone to implement it and he had not been pleased with the current United States military leaders in Britain. Marshall sent Eisenhower to Britain, and after received favorable reports from Churchill and the military leadership of Britain, he appointed Eisenhower Commander of the European Theater of Operations. Eisenhower was the right general for Roosevelt as well. Besides being well liked by his peers, Eisenhower had good relations with the press; was a competent general; shared Roosevelt's views on how the war should be conducted; and he was a typical American of German descent, which helped Roosevelt with both the isolationist faction as well as the German American community. Though no one knew it at the time, Stalin had also received reports about Eisenhower, these reports coming from his Cambridge spies in London, and he too approved of Eisenhower and his plan for the invasion of Europe. Upon his arrival in London, Eisenhower continued to work on his plan for an immediate assault of Europe in order to keep the Soviet Union in the war. Although he gave such an assault only a 1 in 5 chance of success, he was perfectly prepared to sacrifice 7 American divisions in the attempt if it would keep the Soviet Union in the war. But Churchill had had enough defeats; and the British demanded a landing in North Africa, and their plan was accepted. Eisenhower's assault on North Africa would be a success. 9 NOVEMBER, 1942, PEENEMUNDE. News of the success of the Assembly 4 Rocket had not escaped Himmler's notice. Good performance had to be rewarded, and he now made von Braun a colonel in the SS. NOVEMBER, 1942, STALINGRAD. Hitler had always thought that the war would immediately end once he had captured Moscow and Stalin. Once he had won Hitler planned to immediately kill the Bolsheviks, but in his view the Slavs were not as bad as the Jews, and Hitler did not plan to exterminate them, but only to reduce them to slaves for the German settlers. Before the war, in a fit of paranoia, Stalin had arrested and killed most of the officer corps of the Red Army. Despite all the warnings Stalin had been given, when Hitler had attacked the Soviet Union Stalin had been caught with his army unmobilized. The German Army had moved as fast as its supplies would let it, and only the onset of winter prevented their capture of Moscow. By 1941 a new officer corps had managed to establish control of Red Army, and when Stalin asked Marshall Zhukov to undertake the defense of Moscow, Zhukov made his acceptance conditional on Stalin not interfering with him in the future. Zhukov built a strong system of defense in depth to counter the blitzkrieg tactics of the German commanders: breaking the first line of defense would only get them to the second line defense, where the first line would already be regrouped to meet them. Break through that line and they would face a third. Faced with Zhukov's strong defenses in the north, Hitler turned to the south. He thought that the Soviet Union would collapse if it was cut off from the oil supplies and the food produced there. Despite warnings from his commanders in the south, Stalin bullied them and the German assault had broken through almost unopposed. The Red Army had been thrown into yet another rout. The Soviet Army in the Ukraine then re-grouped and established a defense of the city of Stalingrad. After arguing strenuously with the army officers there, Stalin finally allowed them to move their headquarters before the Germans took the city. The Red Army's headquarters were thus saved for the counter attack. Stalin finally took notice of the reports of Richard Sorge, his spy in Tokyo. Japanese troops that had been sent into the Soviet Union in 1939 had been thoroughly annihilated at the Halkin-Gol River by Red Army troops under Marshall Zhukov. As a result of this defeat the Japanese had signed a treaty with the Soviet Union, a treaty whose terms they were now observing now that they were asked by Hitler to once again attack the Soviet Union. Once Stalin accepted Sorge's report of this Japanese decision, he was able to shift forces from the east to encircle and annihilate the German army attacking Stalingrad. The defenders of Stalingrad delayed the German Army long enough for the troops to be transferred. It was a repeat of the previous year's events at Moscow. 11 NOVEMBER, 1942, EASTERN FRONT COMMAND POST, WOLF'S LAIR, EAST PRUSSIA. Hitler's armies had always enjoyed victory, and as the grim reality of their encirclement at Stalingrad sank in, he became even more delusional. When Himmler tried to get him to withdraw the army in order to save it, Hitler told him that it was vital to leave the army in place. Hitler told Himmler that he expected that he would soon be able to come to an understanding with the English and the Americans, just as soon as he could persuade them that the war was not being waged against their world position, but against the enemies of the entire world: Jewish Bolsheviks. And Hitler also told Himmler that he could best accomplish this by leaving the army at Stalingrad. Later in the month Polish intelligence would report these meetings to the British and inform them that Hitler and Himmler had conferred about gas and bacteriological warfare as well. The Poles reported that Hitler and Himmler had concluded that if and when Germany faced a critical situation they would employ these weapons and that they had issued strictly confidential orders. The Poles further reported that Hitler and Himmler had chosen Britain as their target. A note that the British added, possibly reflecting their Enigma decryptions, added that Hitler and Himmler had decided to begin gas warfare when the Allies landed on the continent. Over the coming months the Poles would continue send reports of rumors about German preparations for chemical and biological warfare to the British, but their reports would not be noticed by the United States. NOVEMBER, 1942. Following the fall of Poland in 1939 the Polish codebreakers had escaped to France and had joined up with the French codebreakers. After the German conquest of Northern France these codebreakers had managed to flee to the south of France, the territory which had been left under the control of the Vichy government. Following the US and British invasion of North Africa, Hitler occupied the remainder of France. Most of these codebreakers then managed to escape to Britain, but after their arrival there the British government would not allow them to work on the Enigma but instead would assign them to work on low level codes. Despite these escapes some of the people involved in the breaking of the Enigma cipher machine were caught and questioned by the Germans. Among those caught was Hans-Thilo Schmidt's contact with French intelligence, who revealed Schmidt's identity while being interrogated. Schmidt was captured, interrogated, and executed. Two other Polish codebreakers were caught and questioned, but they managed to convince the Germans that they had not been able to break the German ciphers after the changes that had been made in 1938. The Germans would continue to believe that the Enigma was unbreakable, and Churchill would continue to read the Germans' messages. NOVEMBER, 1942, STALINGRAD. Although Soviet intelligence service had known for a long time about the British ability to read the messages sent by the German Enigma machine cipher, both from their agents within the British intelligence services as well as from John Cairncross, their own spy within Bletchley Park, it appears their own cryptographic organization was not successful in breaking the Enigma machine. The source of this failure may lay with the relatively undeveloped state of the punch card machine and electronics industry within the Soviet Union prior to the outbreak of the war. During their first military success at Stalingrad the Red Army was finally able to capture an Enigma machine and the Soviets began serious efforts to read the messages that were sent by it. 11 DECEMBER, 1942, GERMANY. The Soviets had somehow learned of Hitler and Himmler's conference of 11 November and their discussions about using gas. They came up with their own plan to counter the threat. Captain von Apen now defected to the Germans. Possibly reflecting warnings Simons' had given in Moscow in 1937, von Apen told the Germans that Stalin had indeed perfected ways of using both bubonic and pneumonic plague bacilli as weapons by spraying them from airplanes. The Soviets had conducted experiments with them by spraying unsuspecting villagers in Mongolia, and he himself had even taken part in these experiments and had participated in the liquidation of those who had survived the sprays. Extensive preparations for bacterial war were being made under the direction of Professor Klomoshinsky in Moscow, and at the Institute in Molotov as well as at the Institute in Skalov. The Soviet Union had developed not only the sprays, but also Anthrax bombs. He himself had seen these Anthrax bombs, and he provided his interrogators with a sketch of them. The Soviet scientists had perfected not only weapons using bubonic plague and pneumonic plague and anthrax, but they had also developed ways of poisoning wells with cholera, horses feed with glanders, and encephalitis carrying ticks which had also been tested on the unsuspecting villagers of Mongolia. von Apen told the men that Stalin intended to use these weapons as a last resort. And Stalin would not hesitate to use them on the Soviet territories which the Germans had conquered, because he no longer trusted their peoples. von Apen's interrogators bought his tale hook, line and sinker. von Apen's information was forwarded up the chain of command, and Kliewe was ordered to make a review of all existing information on the Allies ability to conduct biological warfare. Absolutely none of von Apen's information was true. DECEMBER, 1942, MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS, BERLIN. Dornberger now reported to Speer on his efforts to both set up the Production Planning Directorate as well as readying the rocket for deployment. Dornberger proposed that Detmar Stahlknecht, an engineer from the Ministry of Munitions, would lead the Production Planning Directorate. Production would take place not only at Peenemunde, but Dornberger had also lined up the former Zeppelin dirigible works at Friedrichshafen as a manufacturing plant. Dornberger also requested permission to start the construction of a launch bunker on the channel coast. DECEMBER, 1942, EASTERN FRONT COMMAND POST, WOLF'S LAIR, EAST PRUSSIA. When Himmler once again pressed Hitler to make a decision to evacuate the army from Stalingrad, Hitler exploded. "The war with Russia may last ten or possibly thirty years. Behind the Russians stand hordes of Asians who the Bolsheviks have trained and armed to descend upon Europe and to conquer the entire continent to the Atlantic. Germany is the advance guard of Europe, and I have staked her whole manpower and resources in this struggle. If they are exhausted, America and Britain will have to replace them if they do not want to be destroyed themselves. This is something that they do not understand yet, but the time is coming when they will." DECEMBER, 1942, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND. Himmler tried once again to open channels of communication to both Britain and the United States for negotiations. Carl Langbehn, an acquaintance of Himmler's who had been instrumental in setting up Hess's flight in 1941, contacted both an American representative in Stockholm and a British representative in Zurich. It seems likely that news of Langbehn's attempt rapidly reached Stalin through his spies in London. It also seems likely that Stalin then made his own offer to Hitler through Edgar Klaus, a German intelligence officer in Stockholm: The war could end if Germany would agree to the frontiers of 1939, which would include placing the Baltics and a large part of Poland under Soviet control. DECEMBER, 1942, EASTERN FRONT COMMAND POST, WOLF'S LAIR, EAST PRUSSIA. Commander of the Air Force Hermann Goering convinced Hitler that the troops attacking Stalingrad could be supplied by air, and Hitler had forbidden their withdrawal. But Goering had been mistaken, and disaster loomed. No matter how bad the military situation became, Hitler knew that he had a trump card hidden up his sleeve, and that his ultimate victory would be inevitable. No matter how bad his loses, Hitler knew he could always use the nerve gases Tabun and Sarin and win the war. General Oschner had constantly pleaded for the use of chemical weapons, and as the situation in Stalingrad had deteriorated others, including General Fromm and Goering, joined in. While the development of the Assembly 4 Rocket and the cruise missile had gone on at Peenemunde, the Army chemical corps under the command of General Oschner had separately and secretly been developing chemical warheads for them at the Truppenhubuengsplatz at Raubkammer outside Munster. The warheads were now ready. DECEMBER, 1942, DYHERNFURTH. The German Army's experiments with Schrader's Sarin had shown that it was a nerve gas twice as potent as Tabun and that it could be used as a weapon. The Army had already built a plant for the pilot production of Sarin at Spandau, but it was only capable of turning out small amounts. Work was now started at Dyhernfurth on the construction of a plant which would be capable of producing 100 tons of Sarin a month. 16 DECEMBER, 1942, BERLIN. The worsening military situation convinced Himmler that it would soon be necessary to use the new nerve gases, and the Assembly 4 Rocket would play an important role in delivering them to the enemy. Himmler was more determined than ever to seize control of the production of the Assembly 4 Rocket. While SS Lieutenant Colonel Stegmaier was the military commander of the works at Peenemunde, Dornberger out ranked him, and at Himmler's suggestion Stegmaier now sent a request to Speer to arrange that Speer's subordinate, General Dornberger "come to an official meeting with the Fuehrer together with the developer Dr. von Braun, in order to discuss the possible uses of the instrument, along with the pros and cons, and to listen to the intentions and wishes of the Fuehrer in this connection. The intentions established by the Fuehrer would then provide a clear direction for the now partly ongoing preparations for the operation." In his letter Stegmaier did not discuss what exactly it was about the intentions of the Fuehrer for "the operation" that Dornberger and von Braun did not already know, and exactly why they would generate "pros and cons". 22 DECEMBER, 1942. von Braun had told Speer that the final design of the rocket would be perfected by July, 1943 and Speer intended to have the plant ready by that time for the rocket's immediate production. Speer was every bit as determined as Himmler that he would keep the production of the Assembly 4 Rocket under his own control, and Speer managed to get Hitler to sign an order authorizing him instead of Himmler to draw up the plans for the mass production of the Assembly 4 Rocket, not only in the facility at Peenemunde but also at the new factory which Dornberger had lined up at the former Zeppelin dirigible works at Friedrichshafen, and the authority to draw up the plans for the construction of a bunker for launching the rockets. The next day Dornberger was instructed that he was being given complete control over production of the rocket at both Peenemunde and Friedrichshafen and that he was to begin to search for a location where they could build the bunker for firing the rockets. 24 DECEMBER, 1942, PEENEMUNDE. Test flights of the Air Force's Fiesler 103 cruise missile had started earlier in 1942, but the cruise missile had been plagued by problems. The first successful flight of the cruise missile would not occur until 24 December, 1942, but that success would be an exception rather than the rule, as even more failures of the cruise missile would follow. Throughout the first half of 1943 it would be impossible for either Hitler, Speer, Himmler, or Goering to consider the cruise missile as a viable weapon, and this would leave von Braun's Assembly 4 Rocket as their only workable alternative. CHRISTMAS, DECEMBER, 1942, MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS, BERLIN. Despite Hitler's direct order, Dornberger had yet to begin to send a team to search for a site for the launch bunker. Speer now took control and directly ordered Major Thom to immediately begin the search for a site for the launch bunker. 1 JANUARY, 1943, BERLIN. The German army at Stalingrad was completely surrounded. Hitler asked Speer to report on chemical weapons. JANUARY, 1943, REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Speer met with Hitler and presented Dornberger's plans for the production and use of the Assembly 4 Rocket. Dornberger stated that the production of 3,000 rockets a month, or 36,000 rockets a year, as Hitler had requested in March, 1942 was completely out of the question. He instead proposed that total production for all 1943 would be set at 6,000 rockets, 3,000 of which would come from Peenemunde and 3,000 from the Zeppelin works at Friedrichshafen. This number of rockets exceeded Hitler's late March goal of 5,000 rockets, and though it appears Dornberger did not know it, if this target had been met it would have allowed Hitler to launch a massive attack with nerve gas on Britain by the end of the 1943. At this time Himmler was continuing his efforts to take control of production of the Assembly 4 Rocket for himself. Himmler had asked Hitler several times about setting up a meeting with Dornberger and von Braun, but with Speer's encouragement Hitler had evaded giving him an answer. Speer knew about Himmler's actions, and as a part of his plan to stop him, Speer had decided that he would make Peenemunde into a company so that it would remain under his control. Speer and Hitler had both concluded that the scientists took too long and they did not want Dornberger and von Braun to oversee production. As it would be absolutely necessary to have the greatest number of rockets on hand in the shortest possible time. Hitler suggested to Speer that he place Gerhardt Degenkolb, Hitler's own favorite production coordinator, in charge of the production of the rocket. 8 JANUARY, 1943, MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS, BERLIN. Dornberger and von Braun were called to Berlin by Speer with the intention of introducing them to Hitler when he had accepted their plan. Speer now told them that Hitler could not give their project higher priority as Hitler was still not convinced that their plan would succeed. Speer told them that he himself would oversee the construction of the launch bunker on the Channel coast, and that he would later seek Hitler's approval. Speer also told Dornberger and von Braun that the bunker might be put to other use, but he did not tell them about the long range cannon. It also appears that Speer did not inform Dornberger or von Braun at this time about Hitler's plans to arm the Assembly 4 Rocket with nerve gas. Dornberger asked Speer if Hitler had read his report from the previous March and if had he approved the project. Speer told them that Hitler had read their report but that he was still not convinced. Speer then told Dornberger and von Braun that they were only responsible for the development of the rocket for the Army and that Degenkolb would oversee its production. Dornberger began to argue with Speer, until Speer finally just got up and left his office. Degenkolb then came in and introduced himself to Dornberger and von Braun, who then proceeded to brief him on the project. 11 JANUARY, 1943, ARMY WEAPONS OFFICE, BERLIN. Dornberger briefed the Army on the plans for the production of the Assembly 4 Rocket. 15 JANUARY, 1943, BERLIN. Speer formally established the "Special A 4 [Assembly 4 Rocket] Committee" within the Ministry of Munitions and appointed Degenkolb its director. 2 FEBRUARY, 1943, STALINGRAD. The commander of the German Army at Stalingrad surrendered. FEBRUARY, 1943, STALINGRAD. The Red Army captured another 30 Enigma machines and the keys for setting them at Stalingrad. This allowed the Soviet cryptographers to read the German traffic for a short time, but despite their spy at Bletchley Park, and like the French and British many years before, they too would be unable to develop a method of independently determining the daily keys that were used to set up the machine. In June the Soviet government would appeal to the British for information on the machine, and in July the British would send them an Enigma machine along with the general operating manual. The British government would not reveal their method for finding the daily settings, but none the less from about this time the Soviet cryptographers would develop their own methods and they too would now be able to read the German Enigma traffic, though not as completely as the British did with their special electronic devices which Turing had developed. FEBRUARY, 1943, BERLIN. Hitler called in General Oschner, the head of the German Army's chemical warfare operations, and told him to prepare for a chemical weapons attack against the Soviets. As Oschner had pointed out to Hitler in 1939, the use of gas would slow down an attacking army, and the Red Army was now the army on the attack. Hitler thought that the west would not object to an attack with chemical weapons on the Soviets, and since the Soviets had been attacking colonialism a colonial power like Britain would have an interest in seeing that the Soviet Union was contained. Oschner pointed out to Hitler that it would be impossible to launch a gas attack. Following Hitler's decision of September, 1939 they had given the production of gas the lowest production priority and there were insufficient stocks of gas on hand for them to mount an attack. Oschner pointed out that if the German forces did use chemical weapons against the Red Army, they could expect that the Allies would launch retaliatory attacks against the cities of Germany, and the residents of those German cities almost completely lacked gas masks. Unless a gas attack was immediately effective and decisive, Germany would not escape retaliation in kind. Hitler ordered an immediate increase in the production of both gas and gas masks, and he ordered gas to be massed at the front for contingency use. If the Red Army was not stopped soon it would be necessary to use gas, no matter the cost. FEBRUARY, 1943, SPORT PALACE, BERLIN. As the German army at Stalingrad had been encircled Hitler had lied to the German people. When news of the defeat and annihilation of the army group had become publicly known Hitler had disappeared from view. Talk had started that Hitler had no strategy for winning the war, and Hitler decided it was time to stop it. He came up with the idea of releasing information about the cruise missile and von Braun's rocket in a speech to a large gathering of people at the Sport Palace in Berlin. Hitler had already decided that these weapons would be known as the "Vergeltung" or "revenge" weapons. These would become the names by which the weapons would be known ever after: the Fiesler 103 cruise missile would be called the Vengeance Weapon 1; the Assembly 4 Rocket would be known as the Vengeance Weapon 2; and the long range cannon for the bombardment of Britain would be known as the Vengeance Weapon 3. Hitler told the crowd that Germany possessed "Vengeance Weapons", weapons of retaliation of incredible destructive effect. His message would be echoed throughout Germany by Goebbels, his minister of propaganda, who would also claim in international broadcasts that "England, like Carthage, will be destroyed". 24 FEBRUARY, 1943. Degenkolb had assigned Detmar Stahlknecht, Dornberger's original pick of the preceding year, to plan the production of the Assembly 4 Rocket. Stahlknecht now made his report. Instead of the 5,000 rockets which Hitler had requested or the 6,000 rockets that Dornberger had proposed, Stahlknecht saw production for all of 1943 as only 500 rockets, with 4,650 rockets being built in 1944. Speer's associates ordered Dornberger to report to the Ministry of Munitions. Dornberger was told that as the production of rockets had started at Peenemunde the facility was to be turned into a company. Dornberger refused the suggestion, but none the less production of the rocket at Peenemunde was begun and would be placed under Degenkolb's control. FEBRUARY, 1943, 23 HERRENGASSE, BERN, SWITZERLAND. Allen Dulles was born to a wealthy family and later entered into the diplomatic service of the United States. He was a diplomat in Switzerland during the First World War and after working at the Peace Conference at Versailles he went to work for his brother Foster's international law firm. Dulles developed a dislike for Hitler as he viewed Hitler's effect upon his clients and Jewish friends. While his brother Foster and his neighbor and friend Charles Lindbergh had been active isolationists, before the United States entry into the current World War, he himself had been active in trying to keep the Republican Party from adopting a neutral stance. This work had left him well connected to those in the United States who opposed Hitler, and Dulles had been among the first recruits of the new intelligence service, the Office of Strategic Services, which the Roosevelt had formed at the beginning of the war. Dulles worked in New York assembling information and supplies for the agents of the new intelligence service, and had then slipped into Switzerland to head operations there just before the Germans occupied Vichy France. After his arrival Dulles let it be known that he was more than just an Embassy employee: he was a personal representative of President Roosevelt. This information had by now attracted the interest of Prince Max-Egon von Hohenlohe, a Gestapo agent. Prince Max had been active in Hess's plan to negotiate peace with Britain through the Duke of Hamilton. Prince Max had been assigned the role of kidnapping the Duke of Windsor, who in 1936 had renounced the British throne to marry the woman he loved. Hess had planned to re-install the Duke as King after peace had been negotiated. Dulles knew none of this, but quickly sized up his visitor and handed him a line of shit. Dulles told Prince Max that he was sick of listening to bankrupt politicians, emigres, and prejudiced Jews. The postwar settlement must not repeat the errors of Versailles. Prussian militarism would have to be cut out, but perhaps Germany could keep Austria and maintain a protective shield against Bolshevism across Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. Prince Max told Dulles that he feared the United States was planning to return the Jews to power in Germany, and Dulles denounced the Jews and told Prince Max that the United States planned to settle displaced Jews in Africa. Prince Max reported back to Berlin on Dulles, and the Gestapo would take Dulles at his word and leave him free to run his intelligence operation unmolested. As of this time it is unclear what role Prince Max's report of Dulles' account of Roosevelt's views played in Hitler's later deliberations, but it appears they may have been significant. FEBRUARY, 1943, TURKEY. After the troops under Eisenhower's command defeated some of the Germans in North Africa, Churchill and Roosevelt went to Casablanca to celebrate the Allied victory and to meet to decide their next objective. There they agreed that the next military operation would be an invasion of Sicily. As part of their celebration of their triumphs Churchill persuaded Roosevelt to accompany him to Marrakeesh, but after this Roosevelt returned to the United States while Churchill went on to Cairo and Turkey. From Turkey Churchill now intended to go on to Algiers and Gibraltar. German intelligence learned from their spy Cicero, a valet who worked in the British embassy in Turkey, the details of the rest of Churchill's victory trip. They had forwarded this information to Peter Schultz, their agent in Tangiers who worked under the cover of a press attache. Schultz then recruited Sidi Abdel Halek Torres, an Islamic extremist who hated the British for what they had done in Palestine, to assassinate Churchill. By now the codebreakers at Bletchley Park were reading not only the German military codes and diplomatic codes but thanks to the XX Twenty Committee's double cross operations they were also reading the codes used by the German intelligence network. The codebreakers managed to intercept and read the instructions between Berlin and the German spies in North Africa about their operation to assassinate Churchill. The codebreakers sent a warning to Churchill, and he cancelled the rest of his trip and returned to London, using the cover story that he had developed pneumonia. Those around Churchill noticed that he was having mood swings, being wildly excited one moment and morose the next, and they could not understand what was wrong with him. Due to the secrecy of the British code breaking operations even Churchill's intimates had no idea what had occurred. 5 MARCH, 1943, ESSEN. On 5 March, 1943 Arthur "Bomber" Harris launched an air attack against the city of Essen, the home of the Krupp steel works. Harris's target was not only the steel works, but also the town around it and its people as well. Harris largely succeeded in completely destroying all of it. 5 MARCH, 1943, GERMANY. It was clear to Hitler that with these unrestricted air attacks on German cities Britain had placed itself outside of the bounds of the Geneva Accords and that it would be permissible to launch a nerve gas attack on the Britons Speer presented to Hitler the production plan which Stahlknecht had developed for Degenkolb. In the new production plan, by the end of 1943 there would only be 500 rockets, not nearly the 6,000 with which to launch a nerve gas assault on Britain. Hitler became furious. He exploded and ordered Speer to halt research on the rocket. Speer appealed and suggested that someone else besides Degenkolb be sent to look at the rocket. Hitler agreed, and Speer would set up a "Committee for Long Range Bombardment" with one Professor Petersen at its head. 9 MARCH, 1943, BERLIN. Kliewe had finished his report, and Hitler would now meet with his men who had responsibility for biological weapons and called for a conference at the General Staff of the Supreme command. Hitler met with Keitel, representative of the Army's Chemical Warfare organization Weapons Testing Section 9 including Hirsch and Rittler; Surgeon General Stantien, Head of the Veterinary Inspectorate; Dr. Schumann, head of the Armed Forces Science Branch; and Goering, head of the German Air Force. From Kliewe's existing notes, it appears that the meeting opened with Keitel repeating the British XX Twenty Committee's claim that Britain had successfully developed both anthrax and glanders sprays. "The Fuehrer agreed with the observations of the Chief of the Supreme Command [Keitel] and again forbade the making of preparations for an attack of this sort. Bacteria are not to be used as weapons. It appears that Kliewe and Schumann then argued that Germany had to make preparations of its own: "The alleged preparations of our enemies were pointed out, and it was emphasized that if we did not begin immediately with preparations of our own, countermeasures could not be applied." Hitler still refused to develop biological weapons: "In spite of all of this, the Fuehrer refused. Even bacterial activity through agents [sabotage] is out of the question. The Fuehrer wishes, on the other hand, that extensive efforts be made to prepare protective measures. The different agencies detailed in the High Command's Order of September 1942 are to compile and issue these immediately." It appears that Hitler then responded to Kliewe's arguments: "Since appropriate protective measures can not be undertaken without knowing the methods by which bacterial attacks can be brought about, it is necessary that we carry out experiments. You have to attack yourself before you can evaluate protective measures correctly. For this reason the solution of the technical problems has been left to the CW [Chemical Weapons] division to work out with the Surgeon General's [Stantien's] Office, Veterinary Inspectorate, and the Armed Forces Science Branch [Dr. Schumann]." [From this it appears that Hitler was under the impression that the Chemical Warfare Division under Rittler was in charge of the German effort, and that he had no idea of the role that Stantien had been playing in blocking those efforts.] "In order that experiments can be carried out and the various experts get together, [Hitler ordered that] the CW [Chemical Warfare] Division will call meetings every four weeks. In his notes Kliewe observed that this had been said often enough in the past but had not yet been put into effect. "The requests for experiments which the various research members wish to carry out are to be made in writing to the CW [Chemical Warfare] Division. [Hitler ordered that:] "Every six months a report is to be made to the Staff or the Supreme Command with the following contents: "(1) Enemy situation with regard to this problem "(2) Our own intentions "(3) What experiments are to be made by us "(4) What protective measures are necessary for troops and civilians "(5) Suggested orders" 10 MARCH, 1943, BERLIN. In January Himmler had again requested that Dornberger be called to Berlin to be told about the intended use of the Assembly 4 Rocket, but Hitler again rejected Himmler's request. As Dornberger did not know of the nerve gases at this time, Speer could not tell him the reason for Hitler's outburst. Instead of the truth, Speer told Dornberger that Hitler had ordered research on the rocket halted because of a dream that he had had. 11 MARCH, 1943. Hitler's order made it clear to Kliewe that he was not to investigate the means of delivering biological agents, but that he felt that Kliewe needed to conduct human experiments. Kliewe met with Hirsch, the head of the German Army's Chemical Warfare Division, and discussed the matter with him: "Experiments planned in the field of human bacteriology should be submitted to the Chemical Warfare Division. If the existing fruitless collaboration with Ref. X [a code name for Dr. Stantien] does not improve, Hirsch [the head of the Army's Chemical Warfare Division, told Kliewe that he] intends to supervise the experiments himself. Then he [Hirsch] suggests getting in touch immediately with Ref. VI [the code name for Rittler] in order to be able to participate in experiments which are to be carried out on the use of Chemical Weapons agents. Probably the same methods could be applied to bacteria. (Ref VI [Rittler] has already been consulted [by Kliewe]; participation in experiments is desired [by Rittler].") 13 MARCH, 1943, SMOLENSK. Canaris and Beck had been joined in their opposition to Hitler by Lieutenant Colonel Henning von Tresckow, the senior operations officer of the German Army's central group on the Eastern Front, who in turn brought in others, including his own aid Fabian von Schlabrendorff. As the disaster at Stalingrad had unfolded the conspirators had felt an even greater need to get rid of Hitler before further disaster ensued. The conspirators were provided by British intelligence with two bombs shaped like brandy bottles, which on this day von Tresckow with Schlabrendorff's aid managed to plant aboard a plane returning Hitler from an inspection of the Smolensk front. Both of these bombs failed to explode, but Schlabrendorff himself managed to fly to Hitler's headquarters and retrieve them before they and the conspirators were discovered. [These bombs lead one to wonder about the earlier death of Todt.] 16 MARCH, 1943, BERLIN. Keitel issued an order "clarifying" Hitler's orders of 9 March. But Keitel's new order was significantly different from Hitler's order, in that instead of Surgeon General Stantien, it placed the Surgeon General of the Armed Forces in charge of the preparations for biological warfare, and in that it placed Surgeon General Stantien under the control of the Head of the Army's Chemical Warfare Division, Hirsch. 22 MARCH, 1943, KENSINGTON PALACE GARDENS, LONDON. General Thoma and General Cruwell had been in command of parts of the German Army's Africa Corps and they had been captured earlier in the year during the fighting in North Africa. The British now placed them into the same room at the "London Cage", a prison which was used for high ranking officers. Thoma and Cruwell began to talk, and Thoma expressed surprise that London was not in ruins. He then told Cruwell about his visit to the range where the Assembly 4 Rockets were being tested and he described them in detail. Thoma and Cruwell had no idea that the British had bugged the room and that their conversation was being recorded. 23 MARCH, 1943, GERMANY. Hitler knew that his speech in February had not been enough to convince the German people. He needed to restore their spirit, and he now called in Propaganda Minister Goebbels to discuss the propaganda campaign. Hitler discussed the development of the cruise missile and the Assembly 4 Rocket and his plans for using these weapons with Goebbels. Goebbels immediately began a propaganda campaign which insisted that Germany's enemies would be destroyed by new secret weapons. 29 MARCH, 1943, OBERSALZBERG. On 25 March Speer's Professor Petersen and the "Committee for Long Range Bombardment" reported back with a report favorable to the Assembly 4 Rocket, as could be expected. Speer would now use this report to persuade Hitler to resume work on the rocket. Speer told Hitler that it was pointless to discuss producing and using the rocket until it was fully developed and tested. Speer told Hitler that the rocket's production would have to be increased slowly and that instead of the 3,000 rockets a month armed with conventional explosives that Hitler had demanded in March, 1942, or the 5,000 rockets with nerve gas warheads that he had demanded in October, 1942 to counter the British bomber attacks on German cities, it would only be possible to build 500 rockets by the end of 1943, and other weapons would have to be used to deliver the rest of the nerve gas. Speer continued his efforts to keep the rocket's production out of Himmler's control, and as expected Professor Petersen's report had given high marks to Degenkolb. Hitler gave his approval to Speer's decision to leave production under Degenkolb's control. Hitler and Speer revived Speer's 1939 design for the construction of an underground complex for the launch of the Assembly 4 Rocket. In addition to the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket factories at Peenemunde and Friedrichshafen, Hitler now ordered that a storage and firing facility for the rockets be constructed at Watten in France. Construction of this complex was to be completed by July, 1943. 30 MARCH, 1943, BERLIN. The "Blitzarbeiter Committee", the military committee which Hitler and Keitel had ordered established at the beginning of the month to study biological weapons, had its first meeting. They noted the fact that while Hitler had forbidden the development of biological weapons, he had ordered them to develop the necessary means of defense against an enemy attack with them with all speed. The responsible people were to report back to the Operations Staff and to the Army Chemical Warfare Division about these defenses no later than 8 April, 1943. Of special note, Captain Budow of the Chemical Warfare Section of the Army's Weapons Testing Office reported that they had not solved the problem of fuses for bombs. What Captain Budow meant by this was that the bombs, whether they carried biological agents or nerve gas, were burying themselves in the dirt before they went off. Thus, the bombs would blow up either the nerve gas or biological agent into the walls of the crater they had already formed. Not only was this true for bombs, it was also true for the warheads of the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile and the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket. Budow told the meeting that they had been making tests with canisters. The bomb penetrated into the ground and then ejected the canister which then exploded. But 6 out of the 8 canister bombs that they had tried so far had been duds, so they were going to have to conduct more experiments with them. Budow told the group that other experiments which the Weapons Testing office was to carry out had been allocated to the various experts. It is not known if among these various experts were any of von Braun's men at Peenemunde, but it certainly seems likely. 1 APRIL, 1943. Following the report by Speer on chemical weapons, new production targets were set for Tabun and Sarin. The monthly production of Tabun was to be increased from 1,000 to 2,000 tons, and the monthly production of Sarin was to be increased from 100 tons to 600 tons. As the plant under construction at Dyhernfurth would only be capable of producing 100 tons of Sarin a month, they would have to build another plant to produce the other 500 tons of Sarin. Though this had not turned out to be the case, it had been thought at the time of the Dyhernfurth's plant's design that the introduction of Sarin would mean that the production of Tabun would be reduced and the Sarin plant had been built at Dyhernfurth. But it now made sense to locate the new Sarin plant in a different location so that a single allied bomber raid would be unable to destroy all of their capability to manufacture nerve gas. In addition to the nerve gases Tabun and Sarin, German military chemists had developed a new incendiary chemical called N-material which, as it had not been tested, the Army had refused to manufacture. Despite this failure the construction of a plant for the manufacture of N-material at Falkenhagen had been ordered. While under control of the Army the N-material plant was to be staffed by members of the SS. And while the production of nerve gas was not under the control of the SS at this time, for some reason known only to the leaders of Nazi Germany, Falkenhagen seemed like a good location to also construct the new plant for the manufacture of 500 tons of Sarin a month. APRIL, 1943, PEENEMUNDE Despite Hitler's orders giving Speer control over the rocket, Himmler was still determined that he would control the production of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket. Himmler had come up with a new scheme, and he now paid a visit to Peenemunde. After viewing a test launch of the rocket Himmler announced to Dornberger that he himself would be taking charge of security at Peenemunde. Dornberger realized that Himmler was trying to take control of the rocket, and he told him that since Peenemunde was an Army installation, the Army would be responsible for its security. 15 APRIL, 1943, LONDON. The recording of General Thoma and Cruwell's conversation was immediately sent to Dr. R. V. Jones. Jones concluded that a program for the development of a rocket did indeed exist and he went back and assembled all the previous intelligence and rumors about the rocket. Jones sent this information to Churchill, and Churchill in turn appointed Duncan Sandys to deal with the threat. Sandys was a man who not only had already gained experience with rockets by running Britain's first anti-aircraft rocket battery, but he was also Churchill's daughter's husband. 19 APRIL, 1943. Churchill warned Stalin that he has been hearing reports from Spain that the Germans were preparing a gas attack. Stalin naturally already knew all about these reports, as well as all other British information on the Germans plans for a gas attack, which had already come from the Cambridge spies in London. Churchill suggested to Stalin that he would once again repeat his warning that he would consider a gas attack on the Soviet Union as if it were a gas attack on Britain. Neither Churchill nor Stalin had any idea that the Germans had developed nerve gases and already had massive quantities of them on hand. 27 APRIL, 1943, BERLIN. By now Degenkolb had managed to distance himself from Stahlknecht, whose proposal to manufacture only 500 rockets in all of 1943 had caused Hitler's outburst in March. Degenkolb now proposed that they would produce 3,180 rockets in 1943 at Peenemunde, Friedrichshafen, and at a new plant at Henschel's Rax Works in Wiener Neustadt. At this rate of production 5,000 rockets would be on hand by February, 1944, enough rockets to launch a completely devastating first strike with nerve gas weapons against Britain. Hitler approved Degenkolb's new production plan. 29 APRIL, 1943, PEENEMUNDE. Dornberger was angry that the control of the Assembly 4 Rocket, the rocket which he had devoted so many years of his life to developing, was being taken from him and being given to Degenkolb. Mention is made in later histories of nasty rumors being circulated at Peenemunde concerning Degenkolb, and it appears that between March and this time Dornberger learned of the plans to use the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket to launch a gas attack against Britain and that he did not approve of them. He then talked with the senior scientists on von Braun's team, blaming this plan on Degenkolb, and the senior scientists had begun to treat Degenkolb with contempt. von Braun now held a conference to clarify the lines of authority. von Braun gathered together the senior members of his team and told them that they would have to cooperate with Degenkolb. The next day he sent them a memo reinforcing the meeting's message. "The production program drawn up by Director Degenkolb, as Director of the Special Committee for the A4, is from this time forward to be regarded as the only valid program on which to base further plans. All previous production programs are to be considered superseded by the Degenkolb program." von Braun further told his men that they had to finish the design and blueprints for the Assembly 4 rocket by 30 June, 1943. 30 APRIL, 1943, BERLIN. The Surgeon General of the Army objected to Keitel's order which had placed control over the preparations for defense to biological weapons under the control of the Army's Chemical Weapons Division, and he told him so. It seems likely that Keitel then discussed the matter with Dr. Schumann, head of the Armed Forces Science Branch, as Dr. Schumann began a search for a man who would be capable of heading the effort. Keitel told Schumann that as the possibility of an epidemic breaking out in the event of BW [Biological Weapons] being used would be a civilian responsibility, he was going to make a civilian director of all BW [Biological Weapon] work. Schumann took Keitel's order in a sense different than Keitel intended. In an effort to find a "civilian" director Schumann went to the Reichs Research Institute, where a Professor Mentzel suggested to him one Dr. Blome. Blome had been in charge of Cancer Research within the directorate of Population Problems of the Reich Research Agency (Reichsforschunggerat). It seems quite likely Schumann selected Blome to conduct the human experiments with biological agents because Blome had already been involved in the killing of terminal cancer patients within the euthanasia program which Hitler had established at the beginning of the war. Schumann approached Blome and told him about the job. Schumann told Blome that he had already discussed the matter with Keitel, and that Keitel had agreed that a single civilian director for research on biological warfare needed to be appointed. Blome agreed to take the job, and was soon summoned by Keitel who informed him that he was to work on the development of defensive measures only. 4 MAY, 1943, PEENEMUNDE. Dornberger received new orders from General Fromm, the same General Fromm who had advocated the use of nerve gas at the end of 1942. The orders asked for the completion of the launch bunker at Watten by 1 November, 1943. Dornberger told Fromm that this would be impossible, as the rocket program had been delayed by the earlier denial of a high priority for it. 11 MAY, 1943, TUNISIA, NORTH AFRICA. The British in Tunisia captured a chemist from the main German Army chemical warfare laboratory at Spandau. The chemist had been under constant treatment while working with Tabun and loathed those who had made him work on it. This chemist told the British everything he knew about Tabun, but unfortunately he also told them about how it affected the eyes and breathing. The British would dismiss his report as just the description of another caustic gas. 15 MAY, 1943, EASTERN FRONT COMMAND POST, WOLF'S LAIR, EAST PRUSSIA. Hitler called a meeting to discuss the start of gas warfare. Those Hitler summoned to his headquarters for this meeting included Albert Speer, his armaments minister; General Keitel, his head of the Supreme Command of the German Army; Major General Henrici, the Army's leader of the munitions industry; Schieber, administrator of military contracts; Professor Karl Quasebart, head of the Select Committee for Gas Defenses and Breathing Apparatus; and Otto Ambros, the head of the Tabun gas factory. As the discussion progressed Ambros told Hitler that the Allies could out produce Germany in chemical weapons. Hitler replied that while he understood that this might be true of conventional gases, Germany had a monopoly on the production of Tabun. Ambros then told Hitler, "I have justified reasons to assume that Tabun too is known abroad." Hitler was stunned. His invincibility had been taken from him, there was no wonder weapon that he alone had, and is plans for winning the war with Tabun and Sarin were put in ruins in that instant. Hitler quickly turned and left the room. He did not return. Ambros' statement was wrong. Neither the British, nor the Americans, nor the Soviets had any knowledge of nerve gases. While the formulas for Tabun and Sarin had been disclosed in 1902, they had escaped the notice of the Allies. Germany's own production of Tabun and Sarin had been carefully and totally concealed. Ambros was aware that the Allies had stopped publishing material on compounds related to the nerve gases, and he had concluded from this that they were developing their own nerve gases. But the Allies had not been developing nerve gases: they were merely developing the insecticide DDT and wished to conceal their work. Otto Ambros's mistake won the war for the Allies. For fear of retaliation in kind Hitler would never use his Tabun and Sarin nerve gases. But at the same time Hitler would be emotionally unable to accept Ambros's conclusion that the Allies also had nerve gases and the consequence that he was stripped of his power: He would continue the manufacture and development of these nerve gases, and he would repeatedly plan to use them, until reminded once again by the professional Army staff of the likelihood of an awful retaliation in kind by the Allies. Torn between his desires and fears, Hitler would become increasingly irrational. In order to understand future events, the reader must remember that while Ambros convinced Hitler and Speer that the Allies also had nerve gases, a large number of Hitler's confidants still thought that only Germany had them. They would continue to argue with the Army professionals urging their use. Among these people would be Hitler's minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, a nasty dwarf of a man who had been born with a club foot and intended to make the world pay for it; Martin Bormann, Hitler's secretary; Robert Ley, a chemist and member of the SS who would oversee all labor in the country, including that in the concentration camps; and Fegelin; and Burgsdorff. MAY, 1943. After the Red Army had defeated the German Army at Stalingrad it advanced far into the Ukraine. But their advance was uneven, and the Soviet line bulged out at Kursk. In February, Stalin learned through his agents in Germany that the German Army was planning a pincer movement to cut off his forces at Kursk, and he began to reinforce this salient. Not limited as in western Europe, the German Air Force still had freedom of the skies on the eastern front, and Hitler and his generals could watch Stalin's build up of the Red Army in the area. When Churchill had earlier told Stalin that Britain and the United States would invade North Africa instead of Europe in 1942, Stalin had immediately concluded that this invasion was being undertaken by Britain in an attempt to establish colonial control over North Africa. Afterwards Stalin had let his thoughts be known and they had been echoed in the Soviet press. Reports of Stalin's remarks, combined with the frustration of his nerve gas offensive, led Hitler to a new idea: if he could negotiate a peace with the Soviet Union, as the German High Command had done with Lenin in 1918, he would be able to move his troops west and defeat the British and Americans. Afterwards he could return to the east. Through channels as yet unidentified, but most likely through Edgar Klaus in Stockholm, the same man who at the end of 1942 had relayed Stalin's offer to stop the war, Hitler began an approach to Stalin. For Stalin's part a separate peace with Germany would suit him fine, just as it had suited Lenin in 1918. The capitalists would then engage their armies in mutual destruction, which if it did not lead to communist revolution in the western countries, would at least weaken them so much that they would no longer be a threat to the Soviet Union. Stalin accepted Hitler's offer of negotiations. 26 MAY, 1943, PEENEMUNDE. Both the Assembly 4 Rocket and Fiesler's Fi 103 cruise missile were having problems. The German military knew that Germany definitely needed a long range weapon, but it was unclear which weapon they should choose. Goering's Air Force by now had established some control over Dr. Petersen's "Commission for Long Range Weapons", which Speer had established after the Stahlknecht fiasco in February. Hitler had demanded then, no doubt at Goering's urging, that a choice between the two weapons be made, and Speer had had to schedule a weapons demonstration to aid the Commission in making their decision. The Fi 103 was cheap, but it was slower than the rocket and it could be shot down. It also required fixed launch pads and had a shorter range. The Assembly 4 Rocket was more expensive, but once it was launched it could not be stopped. The rockets launch pads were mobile and the rocket could be launched from anyplace at any target within range. The members of this Commission now arrived at Peenemunde to witness demonstration flights of both vehicles. For this demonstration the Commission members were joined by Speer, General Fromm, Admiral Doenitz of the German Navy, and Air Marshall Milch of the Air Force. Both demonstration flights of the Assembly 4 Rocket were successful. One of the Assembly 4 Rockets finally succeeded in fulfilling its goal by sending a 1 metric ton (1.1 ton) warhead over 285 kilometers (177 miles). Both demonstration flights of the Air Force's Fi 103 cruise missile ended in failure. MAY, 1943, LONDON. Hitler could not believe what Ambros had told him about the Allies' nerve gases. He immediately asked his intelligence services for a report on the gas warfare capabilities of the Allies. The German intelligence service had immediately sent out requests for information from all their field operatives, including their most trusted operative in London, BRONX. BRONX was an Argentinean, the daughter of a diplomat, who had been recruited by the Nazis while she had been living in Paris. She had gone to London and had now infiltrated her way into the highest circles of the British military. What the German intelligence service did not know was that upon her arrival in Britain BRONX had immediately contacted British intelligence and was now being run as a double agent by the XX Twenty Committee. In response to Hitler's questions she now informed German military intelligence via a message in secret ink that Britain was well prepared for gas warfare and implied it would be of greater advantage to Britain than to the Germans. The XX Twenty Committee thought that the information they had given BRONX to transmit was the truth. For while Britain still did not have much gas on hand, the United States had undertaken a massive program for the manufacture of gas weapons and had created several large industrial complexes for their manufacture. But the XX Twenty Committee had no idea that the Germans possessed the nerve gases Tabun and Sarin. 1 JUNE, 1943, BERLIN. When Blome had called for the first meeting of those responsible for the development of defensive measures against biological weapons, Handloser, the Surgeon General of the Army, had come and told him that he would not discuss the matter with him. Blome had then gone to Goering. Why Blome would go to Goering instead of Keitel is a mystery, but Goering had been involved with Schumann in the development of Tabun carrying bombs for Germany's Air Force, as well with Kliewe in the testing of biological aircraft bombs. As a result of Blome's visit, Goering wrote to Keitel, and Keitel wrote a letter instructing all military agencies to cooperate with Blome. Blome would select a site at Nesselstedt near Posen to build his biological weapons laboratory, and he would disguise his new activities by calling the facility a "Cancer Institute". 8 JUNE, 1943, WASHINGTON. The British learned through the German questions to BRONX as well as by their intercepts of Enigma traffic that the Germans were considering launching a gas attack. They relayed their concerns to President Roosevelt, and he issued yet another warning. "I have been loathe to believe that any nation, even our present enemies, could or would be willing to loose upon mankind such terrible and inhumane weapons...We promise to pay any perpetrators of such crimes full and swift retaliation in kind and I feel obliged now to warn the Axis armies and the Axis people in Europe and in Asia that the terrible consequences of any use of these inhumane methods on their part will be brought down swiftly and surely upon their own heads." 10 JUNE, 1943, EASTERN FRONT COMMAND POST, WOLF'S LAIR, EAST PRUSSIA. Since Ambros's mistaken revelation that the Allies possessed nerve gas and his forecast that they would use it in retaliation for a German attack, Hitler had given the matter some thought. He had decided that the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile and the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket could be used with conventional warheads to produce an attack on London which would take Britain out of the war. Hitler now called his military commanders together and revealed his new strategy. He told them that they only needed to hold out, since London would be leveled to the ground by an attack with the new weapons and Britain would be forced to capitulate. 20 October was set for the start of the attack, and he had ordered 30,000 (?3,000) rockets to be ready by that date. 22 JUNE, 1943, LONDON. Photographs taken by aircraft overflying Peenemunde confirmed that it was a plant for the construction of rockets. Duncan Sandys showed these photographs to Churchill, and Churchill immediately ordered the bombing of Peenemunde. JUNE, 1943, KIRVOGRAD. Stalin and Hitler's representatives, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov and German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, met at Kirvograd, a city under German control 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of the front line. Ribbentrop conveyed Hitler's offer to end the war if Germany was allowed to keep the Ukraine and all territory west of the Ukraine. Molotov conveyed Stalin's offer to end the war if the borders of the Soviet Union were returned to the state of 1939. As both of these positions were non-negotiable, the talks deadlocked. Three days after the talks started Hitler became convinced that they had failed, and he decided that while the talks had not led to a separate peace with the Soviet Union, harm would be done to the Allies unity if knowledge of the talks became public. When news of the talks became public Stalin immediately broke them off. Stalin would never publicize the talks, and they would disappear into the vaults of Soviet history. Reversing himself, Hitler now decided that news of these talks would reveal to Britain and the United States that he could not be a reliable partner in their fight against communism, and he ordered all records of the meetings destroyed. EVENING, 29 JUNE, 1943, PEENEMUNDE. The Commission for Long Range Weapons, which had been given the task by Hitler and Speer to decide which weapon would be developed, took the usual action of commissions, and they decided that both weapons would be developed. Most probably on Hitler's own orders, Himmler now once again returned to Peenemunde to make his own personal evaluation. Himmler returned to Peenemunde with good news for von Braun. As a result of von Braun's efforts to develop the rocket and to insure its production he was making von Braun a full colonel in the SS. von Braun knew that the program was under Himmler's control, and his elevation in rank indicated that Himmler was pleased with his team's performance. There was still a chance that his rocket would receive a higher priority. After dinner Himmler joined Stegmaier, Dornberger, von Braun, Ministerial Council Schubert, Eberhard Rees, who was responsible for the rocket's production, Ernst Steinhoff, who was responsible for the rocket's guidance system, and several other members of the technical team for conversation. The researchers at Peenemunde knew that the fate of their rocket program was in the balance, and von Braun began to lobby Himmler, followed by the others. They then directly raised the question of the priority of their project, but Himmler gave them no assurance. Discussion then turned to politics, and Dornberger took the opportunity to ask Himmler directly what the goal of the war was. Himmler then gave a detailed presentation of his view of Hitler's strategic thinking. Himmler's account of Hitler's thinking that Dornberger would relate years later in his book "V-2" is surely one of the most concise accounts of Hitler’s thinking available, although its use presents several problems for the historian, specifically which parts of Himmler's talk revealed his own thinking, and which parts of it revealed Hitler's thinking, and which parts of it Dornberger may have either forgotten or concealed. According to Dornberger, Himmler first claimed that Hitler thought that modern technologies, in particular the railroad, highway, and air transport, had made smaller nations obsolete. Only large economic units would be viable. Europe was such a unit, and Germany was the only country capable of leading it, as Britain was too tied up in her Empire. The group was absolutely shocked when Himmler told them that Hitler had tried to negotiate with Britain, but that his efforts had failed, and that Hitler still thought that Britain would negotiate. Himmler moved on, telling the men that Hitler thought that a united Europe under Germany would present no threat to the United States’ economic interests. As for Russia, if it succeeded in uniting the 300,000,000 Slavs it would be the end of "Western" predominance. If they had not attacked her, Stalin would have been free to turn Soviet industry from armaments to consumer goods which would have flooded the market and been a disaster for both Europe and the United States. Dornberger then asked Himmler if the goal of the war was economic rather than military or political or ideological. Himmler replied: "In the last analysis every war is a struggle for power. In modern wars all three factors are invariably involved." Himmler continued, pointing out that the invasion of Poland had been necessary because Germany only had enough agricultural resources to feed 60 per cent of its people. Dornberger expressed his skepticism of the ability of Germany to populate the lands to the east, and Himmler told him that he himself was in charge of their colonization and that he planned to do it by setting up centers of population which would then be expanded. When Dornberger asked about the physical suitability of Germans for living in the East, Himmler told him that they would arrange for young German peasants to marry Ukrainian girls, and in this way a generation adapted to the climactic conditions of the East would be founded. Dornberger then pointed out to Himmler that other nations would object to the enslavement of the peoples of the East, but Himmler told him that if Germany won the war they would beware of doing so. Himmler went on to tell Dornberger that their victory would lead to such an improvement in the standard of living and that after a few years all Europeans would approve of his and Hitler's plans. Dornberger asked Himmler if they had enough resources to win the war, and Himmler told him that they had the resources of Europe to use, by force if necessary. According to Dornberger, Himmler did not reveal to those present neither the extent nor the brutality of the slave labor operations that were currently being conducted. When Dornberger objected that the use of foreign labor raised the danger of spying and sabotage, Himmler told him that the German overseers would eliminate them, but with the good food and working conditions in Germany or in German controlled factories people would work for them voluntarily. Himmler told the assembled group that Hitler considered Stalin to be his only great adversary. When they asked him what he meant by "great", Himmler pointed out to them that while Genghis Khan had been the most feared and abominated man of his time, history had not denied that he had been a great general and statesman, and that despite the fact that he had failed to consolidate the Mongols beyond his lifetime, his unique and meteoric career, the ruthlessness of his politics, and the ferocity of his armies had left their mark for centuries on Asia and Europe. Himmler then talked about Genghis Khan's Golden Horde, who he viewed as the ancestors of the Russians, and he went on to tell them that Lenin and Stalin had inherited the Mongols' characteristics: sophisticated cunning, amazing physical toughness, incomprehensible cruelty, wild fanaticism, contempt of death, indifference to hardship and disaster, and resignation in the face of subhuman conditions. Only if Germany adopted the same "Asiatic" methods would it succeed in making "any impression" on their "mentality". By now it was four o'clock in the morning and Dornberger reminded them that they had work to do the next day. The party retired to bed. Dornberger laid awake, troubled by Himmler's talk. By now he had been working for ten years developing weapons for Hitler, Himmler, and the Nazis, and throughout this entire period of time by means of some curious mechanism Dornberger had been able to deny the evil of his actions. He now had no room to avoid his guilt, and from now on Dornberger knew exactly what he was doing. For his part, von Braun would never talk about the evening. 30 JUNE, 1943, PEENEMUNDE. The following morning's test launch of the rocket went awry and the rocket crashed into the runway at Peenemunde and destroyed three aircraft. Himmler quipped, "Now I can return to Berlin and order the production of close combat weapons with an easy conscious." It is a mystery why Himmler thought that he had to order the production of the weapon when Hitler already had. The second test launch in the afternoon was a success. As Himmler was leaving, he promised Dornberger that he would present their point of view to Hitler, and added that he could help them only if Hitler's decision were favorable. 7 JULY, 1943, EASTERN FRONT COMMAND POST, WOLF'S LAIR, EAST PRUSSIA. With the design of the Assembly 4 Rocket now perfected Speer set up a meeting between Hitler and Dornberger, von Braun, and Steinhoff, the man responsible for the rockets guidance system. Hitler, Speer, Keitel, Jodl, and Buhl watched a color movie which von Braun and Dornberger had prepared for the presentation of the testing of an Assembly 4 Rocket and its launch in the field from a mobile launcher. The movie only showed a successful launch of the Assembly 4 Rocket; the many failures of the rocket went unmentioned. The film closed with the note, "We made it after all!" Next von Braun made his technical presentation. When he pointed out that the impact of the rocket would add to the destructive effect of the warhead, Hitler interrupted him. "Then you will need a very sensitive fuse. Otherwise the rocket will bury itself in the earth and the destructive force of the explosion will be absorbed by the ground." Upon his return to Peenemunde von Braun checked and found that Hitler's deduction was correct and the warhead of the rocket would be modified. What von Braun would never note was something that Speer would later reveal: the rocket would need an extremely fast acting fuse if its nerve gas payload were to be dispersed into the air rather than into the ground. After von Braun spoke, Dornberger made his presentation on the operational requirements for the rocket. By now Hitler was ecstatic, and he rose from his chair and started to shake Dornberger's hand. "I thank you. Why was it I could not believe in the success of your work? If we had these rockets in 1939, we should never have had this war... Europe and the world will be too small from now on to contain a war. With such weapons humanity will be unable to endure it." Hitler then went to examine a model of the bunker which Speer had designed to build and launch the rocket, and whose construction Hitler had approved several months before. Dornberger argued that the bunkers would be easy targets for enemy bombers and suggested that self propelled mobile launchers be used instead. von Braun and the other technical staff at Peenemunde had disagreed with Dornberger, as they had concluded that launching the rocket would require a bunker in which the technicians could perform last minute adjustments. Hitler interrupted Dornberger and called Speer over. He then compared the launch bunker for the rockets with the concrete servicing bunkers for the submarines which had held up well to allied bombs. Hitler ordered that one or if possible two more launch bunkers be built. Hitler then told Dornberger that the mobile launchers would be detected and bombed as well. Dornberger continued, arguing that because of their small size it would be extremely difficult to locate the mobile launch batteries from the air, and that their position could be rapidly changed. Hitler rejected Dornberger's argument, and told him that while of course the bunkers would be detected and bombed, every bomb that fell on them would be a bomb that did not fall on a German city. Hitler revived the proposal Speer had presented the previous October for a rocket with a much heavier payload. He now demanded that Dornberger and von Braun develop a rocket which could carry tens tons of explosive and which would be produced at a rate of 2,000 a month. von Braun and Dornberger spent considerable time convincing Hitler that this was an impossible goal, as it would take five years to develop the rocket and such a rocket would require enormous amounts of fuel. Hitler interrupted them and put forth his goal. "What I want is an annihilation! An annihilating effect!" Dornberger responded, telling Hitler, "No one is able to get more out of a ton of explosive than it is capable of giving.", and then he pointed out to Hitler that they were trying to increase the explosive effect by developing a faster fuse. If Dornberger, von Braun, or any of the other people from Peenemunde present at the meeting knew that the nerve gases required an extremely fast fuse they never mentioned it later. Dornberger tried to calm Hitler down. "Please discourage the propaganda that is starting about the decisive effect these "all annihilating wonder weapons" are going to have on the war. It can lead to nothing but disappointment for the country. Our aim was to increases the range of heavy artillery out of all recognition by using new methods. We have succeeded. "We have also, by the use of rockets, reduced to a minimum the inadmissible weight of super heavy guns in the field. With a spread that is quite reasonably low we can fire about a ton of explosives a hundred and sixty miles and cover targets only bombers could reach before, without risking a machine or crew. No defense against the rocket exists. "We have developed this weapon. We can service it and put it to tactical use. It was not our task to assess its psychological effect, its usefulness in present conditions, or its strategic importance in the general picture. "When we started our development we were not thinking of an all annihilating effect. We..." Hitler then stopped Dornberger cold, shouting, "You! No, you didn't think of it, I know, but I did." And Hitler spoke the truth here. The production of the nerve gases Tabun and Sarin had been a closely held secret, and very few people had originally known about them. With the skill that comes from long experience, Keitel immediately stopped this argument by bringing up the need to increase the anti-aircraft defenses around Peenemunde. Hitler granted this, and the meeting broke up. As they left the meeting Hitler and von Braun carried on a private conversation, and the historian now encounters a problem with reconstructing that meeting. The records of this meeting come from its participants, and the problem is that the use of gas was a war crime. von Braun and Dornberger would never publicly reveal any knowledge of the nerve gas program, even though it is clear that both of them were aware of it by the end of the war. For if they had ever revealed that knowledge they would have quite likely been imprisoned or hung or later been removed from any position of influence they held. On the other hand, it is also quite possible that at this time Hitler did not raise the issue, having put aside his planned nerve gas attack on Britain earlier after Ambros's warnings of 15 May, 1943. As the men finally parted Hitler once again seized Dornberger by the hand. "I have had to apologize to only two people in my life. The first is Field Marshall von Brauchitsch. I did not listen to him when he told me again and again how important your research was. The second man is yourself. I never believed your work would be a success." Speer had been proposing that von Braun be made a professor, a title that could only be awarded by the head of the German state, and Hitler had enthusiastically concurred. As Hitler bid von Braun good bye he shook his hand and told him, "Professor von Braun, I should like to thank you upon your remarkable achievement." Throughout the rest of his life von Braun would be known as "Professor Wernher von Braun", but few people would ever realize that this title had been personally awarded to him by Adolf Hitler. After von Braun and Dornberger left an enthusiastic Hitler began to discuss the rocket with Speer. "The A4 is a measure that can decide the war. And what encouragement to the home front when we attack the English with it. This is the decisive weapon of the war, and what is more it can be produced with relatively small resources. Speer, you must push the A4 as hard as you can. Whatever labor and material they need must be instantly supplied. "You know I was going to sign the decree for the tank program, but now my conclusion is, change it around and phrase it so that the A4 is put on a par with tank production. Hitler added a final instruction for Speer. "But in this project we can use only Germans. God help us if the enemy finds out." Hitler had concluded that he had a weapon with which he could turn the tide of the war. Many noted that that evening he slept soundly for the first time in months. One thing that had particularly impressed Hitler was von Braun's youthful appearance. Although he was 31 years old, von Braun looked much younger. In later conversations with his associates Hitler would often compare von Braun to Alexander the Great, who had conquered an empire by the age of 23, and Napoleon, who had won victories by age 30. Concerning von Braun, Hitler would tell them that "I think it is astonishing that so young a man has already helped to bring about a technical breakthrough which will change the face of the future." Over the next several weeks Speer managed to get Hitler to agree that the production of the rocket would be under his own control rather than that of Himmler and his SS. Hitler specified that the work must be carried out in the greatest secrecy and that only German workers were to be employed. Hitler signed the order on 25 July and it was sent by Enigma. 19 JULY, 1943, FELTRE, ITALY. The Italian people had had enough. At the start of the war the British had quickly consolidated their rear area in North Africa by defeating the Italian Army in Ethiopia. Mussolini's invasion of Yugoslavia had failed. but he had sent troops to join in Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union, and these were now suffering defeat as well. The United States had entered the war, there had been the Allied landings in North Africa, and the defeat and capture of the Italian Army there. This disaster had been followed by the invasion of Sicily and the bombing of the cities of Italy by the United States' Air Force. Following on all of these defeats of the previous two years, the Allies had finally just conquered Sicily. Hitler had been receiving reports from his sources in Rome that Mussolini was looking for a way out of the war. He decided to shore up Mussolini's resolve and set up a meeting with him. Hitler now lectured Mussolini on the conduct of the war, and in the course of his lecture he promised Mussolini that London would be flattened by his new secret weapons before the winter was over. LATE JULY, 1943. "Bomber" Harris had come up with an idea on how to improve the effect of his 1,000 plane raid on a city. If he targeted the first bombs to knock out the Germans' means of extinguishing fires, and if he equipped the second bombers with incendiary bombs, and if he could get the United States to join in, and if the bombing went on around the clock for several days, so as to not allow the Germans any time to recover, he would finally be able to reach his original goal of completely destroying a city. Harris received Churchill's approval and the United States' cooperation, and in late July Harris completely destroyed the city of Hamburg using fire bomb raids carried on over several nights and days by both British and United States bombers. The fires started by the bombs combined to form a firestorm, in which the air pulled in by existing fires reached tornado speeds of intense heat, and Hamburg was burnt to ash. Hitler was completely enraged and called a meeting to plan additional measures for retaliation on Britain. He demanded increased production of the "rocket airplane" Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile. It was pointed out to Hitler that the missile was still was not ready, and he then ordered the production of additional units in 1944. Speer suggested to Hitler that they begin construction of a battery of the long range cannon, despite the fact that it had not yet been successfully tested. This was an enormous cannon which unlike a conventional cannon, which used one explosion to propel its shells, used a series of explosions. Hitler now ordered the building of the 50 Vengeance Weapon 3 cannons, which theoretically would be capable of bombarding Britain with 600 shells per hour. 21 JULY, 1943, BERLIN. Through some means Dr. Stantien managed to get appointed to the Army's Chemical Warfare Division. He now attended a meeting of the Blitzarbeiter Committee, committed to doing all he could do to stop them from developing either biological or chemical weapons. Stantien was particularly opposed to Blome's new organization, and he managed to get the Army representatives to back him in opposing this new civilian organization. While Stantien would fail to get Blome stopped, he would be successful in stopping the Blitzarbetier Committee, and it would hold its last meeting in September, 1943. 29 JULY, 1943, ROME. Hitler's talk with Mussolini had its desired effect. Despite the demands of his cabinet, Mussolini refused to take Italy out of the war. On 24 July the Fascist Grand Council voted to restore power to the King of Italy, and on 29 July the King of Italy ordered Mussolini's arrest. AUGUST, 1943. Both Handloser and Stantien were determined to stop any and all work on biological weapons, and despite Goering's order they had done what they could to stop Blome. Himmler now met with Blome and told him that Goering had given him a very important job. Himmler asked Blome for his views on biological warfare, and Blome gave him a list of possible agents. Himmler then discussed with Blome the threats that he saw facing Germany. Himmler told Blome that for a fungus infection against crops to be effective an intermediate carrier would be necessary. Anthrax could be prevented by immunization. Himmler felt that in the plant field the potato beetle presented the greatest threat, and that plague was the most important agent against man. While Himmler did not mention it to Blome, the Germans had earlier received reports about Soviet research with plague, and Himmler asked Blome about the vaccines which were available to use against it. Blome told him that the vaccines Germany possessed were not very effective. Himmler asked Blome about the danger to Germany of an attack against her. Blome pointed out that attacks against crops and animals might well have devastating results. Surprisingly, Himmler disagreed. Himmler's rejection of Blome's appraisal may illustrate one of the reasons why Hitler had forbidden work on the development of biological weapons. Hitler may have felt that they were simply not very effective. This view had certainly been endorsed by Dr. Stantien, who had repeatedly stated that bacterial organisms would be unable to withstand the rigors of being spread by explosive charges or sprays. Or perhaps Himmler just assumed that the counter measures which Germany would develop would enable the management of any possible attack. Himmler then asked Blome whether it would be possible for Germany to wage biological warfare. Blome reminded Himmler that Hitler had forbidden the development of offensive biological weapons, and he added that it might prove dangerous for Germany to initiate biological warfare as such a move might boomerang on her. Himmler told Blome that he was to work on the production of an effective plague vaccine and to study methods of disseminating plague. Himmler instructed Blome that he was to use human beings for this work and he offered him facilities in a concentration camp for this work. Blome declined Himmler's offer to use a concentration camp for human experiments. He told Himmler that the danger of infection made it necessary to build a specially well isolated institute for the work, and that on the other hand his new institute in Nesselstedt would be ideal for such work. And indeed it was. Blome had designed his institute with special provision for the use of human experimental subjects. Himmler then pointed out to Blome that in his view to refuse to do human experiments that might be important for the war effort was the equivalent of treason, and then he told Blome that he needed to contact a Dr. Strassburger. Blome would later find out that Strassburger had come up with a scheme for using rats deposited by submarine to spread plague. With such a weapon they would be able to attack the United States, and well before he had called on Blome, Himmler had already decided that they should develop Strassburger's weapon. Himmler would soon send Blome an SS bacteriologist, one Dr. Gross, both to work with him as well as to keep an eye on him. Gross would tell Blome that he had a plan to develop a new vaccine against the plague, but Gross would refuse to share the details of the vaccine with him. Blome would also be joined by a technical translator, who would translate Russian documents concerning the use of plague as a weapon. Whether these documents were plants by von Apen or others or whether they were real documents is not known. AUGUST, 1943. Though both Brandt and Blome would later deny it, Dr. Brandt also contacted Blome and assured him that he would receive vast support for his work. 14 AUGUST, 1943, PEENEMUNDE. Dornberger called a meeting to discuss the mass production of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket. Present were von Braun, Thiel, Steinhoff for the scientists, Stegmaier for the Army and the SS, and Stahlknecht, Schubert, Rees, and Rudolph from the production side. Stahlknecht opened the meeting by complaining that he could not meet Degenkolb's production goals because of the constantly changing and incomplete design for the rocket with which von Braun's men were providing him. von Braun rose to defend himself, pointing out that they had not received the manpower they had requested and that the design changes were being forced upon them by outside material shortages. He told Stahlknecht that he should inform Degenkolb that for the time being the project for the rocket was impossible to execute. He further complained to Stahlknect about Degenkolb's lack of performance in helping them with their problems. Dr. Walter Thiel spoke next. Thiel told Dornberger that the rocket's engine was not ready for production, as outside manufacturers were providing only small batches of faulty components. Rees joined in Thiel's complaint, and added that the launch crews were also constantly requesting changes. For his part Dornberger had a solution. The problem as he saw it was "too many people, too many questions, too many answers". They need to freeze the design of the rocket and start production even if the rockets they produced had to be modified or even if they turned out they were not usable. Even though he disliked Degenkolb, Dornberger intended to give him his full support. Thiel had strong moral reservations about using the rocket, but instead of this, he now told Dornberger that as the rocket was not ready for production and as it would not be ready before the war had already ended, the project should be abandoned. "I have given the whole matter thorough consideration and ask to be allowed to resign." Rees then told Dornberger that he too would resign, and Rees was followed by von Braun. Dornberger rejected their resignations and told them that unlike them the soldiers would learn to fire the rocket by rote. Their duty now was to fire the initial production versions of the rocket until the problems with it could be identified and corrected. Dornberger expressed confidence in the ability of the soldiers to fire the rocket, and when von Braun started to make useful suggestions as Dornberger was speaking. the revolt among the scientists ended. Only Thiel would remain firm in his objections to the use of the rocket, but he would die a few days later, before he would have a chance to resign. 17 AUGUST, 1943, PEENEMUNDE. Duncan Sandys and R.V. Jones had continued to collect intelligence on the rocket program and had even managed to infiltrate their own spies into the factory labor force at Peenemunde. They also had access to the decrypted Enigma messages and all other intelligence. They had also had an even better source of information than Enigma. At the beginning of August a member of the Black Orchestra forwarded to them a synopsis of Hitler's 10 June conversation with his generals. The report was garbled: its 30,000 projectiles had become 30,000 Assembly 4 Rockets. The report had stated that the goal of 30,000 rockets was beyond the bounds of possibility and it also detailed the number of German workers assigned to the project. The bombing raid on Peenemunde, which Churchill had ordered in June, was finally launched. By imitating the flight of a bombing raid on Berlin, the British bombers managed to get through to Peenemunde almost unopposed. Their ploy left German defensive interceptors hundreds of kilometers away from Peenemunde guarding the German capitol. The following day Goering vented his rage over their success on General Hans Jeschonke, the Chief of the Air Staff, who then committed suicide. 19 AUGUST, 1943, EASTERN FRONT COMMAND POST, WOLF'S LAIR, EAST PRUSSIA. Speer inspected the damage on Peenemunde from the bombing raid, and when he arrived at eh Wolf's Lair to brief Hitler he told him that the works had been completely destroyed. Hitler ordered Speer to speed up the efforts to build the long range Vengeance Weapon 3 cannon battery at Mimoyecques and the experimental prototypes of that cannon. When the two prototypes of the cannon would be tested in October it would turn out that their shells would wobble after leaving the muzzle and the cannon would not have sufficient range to hit London. Despite this problem the construction of the cannon battery at Mimoyecques would continue. 19 AUGUST, 1943, EASTERN FRONT COMMAND POST, WOLF'S LAIR, EAST PRUSSIA. Himmler was still determined to take control of the production of the Assembly 4 Rocket, and he had now figured out a way to do it. When he first met with Hitler to discuss the impact of the bombing raid on Peenemunde, Himmler told Hitler that the only way absolute secrecy for the rocket could be maintained was if they used skilled prisoners from the concentration camps as laborers to build them. The rockets could be built inside of tunnels, where the plant would be safe from enemy bombers. While it is not clear whether they discussed it at this time, both Himmler and Hitler knew that the tunnels were bomb proof, and that tunnels were already being used for the storage of nerve gas, so if need be the nerve gas that would go into the rockets warheads which would be nearby. Himmler also told Hitler that he had already met with Kammler, who had built the concentration camps, and that Kammler had agreed to take over the construction of these new plants. Hitler agreed and placed his hand on Himmler's shoulder. "I am relying on you and your energy. You are my guarantee for a timely, precise implementation of my orders." EVENING, 20 AUGUST, 1943, EASTERN FRONT COMMAND POST, WOLF'S LAIR, EAST PRUSSIA. When Hitler met with Speer on the evening of 19 August, he told him that Himmler was going to take over production of the rocket. Early the next day Hitler told Himmler that he wanted to meet with him and Speer the next evening. In the afternoon Speer visited with Himmler to arrange the details for the new plant. In the evening Hitler shared with Speer and Himmler his vision of London destroyed by rocket attack. Hitler knew that any use of nerve gas would have to devastate the British so completely that they would be unable to mount retaliatory strikes, and he demanded that 5,000 rockets be produced in the shortest possible time. Speer objected to this demand and argued with Hitler and Himmler for several hours. Speer knew that Himmler's SS was incapable of undertaking any manufacturing task, little less the manufacture of an advanced weapon, and that the rocket was not ready for mass production. He repeatedly argued that manufacturing the rocket would be like putting a recently developed race car into mass production. Hitler refuted Speer's argument: "This will be retribution against England. With this, we will force England to her knees. The use of this new weapon will make an enemy invasion impossible, for the south and south east of England can now be dominated by us." 21 AUGUST, 1943, EASTERN FRONT COMMAND POST, WOLF'S LAIR, EAST PRUSSIA. Despite the fact that Hitler had told Speer that he would be working with Himmler, the next day Himmler held a discussion with Pohl, Glucks (Pohl's man in charge of concentration camp labor), and Kammler. Himmler then sent Speer a letter asserting his complete control over the manufacture of the Assembly 4 Rocket and advising Speer that he could produce the 5,000 rockets Hitler required within a short time. Himmler transferred responsibility for the project to produce the rocket to Pohl, Glucks, and Kammler. 27 AUGUST, 1943, WATTEN. Bombers of the United States' Eighth Air Force conducted a raid on the bunkers of the storage and launch facility for the A4 rocket at Watten. The damage was so extensive that Speer decided that the only part of the complex that could be salvaged would be the liquid oxygen plant and that he would build a new launch bunker elsewhere. AUGUST, 1943. Dornberger made his report. A complete survey of the damage done by the British bombers at Peenemunde showed that it was not as bad as they had first thought. Peenemunde could be kept, but only as a place to develop the rocket. So as to camouflage the activity of this development team, the bomb damage at Peenemunde was not to be repaired. Production of the rocket was to be moved to Vienna, Austria, and to the former Zeppelin dirigible works at Friedrichshafen, Germany, which were both well away from the Allies' bombers. Dornberger pointed out that it would also be necessary to move the testing of the rocket from Peenemunde. He proposed that the abandoned Polish weapons range at Blizna, Poland could be used as a place where the rocket could be tested and that the Army teams could be trained in launching it there in secret. It would also be possible to use Blizna as a base for launches against the Soviet Union. Later, a special self-contained train would be built for the launching the rocket. 27 AUGUST, 1943, CENTRAL WORKS. The first mines for the extraction of quartzite had been drilled into Mount Kohnstein in 1905. In 1935 the "Company for the Economy and for Research" had been tasked with finding a safe depot for the storage of an essential fuel and chemical reserve for use in case of war. By 1936 they had located these abandoned mines and begun the construction of an underground factory and storehouse. Work on these had continued throughout the war. The existing tunnels would not be adequate for the production of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket and the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile, and the tunnels would now have to be quickly expanded. The expansion of the tunnels meant that the German Air Force's gas munitions that were stored there would have to be moved, and when Goering found out about this he objected. But Goering was overruled by Hitler who personally ordered the munitions moved. When Kammler received his orders from Himmler he immediately gathered up prisoners from the concentration camp at Buchenwald and sent them to expand the tunnels. In line with their existing plan, they would work the prisoners to death. The prisoners' rations would be very poor, they would never be allowed out of the mine, and as there were no toilets inside the mine the men would simply remain inside them in their own shit. In these conditions the they would continue to work the prisoners around the clock without break, so that they could quickly complete this most important facility. They would effectively carry out their plan, and in the course of the construction of the plant at the Central Works they would kill some 20,000 men. 13 SEPTEMBER, 1943, GRAN SASSO, ITALY. Hitler ordered his top commando, SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny, to free Mussolini. Skorzeny now mounted a daring glider assault on the mountain top hotel where Mussolini was being held, captured him, and flew him to safety in a light plane. Mussolini would set up a government in exile and the German Army would continue their occupation of northern Italy. 15 SEPTEMBER, 1943, BERNE. Fritz Kolbe was a loyal German. Through hard work he had managed to gain and education and a position at the German Foreign Ministry. He had worked his way up to assistant to the ardent Nazi Karl Ritter, who was von Ribbentrop's liaison with the German military. Fritz Kolbe hated the Nazis, and he decided to continue with the diplomatic corps in order to betray them. He copied documents and managed to get himself appointed as a diplomatic courier to the German Embassy in Switzerland. He approached the Americans after the British military attache, Colonel Dansey, rebuffed him, suspecting that he was a double agent. Allen Dulles also quickly judged Kolbe, and throughout the war Kolbe would bring Dulles 1,600 documents, including documents that not only would compromise entire networks of German spies, but reveal key German ciphers as well. Dulles had always been alert to the possibility that he might be fed documents in an effort to compromise American codes, and he always paraphrased the information that had been given to him, and he never identified his sources in his radio messages. This stood him in good stead, as he had already discovered that the Germans had broken one of his codes. Dulles now sent a report of the intelligence Kolbe had provided him concerning the rocket. Dulles started his report by giving a list of the plants which were assembling components for the rockets. He then moved on to discuss the German's strategic intentions for the rocket, adding that the Germans hoped to have enough rockets ready to begin an attack on Britain during February, 1944. Dulles reported that the confidential file reference for the project was "Project A4", and that Dr. Otto Ambros of the I.G. Farben company was overseeing the phases of the project that came within the field of chemistry and that he had recently discussed the matter with Hitler. Dulles had no idea that the nerve gases Tabun and Sarin existed and that Otto Ambros was in charge of their production. Neither would anyone else who would read his report. 21 SEPTEMBER, 1943, BERLIN. In early September Schumann had asked Handloser, Surgeon General of the Army, to report on the defensive measures which had been developed against an enemy attack with biological agents. Kliewe once again reported on the possibility that the enemy had developed bacterial sprays from airplanes for use, and on the use of bacterial agents for sabotage. Schumann told the meeting that the Fuehrer was surely not sufficiently well informed and that he should be informed at once. Schumann told them that they must also prepare for the mass utilization of bacterial materials and that the Fuehrer must be won to the plan. Schumann instructed the attendees that they were to indicate the methods of introduction of these agents and the requisite number of personnel, laboratories, equipment, airplanes and submarines that an attack would require. General Reinicke [Chief of the AWA] would meet with General Jodl in October to discuss whether a new assault was in order, and how it was to be made. FALL, 1943. Blome met with Dr. Strassburger on many occasions and finally conducted experiments to see if it would be possible for plague carrying rats to make their way to shore. The experiments would be a success, but this scheme would be abandoned after Strassburger's sudden death from uremia in early 1944. 28 SEPTEMBER, 1943, BLIZNA, POLAND. Himmler's SS troops carried out the construction of the new testing and training facility at Blizna. They had evacuated the local civilian population and then demolished the unused part of the nearby town. Himmler himself now paid an inspection visit to Blizna, and on the 29th of September he would give a report to Hitler. 30 SEPTEMBER, 1943 EASTERN FRONT COMMAND POST, WOLF'S LAIR, EAST PRUSSIA. Speer's report followed Himmler's. Speer requested that scientists be released from other prison camps and be sent to the "A4 concentration camps". Speer also reported on the construction of the new launch bunker to replace Watten. The complex would be built in France at Wizernes on the coast of the English Channel.[?] A contract to assist in the development of the plant went to the firm of Bauer and Nebel, who was the same Rudolph Nebel who had worked years before at the Raketenflugplatz. Nebel would design an erector for the Wizernes complex which was intended to carry the completed Assembly 4 Rockets out of the factory there and then launch them. With the destruction of Watten, Dornberger's mobile launch batteries would now play a role. Speer presented Hitler with plans for two launch batteries capable together of firing 54 rockets a day. Together with the 50 rockets a day launched from Wizernes this would allow for 104 rockets to be launched in a day. Hitler gave his approval to Speer's new plan. It appears that the Allied bombing had caused Hitler to temporarily abandon his idea of launching a 5,000 rocket first strike with nerve gas against Britain, for at this rate of launch a 5,000 rocket first strike would take 50 days. SEPTEMBER, 1943, PEENEMUNDE. General Fromm gave Dornberger an order transferring him from the Army Weapons Office to his command as Commissioner for the A4 Program. SEPTEMBER, 1943, REDL-ZIPF BREWERY, AUSTRIA. With von Braun's help Hermann Oberth had managed to get his daughter a job where he thought she would be safe from the Allied bombers. The Redl-Zipf Brewery had been originally only produced alcohol for fuel for the rocket engines. This facility had been joined by an underground bomb proof liquid oxygen plant, and the whole underground facility had been adapted into a test facility for the rocket engines produced for the new rocket plants. Oberth thought that his daughter would be safe here, but the whole operation suffered from mechanical problems which had only been complicated when a new director of the Central Works managed to get his fraternity brother employed as a director of its fuel plant. There was an explosion, and Hermann Oberth's daughter was killed. AUTUMN, 1943, PEENEMUNDE. When von Braun had been approached by the military in September, 1942, with the inquiry about the development of anti-aircraft rockets, he had assigned Oberth to work on the problem. Here had been an area where it had been possible for Oberth to make his own contributions, and Oberth had come up with his own design for an anti-aircraft rocket separate from those proposed by von Braun. Oberth now requested that he be transferred. His request would be approved and he would leave Peenemunde to develop his own solid propellant anti-aircraft rocket. In his new position Oberth would no longer have to stand in the shadow of his former pupil, nor would it be possible to hold him responsible for any actions undertaken by his former apprentice. AUTUMN, 1943, PEENEMUNDE. The problems with the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile had continued and its developers had been unable to find a way to solve them. Finally, in an effort to locate the source of the problems, the daring German woman test pilot Hanna Reisch volunteered to fly in one of the cruise missiles. As a result of her efforts the source of the cruise missile's problems was quickly identified, and from this point on the weapon could be counted on and placed into mass production. 1 OCTOBER, 1943, BERLIN. Despite the Allies' bombings in August of the facilities at Peenemunde, Friedrichshafen, and the Rax Works, Degenkolb now proposed that 900 rockets a month be produced at them besides the 900 a month to be produced at the Central Works. Degenkolb thus proposed a total production rate of 1,800 rockets per month. Dornberger objected that there would not be enough liquid oxygen or alcohol to fuel this many rockets, but despite his objections Degenkolb's production goal would be adopted. 17 OCTOBER, 1943, CENTRAL WORKS. Having managed to seize control of the Assembly 4 Rocket program with the promise of delivering 5,000 rockets within the shortest possible time, Himmler now had to back track. He now promised an initial production of only 900 rockets a month, with 12,000 rockets total production as the final goal. The initial production Himmler now promised was 50 rockets a month less than that Speer had promised earlier, and nearly two months had been lost in transferring the production to the SS. 20 OCTOBER, 1943. Combined with the loss of the facilities at Peenemunde to the Allies bombing, the accident at the Zipf-Redl liquid oxygen plant and engine testing facility presented Dornberger and von Braun with the need for a new facility to replace it. They located a slate quarry in Lehesten near the Central Works where test stands for the rocket’s engines could be placed on the quarry's edge, and a new liquid oxygen plant could be built in a mine in the face of the cliff, with quarters for the testers built underground as well. Lehesten also provided von Braun and Dornberger with another advantage. von Braun and Dornberger had taken the opportunity provided by the replacement of the facilities of Peenemunde and at Zipf-Redl to renew the program for the creation of the "America" Rocket. The blast of the exhaust of the engines of the intercontinental "America" Rocket would be so strong that it would no longer be possible to launch it from a mobile stand, as they had launched the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket. It would be necessary to build new test stands for the "America" Rocket's engines. von Braun and Dornberger quickly established that Lehesten, where Assembly 4 Rocket engine test stands, a liquid oxygen plant, and underground housing were already going to be constructed, could also provide a place where the "America" Rocket's launch stand and engine test stand could be built: the rocket's exhaust would simply go down the cliff's face. While the upper stage of the "America" Rocket, the winged long range version of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket, could also be built at the Central Works, it would be necessary to build a new underground factory to be able to manufacture the first stage of the "America" Rocket. Dornberger and von Braun sent teams to locate a suitable mine near to the Central Works, and they had located potash mines near at Bleicherode near Traunstein. Kammler immediately began the expansion of these mines as well. On Himmler's orders on 20 October, 1943 Kammler discussed his progress on the rocket with General Fromm. Kammler told Fromm that the project would be under way by 10 November, 1943, and that he had already begun construction. Just as he had for Auschwitz, Kammler would assign Bischoff the responsibility for finishing the construction of the Central Works. 25 OCTOBER, 1943, PEENEMUNDE. General Dornberger had completely executed his plan for the re-establishment of the development and prototype production of the Vengeance Weapon 2 rocket at Peenemunde, and he now made his report. OCTOBER, 1943, EASTERN FRONT COMMAND POST, WOLF'S LAIR, EAST PRUSSIA. Propaganda Minister Goebbels visited Hitler and Hitler set out to him his plan for winning the war. Submarine patrols of the Atlantic, which had been stopped because of heavy losses, would be resumed using a new magnetic torpedo. The Vengeance Weapons, against which the British had no defense, would begin to be launched against London by January or February, 1944. With their ships sunk and their cities pulverized, Britain would sue for peace by the spring of 1944. The Russian's advance would be held at the Dnepr River. OCTOBER, 1943, BUDAPEST, HUNGARY. Hitler or someone close to him spoke to Robert Ley about their new plans for using the rocket. In a public speech Ley announced that a new weapon would be introduced by mid-December. 25 OCTOBER, 1943, WASHINGTON. The situation was serious enough that Churchill realized he would have to alert Roosevelt. He now wrote him a letter: "1. I ought to let you know that during the last six months evidence has continued to accumulate from many sources that the Germans are preparing an attack on England, particularly London, by means of very long range rockets which may conceivably weigh sixty tons and carry an explosive charge of ten to twenty tons. For this reason we raided Peenemunde [in August], which was their main experimental station. We also demolished Watten, near St. Omer, which was where a construction work was proceeding the purpose of which we could not define. There are at least seven such points on the Pas de Calais and the Cherbourg peninsula, and there may be a great many others which we have not detected. "2. Scientific opinion is divided as to the practicability of making rockets of this kind, but I am personally as yet unconvinced that they cannot be made. We are in close touch with your people, who are ahead of us in rocket impulsion, which they have studied to give aero-planes a send-off, and all possible work is being done. The expert committee which is following this business thinks it is possible that a heavy though premature and short lived attack might be made in the middle of November, and that the main attack would be attempted in the New Year. It naturally pays the Germans to spread talk of new weapons to encourage their troops, their satellites, and neutrals, and it may well be that their bite will be found less bad than their bark. "3. Hitherto we have watched the unexplained constructions proceeding in the Pas de Calais area without (except Watten) attacking them in hope of learning more about them. But now we have decided to demolish those we know of, which should be easy, as overwhelming fighter protection can be given to bombers. Your airmen are of course in every way ready to help. This may not, however, end the menace, as the country is full of woods and quarries, and slanting tunnels can easily be constructed in hillsides. "4. The case of Watten is interesting. We damaged it so severely that the Germans, after a meeting two days later, decided to abandon it altogether. There were six thousand French workers upon it as forced labour. When they panicked at the attack, a body of uniformed young Frenchmen who are used by the Germans to supervise them fired upon their country men with such brutality that a German officer actually shot one of these young swine. A week later, the Germans seem to have reversed their previous decision and resumed the work. Three thousand more workmen have been brought back. The rest have gone to some of those other suspected places, thus confirming our views. We have an excellent system of Intelligence in this part of Northern France, and it is from these sources as well as from photographs and examination of prisoners that this story has been built up. "5. I am sending you by air courier the latest report upon the subject, as I thought you would like to know about it," Roosevelt soon convened an American panel to study the rocket but then a problem would emerge. The report which Churchill would send by air courier used intelligence derived from the Enigma, and by common agreement circulation of the intelligence derived from Enigma decryptions was limited to only the most senior officers. Only Roosevelt, Churchill, and a handful of generals knew that the German messages sent by the Enigma machine were being read. Following this agreement Roosevelt would not forward the report which Churchill would send him to the American team, and the British experts responsible would also decide that they had to withhold the results of their analysis. The result would be that the American analysts would flounder for months to come. 3 NOVEMBER, 1943, BERLIN. The Berlin Construction Office where Nebel and Saur had their offices was completely destroyed by an Allied bombing raid. Nebel and Saur relocated to Bad Wisnack. NOVEMBER, 1943, BLIZNA, POLAND. Dr. Walter Thiel's prediction in August had been right. The first launches of the production version of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket ended in failure and they would be followed by many more. Up to seventy per cent of the rockets tested would fail. Degenkolb complained that they all had been misled by von Braun and Dornberger about the rocket's readiness for production. Although the Central Works were still not in production, Degenkolb declined to also complain about being misled by Himmler. NOVEMBER, 1943, CENTRAL WORKS. The plant at the Central Works was now ready for production. The SS needed a technical person to oversee production of the rocket, and von Braun sent his long time associate Arthur Rudolph to the newly built factory. Rudolph had been an assistant to Max Valier and had been with him when he had died, and in 1934 he had gone to work for the Army's weapons development office. Like many at Peenemunde, Rudolph was a supporter of the Nazis, and he had joined the Nazi Party early on in 1931, and had become a Storm Trooper. von Braun and Rudolph both knew that slave labor was going to be used at the Central Works, but they did not fully appreciate what that meant to the SS. As the war had progressed the Soviet prisoners of war at Trassenheide had been joined by civilian "forced" (slave) laborers. von Braun had always treated them well, and he had kept them well fed, well clothed, and well housed. He had never punished their minor lapses in discipline, such as when they had become drunk by drinking the rocket's alcohol fuel, and he had punished major lapses in discipline by simply transferring the offenders out of Trassenheide. The situation at the Central Works was completely different. Rudolph was appalled by what he saw and called for von Braun to visit. von Braun arrived at the Central Works and saw hell for the first time. He could not believe that what he was seeing could occur in his own country. von Braun and Rudolph went to the SS commander to object. "That's got nothing to do with you.", he told them. "You either keep quiet or you'll be wearing the same uniform." von Braun and Rudolph argued with the commander that the parts being manufactured did not meet specifications, and that the prisoners needed to be physically able to work or they would not succeed in meeting their production targets. When their complaints to the commander resulted in very little improvement being made in the living conditions of the prisoners, von Braun asked Speer to visit the factory at the Central Works. 25 - 26 NOVEMBER, 1943, TEHERAN. Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt decided to meet in Teheran to discuss the next steps that should be taken by them against the Germans and to begin discussions of the fate of Germany after the war. Once again, German intelligence learned of Churchill's travel plans, once again most likely through their agent Cicero. Once again, German intelligence planned an assassination, this time not only of Churchill but of Stalin and Roosevelt as well. The Germans planned to parachute about 60 agents to a point south of Teheran, where their agents were to be concealed, disguised, equipped, and given the visitors' itinerary. But once again the codebreakers at Bletchley Park had done their magic, and when the parachutists arrived at their rendezvous point they were all captured. Because they feared that they might not have gotten them all of the German agents, those responsible took extra precautions for the security of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin. 2 DECEMBER, 1943, BARI, ITALY. While the United States had no intention of using gas, it had always kept a supply on hand in case the need arose to respond to an enemy gas attack. On 2 December the Germans bombed a ship carrying mustard gas in the harbor at Bari and the gas killed 1000 soldiers and 1000 civilians and injured countless more people. Eisenhower, the commanding general, would try to keep the matter secret. Complete censorship would be enforced, and Eisenhower proposed that they attribute the men's gas wounds to other causes. DECEMBER, 1942, BERN, SWITZERLAND. Kolbe now provided Dulles with a German diplomatic telegram that revealed the identity of Cicero. It appears that the XX Twenty Committee treated Cicero the same way they had every other German spy that the British had caught: they began to use him to feed bad information back to the Germans, as well as to capture the other German spies in Cicero's ring. 8 DECEMBER, 1943, BERN, SWITZERLAND. Hellmuth Simons had been listening to Goebbel's broadcasts about the Vengeance Weapons for months. To his mind this could only mean one thing: The Germans had perfected a way to spread bacteria from the air. Simons could take no more. He contacted Allen Dulles and once again tried to warn the allies about the danger the faced. Dulles had been hearing rumors for months about rockets and unmanned jet planes, but he had not been able to determine what strategic use the Germans would put them to. There had already been rumors of 3,000 "gliders" stationed in north west France, and an article in this morning's newspaper suggested that the Germans might attempt to throw 30 rockets an hour on London from 100 sites for a little over eight hours. The article suggested that 25,000 rockets would be launched on London before reconnaissance or bombardment could be used to stop them. After Simons talked with him, Dulles formed the idea that the rockets and robot planes would be used to deliver deadly biological warheads to London. He forwarded an urgent report to Washington. 8 DECEMBER, 1943. The Allied bombing of the rocket's launch bunkers had their effect. The German High Command told Hitler that the bunkers would continue to attract bombing raids and they recommended that they halt their construction and switch launch operations to the mobile batteries for the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket, and to portable launch ramps for the Vengeance Weapon l cruise missile. Hitler asked Speer to look into it. Hitler did not want to give up the construction of the bunkers which he and Speer had designed and worked on since 1939. Hitler estimated that the results of the continued Allied bombing would be small, as the bunkers were enormous and well fortified, and that they could complete their construction. In addition, if the bunkers were protected by anti-aircraft guns, the Allies' bombers could be shot down while attacking them, instead of Germany’s cities. But in an effort to satisfy the Army's request, Hitler ordered that construction be halted on any bunker which would not be ready before the autumn of 1944. Since Speer had already reported to him that the bunker's completion dates would be before then, he would thus be able to continue the construction of the bunkers. 10 DECEMBER, 1943, CENTRAL WORKS. Speer now made an inspection visit to the new factory for the manufacture of the Assembly 4 Rocket, and the scene horrified him also The caves were poorly ventilated and their foul air stank of shit. The prisoners slept in the caves and had not been outside for months. They were starving and exhausted. The SS commander was not cruel: he gave Speer a glass of liquor to calm him after his tour. Speer immediately ordered the construction of outside barracks, and when he returned to Berlin he assigned a physician to oversee improving the health of the prisoners. The experience shocked Speer. He sent his men on vacation, and shortly afterward Speer himself would become "ill" and become unable to work for several months. 17 DECEMBER, 1943, WASHINGTON. G. Edward Buxton, the director of the O.S.S., sent Dulles' report out for confirmation from the United States' Army's Chemical Warfare Service. The Canadians had continued work on the British efforts to derive toxin from botulism, and the United State's Army's Chemical Warfare Service had set up a plant for its production at Fort Dietrich, Maryland. The Chemical Warfare Service confirmed botulism toxin could indeed be distributed by air. Director Buxton was so alarmed that he immediately notified the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Joint Chiefs were also very alarmed and in turn immediately demanded that all necessary resources be turned immediately to this threat. Hellmuth Simons had succeeded. The leaders of the United States' war efforts were now aware of the danger that von Braun's rockets posed to the allies, but they were right for all the wrong reasons. They were still completely unaware of Schraeder's Tabun and Sarin nerve gases. In their review of intelligence, the OSS would coincidentally gather information from recordings of high ranking German prisoners of war that the Germans had already used poison gas to kill 5 million Jews and other victims. DECEMBER, 1943, LONDON. Colonel Dansey had been reposted from Switzerland to London and Dulles was sending him summaries of the information Kolbe was providing him with. Dansen still rejected Kolbe as a plant, but one of his assistants, Kim Philby asked to review the Dulles and Kolbe materials. Philby took the material to the British code breakers who confirmed that the diplomatic radio telegrams that Kolbe was providing were indeed authentic and they immediately asked for more of them. Philby was more than happy to oblige. Kolbe's material was now be taken seriously in London, and in Moscow as well, as Philby was immediately sending it on to Stalin. Philby would also be able not only to send Kolbe's material on to Stalin, but he would be able to also include the coded American and British diplomatic transmissions that accompanied it. As of this date it is unknown whether the Soviets had the resources to take advantage of the coded material Philby gave them, but undoubtedly this was probably Philby's greatest accomplishment in his entire career working as a spy for the Soviet Union. DECEMBER, 1943, PEENEMUNDE. Dornberger had taken Fromm's order in September transferring him from the Army Weapons Office to Fromm's own command as an expansion of his powers to include not only the rocket's development and production but also its deployment. in an attempt to regain control of the rocket's development and production from him, the Army Weapons Office now issued its own order to Dornberger, leaving him responsible only for the formation and training of operational field units. Dornberger struggled to maintain control over the rocket, and he appealed to Fromm. JANUARY, 1944, CENTRAL WORKS. Despite the fact that the cause of the rockets' launch failures was still impossible to identify, Degenkolb proceeded with setting up the mass production of them. In January, 1944 the first 50 Assembly 4 Rockets came off the new production line at the Central Works. JANUARY, 1944. Hitler realized that neither the rocket nor the cruise missile would be ready for the bombardment of Britain. He concluded that the Messerschmitt 262 jet airplane, whose production he had ordered stopped in September, 1943, could use its great speed to successfully penetrate British air defenses and bomb Britain. He now ordered the Me 262 back into production, but as a bomber instead of as a fighter. FEBRUARY, 1944. As a result of Simons' warning the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered an immediate and desperate full review of all available intelligence and formed three committees. The first of these committees was formed to investigate the Germans' new cruise missile and rocket and whether they would use them to deliver chemical or biological weapons. This was known as the C-B Committee, for Chemical-Biological, and was given the code name Cross-Bow. The Crossbow Committee was stumped by the rocket and tentatively concluded that the Germans intended to use hydrogen peroxide to fuel it. The Joint Chiefs of Staff set up a second committee to investigate Allied countermeasures to a possible German biological attack, including the start of biological warfare by the Allies. The Joint Chiefs dropped their restriction on the study of the offensive use of biological weapons and set up the Barcelona (B-iological) Subcommittee to study the problem and design counter measures. The Barcelona Committee examined all available intelligence and determined that it was likely that the Germans were up to something, but what it was they did not know. At any rate, there had been several mentions of a German plan to use gas if the Allies attempted to make a landing in Europe, and as that landing was now less than six months away, this threat appeared quite real. The Barcelona Committee had examined the possibility of mounting a counter-attack in response to a German attack with either Churchill's anthrax filled pellets or with a botulism derivative called "X" or "mud". "X" seemed better to them and they now started the production of both massive quantities of both "X", and of the anti-toxin which their own troops would need to protect themselves from it. The Joint Chiefs also set a committee to examine using chemical weapons in response to a German biological attack, but as of 1995 its records had not been released. The United States would also make intensive checks of Simons' background. They would conclude that Simons was unreliable, and by the end of January Dulles would be warned that the OSS suspected that Simons was a plant by German intelligence. The State Department and military intelligence operations would treat Simons skeptically. At the same time everyone had by now reached the same conclusions that Simons had reached months before and that Dulles had reached in December: whatever Hitler was going to use his rockets and cruise missiles for, it would not make any sense for him to use them to deliver conventional explosives. And whatever it took, they would have to be stopped. Among the Allies, no one no where had any idea of that Hitler had already accumulated large stocks of the nerve gases Tabun and Sarin. FEBRUARY, 1944. Despite Eisenhower's efforts to keep news of the disaster at Bari from spreading, it had leaked out and by February, 1944 he concluded that it would be impossible to contain it. He got the Joint Chiefs to issue a statement, "Allied policy is not (repeat not) to use gas unless or until the enemy does so first, but that we are fully prepared to retaliate and do not deny the accident, which was a calculated risk." FEBRUARY, 1944, BERLIN. Despite Hitler's personal orders the year before, 9 out of 10 Germans still did not have gas masks. Hitler now placed his personal physician, Professor Brandt, in charge of the production of gas masks, and gave Quasebart greater authority for civil defense. 21 FEBRUARY, 1944, BERLIN. Himmler called von Braun in for a meeting. von Braun went, expecting to be able to ask for an improvement in the conditions at the Central Works. Himmler had other things on his mind. "I hope that you realize that your A4 rocket has ceased to be a toy, " Himmler told him, "and that the whole German people eagerly await the mystery weapon." Himmler offered von Braun more support, but only if he placed himself and his operation under the control of his SS. von Braun had already guessed that Himmler did not intend to put him in charge of the whole operation, but intended simply to put him under the control of Kammler. von Braun told Himmler that Dornberger was performing very well. von Braun argued that the Vengeance Weapon 2 rocket project would be overwhelmed by the massive resources that Himmler proposed. He knew Himmler was a farmer and he put his argument in agricultural terms: "The V-2 is rather like a little flower. In order to flourish, it needs sunshine, a well-proportioned quantity of fertilizer, and a gentle gardener. What I fear you're planning is a big jet of liquid manure! You know, that might kill our little flower." 4 MARCH, 1944, GERMANY. Himmler succeeded in getting Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, the designer of the Volkswagen automobile and later of the Porsche sport cars, to agree that production of the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile was to be transferred from his Volkswagen factory to the Central Works. Himmler assigned Kammler the task of overseeing this move. MARCH, 1944, LONDON. von Braun sent a message concerning his trip to Berlin to visit Himmler via the Enigma, and this message was almost immediately read by the British codebreakers and forwarded to Jones. The XX Twenty Committee then came up with a great idea. They would have one of their "German" agents send a message containing a small part of the information they had collected, and the agent would tell his handlers that it came from the top man at Peenemunde, who was a British agent. As Duncan Sandys and R.V. Jones already needed a cover to camouflage the sources of the information that had led to the bombing raid on Peenemunde, turning von Braun into a "traitor" would certainly be the very best way this could be accomplished. As added spice, the XX Twenty Committee's "German spy" would also report that von Braun kept an airplane ready to fly to London, just as Hess had done several years before, with the hope that this bit of information would play upon Hitler's memories. MIDNIGHT, 14 MARCH, 1944, PEENEMUNDE. The Gestapo, the secret state police, acting on orders from the SS's Security Police, woke von Braun out of bed, arrested him, and threw him in jail on the charge of sabotage. Besides von Braun, whose guilt as a British "spy" had been established by one of their most trusted agents in Britain, the Security Police ordered the arrest of Klaus Reidel, who had openly spoke of how much he detested Hitler and the Nazis; Hellmuth Grottrup, whose wife had known socialist tendencies; and Wernher von Braun's brother Magnus, who had already foreseen that Germany would be defeated and had decided to learn English. 15 MARCH, 1944, BERCHTESGADEN. The next morning General Dornberger received an urgent order to report to Berchtesgaden. When he arrived there General Buhle of the Chief Army Command told him that Werner von Braun, von Braun's brother Magnus, Hellmuth Grottrup, and Klaus Reidel had all been arrested. When Dornberger asked for details he was told that Field Marshall Keitel, the head of the Supreme Command of the German Army and Hitler's most trusted military advisor, would give him the details. Keitel told Dornberger that all the men had been arrested on charges of sabotage and were likely to be executed the next day. Keitel also told Dornberger that all of the men from Peenemunde had stated at a party that they had never intended to develop weapons, but that instead they were only interested in space travel, and that they had only worked on the weapons under pressure from Dornberger, in order to obtain money for their experiments. When Dornberger pressured Keitel as to who had brought the charges, Keitel told him that it was Himmler. Dornberger told Keitel that if the men continued to be held they would not be able to complete the rocket. In turn Keitel told Dornberger that he could not release them, for if he made a mistake, he would be removed and the Army would loose its last bit of influence over Hitler, leaving only Himmler and the SS to advise the Fuhrer. Dornberger then asked Keitel to call Himmler and arrange for a meeting with him, but when Keitel called Himmler, Himmler declined to meet with Dornberger but instead ordered Dornberger to report to SS headquarters. 16 MARCH, 1944, SS HEADQUARTERS, BERLIN. Dornberger met with the government's chief of security, who in turn referred him to the head of the Gestapo, SS General Mueller. In an effort to get the men released to his own control, Dornberger started to argue with Mueller that sabotage in an Army installation must be prosecuted by the Army. Mueller told Dornberger that Himmler had personally ordered the arrests, and that not only was there ample evidence to convict the men, there was also a fat file of evidence on him as well and he was under constant surveillance. Despite Mueller's threats Dornberger continued to argue with him, pointing out that without the men the project would be wrecked. Mueller only promised Dornberger that the process would be speeded up and that he would put pressure on the staff at Stettin, the jail where the men were being held. This meant that the men would not be immediately shot, nor would they face torture. Dornberger asked Mueller for permission to visit with them, and Mueller granted it. Dornberger left and contacted Speer. Several days later Dornberger would be able to persuade Mueller to release the prisoners, first to Army counter-intelligence, and then to him personally under house arrest. 20 MARCH, 1944, KLESSHEIM. Hitler took time to visit his loyal supporter Speer, who was in the hospital recovering from his illness. Speer took the opportunity to beg Hitler to release von Braun and the other scientists. Speer pointed out to Hitler that the rocket could not be built without von Braun, and that the war effort would suffer a serious blow. Hitler promised Speer that he would give the order for their release. 29 MARCH, 1944, STETTIN. Himmler found out about Dornberger and Speer's pleadings, and Wernher von Braun, Magnus von Braun, Hellmuth Grottrup, and Klaus Riedel were brought before an SS court. The prosecuting officer accused them of developing the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket not as a weapon but as means of space travel. He also accused von Braun of keeping an airplane at readiness at all times in order to flee to Britain in order to hand over to British intelligence top secret documents on the rocket. At the last moment Dornberger burst into the courtroom and presented the presiding SS judge with an order for the release of the prisoners signed by Hitler himself. It had taken Hitler a week, but he had finally signed the order. In retrospect it appears that information planted by the XX Twenty Committee had had its desired effect. Indeed, on 13 May, 1944 Hitler would tell Speer that von Braun was to be "protected from all prosecution as long as he is indispensable, difficult though the general consequences arising from the situation are." SPRING, 1944, BERLIN. Himmler had set as another goal for himself, besides taking over production of the rocket, and taking over the production of the materials for the warheads of the Vengeance Weapons. He now presented Hitler with a plan for his SS to take over from the I.G. Farben company the production of both Sarin and N-material at the Falkenhagen factory. 1944, LONDON. The planning for the invasion of France had been going on for over a year. As the time for the invasion drew near the intelligence staff for the invasion planners concluded that if nothing were done it was almost certain that Hitler would use the same means to dislodge the allied invaders from their beachheads which Churchill had proposed using against the Germans in 1940: gas. They also calculated that if Hitler used gas he would indeed succeed in stopping the invasion. The XX Twenty Committee came up with a plan. They had BRONX send a message to her "controllers" which said that if the Germans used gas, the British were prepared to respond with a kind of botulism. The message that BRONX sent was nearly true. The United States was in the process of manufacturing large quantities of botulin poison. If the Germans used gas, the United States was getting prepared to be able to launch two 400 plane bombing raids carrying botulin. So that they would not kill Allied troopers if they used this poison, they would equip the troops which would go ashore at Normandy with self-injectors filled with an antidote for it. 24 MARCH, 1944. As the Red Army approached Rumania Hitler met with the Rumanian Fascist leader Ion Antonescu in an effort to keep his support. Hitler told Antonescu that Germany would not be the first to use gas, but if it came to that "in that case it had new kinds of gases [Tabun and Sarin] for which the civilian population had no antidote.", and he then continued along this line. If only it would come to that, he would launch an attack with his new types of weapons against London and other different cities which laid within range. In any case Germany was well prepared. The country's chemical industries were prepared as well, and they certainly had better gases and explosives than the enemy. 22 APRIL, 1944, CASTLE KLESSHEIM. Mussolini had arranged for a meeting with Hitler because he was concerned about the treatment of the Italian soldiers that the Germans had interned when Italy had surrendered to the Allies. Hitler now rejected Mussolini's appeals and told him that the prisoners were Badoglians [supporters of Badoglio's new Italian government, i.l. defeatests] and Communists and were not worthy of his help. Hitler denounced the disintegration of Fascism and told Mussolini that treason like that which had occurred in Italy could not happen in Germany. Hitler then moved the conversation on to the war. Hitler told Mussolini that German scientists had developed not only long range weapons but also "two different types of weapons [Tabun and Sarin], as their chemists had made a breakthrough in a certain type of gas." He continued along this line, telling Mussolini that if it came to gas warfare, they would use these gases, against which they themselves had no protection, and that his new secret weapons would turn London into a "garden of ruins". 6 MAY, 1944, CENTRAL WORKS. In response to von Braun's and Rudolph's complaints that the prisoners working under the conditions of the Central Works would turn out rockets of inadequate quality, the SS came up with its own solution. The SS summoned von Braun and Dornberger and several other scientists from Peenemunde to the Central Works for a meeting at which they would present it. As the SS saw it, the problem was not the inhuman working and living conditions at the Central Works, but the quality of the prisoners used. Of course such subhuman animals as the concentration camp inmates could not be expected to turn out a product of such quality as a rocket, and they had been wrong in thinking so. So the SS now proposed to von Braun and Dornberger that they would simply "draft" 1,800 skilled workmen in France and transfer them to the Central Works. MAY, 1944, ISTANBUL, TURKEY. As the Red Army moved west, Hitler became more and more convinced that Britain and the United States would soon seek to form an alliance with Germany against the Soviet Union. Hitler and Himmler came up with a new plan for opening negotiations with Churchill and Roosevelt. They now sent Joel Brand to approach Zionist leaders in Istanbul. Accompanying Brand was Andre Gyorgi, who they had tasked to arrange for a place for a meeting between the SS and Britain and the United States for the negotiation of a separate peace. Brand told the Zionist leaders that 12,000 Jews a day were being sent to Auschwitz to be killed, but that all the remaining Jews in Hungary would be spared in exchange for 800 tons of coffee, 800 tons of tea, 200 tons of cocoa, 2,000,000 bars of soap, and 10,000 trucks which would only be used on the Soviet front. The Zionists informed their British contacts in the Middle East about Brand's offer. Brand also approached the American consul in Istanbul, who rapidly concluded that Brand's mission was an effort to sow mistrust between the Soviet Union and Britain and the United States by using the trucks which would be obtained from the deal against the Red Army. Brand also approached American Jews in Istanbul, who urged that while the deal Brand offered had to be rejected, the line of communication had to be kept open. 12 MAY, 1944, BERLIN. As Speer expected, Himmler failed to keep his promise to Hitler to immediately manufacture the necessary numbers of rockets. Only a little more than 400 rockets per month were begin built, not the 900 rockets Himmler had promised, and many of those rockets were defective. Speer now managed to get Hitler to transfer the development and testing and civilian manufacture of the rocket back to his own control, and to leave Himmler and his SS with only the task of expanding the factory at the Central Works. MAY, 1944, BERLIN. One of Speer's associates reported to him that Himmler's SS was arresting 30,000 to 40,000 foreign workers a month, taking them from their factories, and transferring them to their own factories. 15 MAY, 1944, LONDON. As the plans for the invasion of France were drawn up, the XX Twenty Committee established an intricate plan to deceive the Germans as to the time and place of the landings. They now arranged for BRONX to send a message stating that she had definite news that the invasion would take place at the Bay of Biscay around 15 June. Through other "agents" the XX Twenty Committee would instill in the Germans the idea that feints would be made before the main invasion, and that the invasion army would be much larger than it really was. 16 MAY, 1944, BERLIN. Hitler ordered German forces to prepare for the bombardment of London. The start of this bombardment was now scheduled for the same time as the start of the British and American invasion: 16 June. As the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket was still not ready, launches of the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile were to be joined by bomber attacks and barrages with conventional artillery. 31 MAY, 1944, PEENEMUNDE. Now that Speer had once again received authority from Hitler over the rocket's development and production, Himmler tried to block him in another way. Since Dornberger had appealed to General Fromm in December, 1943 that he remain in control of the rocket's development, Fromm had taken no action on his request. Despite this, Dornberger had managed to retain some control over the development of the rocket. Fromm now denied Dornberger's appeal, and while Speer now had authority, he had lost Dornberger and Dornberger's abilities to manage the rocket's development and production. The result would be a hopeless muddle. MAY, 1944, LONDON. Eisenhower had been appointed to command the invasion of Europe. As American analysts had continued to flounder in their understanding of the rocket, Eisenhower demanded from the British all the information they had on it. As Eisenhower had access to all the Enigma decrypts, he would now receive that information. JUNE, 1944, PEENEMUNDE. Through an exhaustive series of tests von Braun and his men finally found a way to reduce the portion of Vengeance Weapon 2 Rockets which failed in flight. By May, when this breakthrough occurred, nearly 1,000 defective rockets had already been manufactured at the Central Works. Production of the rockets was now delayed and reduced as the existing rockets were modified and the design changes incorporated into the production line. Production would fall from 437 rockets in May to 132 rockets in June. Clearly the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket would not be ready for the start of the barrage of London, now scheduled for 15 June. Hitler ordered a reduction in the production of the rockets. 10:00 A.M., 6 JUNE, 1944, GERMANY. German field commanders rapidly concluded that the invasion had taken place, and drew up plans to repulse it with attacks with the tanks they held in reserve. As Hitler thought that this attack was just a feint and that the main attack would take place in a week at the Bay of Biscay, he refused to allow his generals to commit their reserves. While Hitler did not allow his generals to send their tanks to stop the invasion, he did give them the order to begin the barrage of London with Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missiles. Hitler still expected that the main invasion was yet to come and he thought that it was time to begin the bombardment of Britain in order to disrupt it. By the next day the British and American forces would secure their landing areas and the German generals' opportunity for throwing the Allied invasion back into the sea would disappear. 13 JUNE, 1944, LONDON. When the first Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile fell on London on 13 June, the British and everyone else were greatly relieved to find that they only delivered explosive warheads and not gas. Since the missile only carried explosives, the British estimated that the total effect of the weapon would be inconsequential. JUNE, 1944, BERLIN. Klaus Riedel arrived at Nebel and Saur's new office in Bad Wisnack. Riedel told them that he had spoken with the managers of the secret Central Works about their "Automatic Worker" robot, and that they were interested in it and wanted Nebel to make a presentation in Berlin. The managers of the Central Works had a severe problem. They knew that the slave laborers were sabotaging the missiles and rockets, as they could see that 1 out of every 5 of them failed. In reality the actual extent of the sabotage was even greater than the managers knew, for many failures due to sabotage were going unseen. While the managers needed to stop the sabotage, for obvious reasons the introduction of German civilian laborers into the secret forced labor factories was not possible. That left the managers with Nebel and Saur's "Automatic Worker" robots, which would be incapable of sabotage. Nebel and Saur would receive a contract for the robots, and Nebel would go to the Central Works to install 20 of their robots on the production line for the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile, as well as to take over the management of a part of the production line. 27 JUNE, 1944, BANSIN, OUTSIDE PEENEMUNDE. While the German Army had been able to initially hold the American and British invasion force to a small coastal area, by now the Allied forces had broken out and put the German Army in a rout. It was clear to the German officers in charge of the operational use of the vengeance rocket that the British and American armies would soon overrun their launch sites in western France. They made a decision to pull back to positions north and east of the Somme River, but Hitler would not accept their analysis and he forbid the crise missiles withdrawal. JUNE, 1944. Between 1940 and 1942 Dr.Walter Thiel had worked at Peenemunde on the designs for two rockets. One of the designs Thiel worked on had been for the Assembly 9 Rocket, an Assembly 4 Rocket equipped with wings, fueled by visol and nitric acid, and with a long running engine to double its range. Thiel's other design had been for a first stage booster which would give this rocket intercontinental range, the ability to hit the United States. In October, 1942, Hitler had cancelled Thiel's work on long range rockets, as he had wanted the Assembly 4 Rocket to be perfected so that 5,000 of them could be mass produced in 1943 for a first strike on London. Dr. Walter Thiel had been killed during the British bombing raid on Peenemunde in August, 1943. Hitler and the German Army now needed Thiel's rockets. As the British and American armies were advancing in France the western launch points for the V2 rocket would soon be lost, and it would no longer been possible for them to launch their Vengeance Weapon 2 rocket against London. But the winged Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket would have twice the range of the regular unwinged rocket, some 450 kilometers (280 miles), and with it they would be able to launch attacks against London from Belgium, Holland, or most points in north western Germany. In addition, while American bombers were raining death on the cities of Germany, Hitler had no way of attacking America at home, but with the intercontinental "America" Rocket he would have a means of striking back. Hitler now decided that both the winged long range rocket and the intercontinental rocket would be built. Why he decided that it made sense to spend the tremendous resources that would be needed to build these rockets, in order to deliver a one ton payload of explosives to the United States or to Britain has never been revealed. But if the rockets' payload were not conventional explosives but instead nerve gas, and if that nerve gas were targeted for densely populated areas like London or New York City, then such an expenditure may have made great sense to Hitler. The new long range rockets fit well into such a plan. Speer would later reveal that Hitler's scientists had encountered a problem arming the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket with nerve gas warheads. These warheads required the use of an explosive charge to disperse their nerve gases, and Hitler's scientists had already found out that the rocket travelled too fast at impact to allow their explosions time to disperse the gas: the rocket would be buried in the earth by the time its explosion went off, and the gas would just be propelled into the walls of the impact crater of the explosion. As a result of this discovery, Hitler's scientists had developed a new warhead for the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket which used the "conventional" chemical agent phosgene, and concentrated their work on developing nerve gas warheads for delivery by the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile, whose speed at impact was much lower. The reader must keep in mind that the new winged rockets whose development Hitler would order von Braun to undertake would also impact at much slower speeds. The new winged rockets' impact speeds would be low enough to allow the explosion of their warheads to disperse nerve gas, just like the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile could. Speer argued with Hitler against his new plan. He argued that the resources of Peenemunde which Hitler intended to devote to the development of the new rockets should instead be devoted to the development of the anti-aircraft rockets. In May, 1944 the Allies had begun a bombing campaign against Germany's fuel production facilities. If the British and American bomber campaign continued, they would not have enough resources to build the new rockets before the Allies conquered Germany. If they developed anti-aircraft rockets instead of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket and these new rockets, and if they converted the Messerschmitt 262 jet aircraft from its role as a bomber which both Speer and Hitler knew could carry nerve gas back to its role as a fighter which could intercept the Allied bombers, Germany would once again be able to establish control over its own skies. It made no sense to Speer for them not to launch a gas attack while the British and American bombers were freely roaming over Germany, for if they did so they would be faced with massive retaliation in kind delivered by the British and American bombers. Hitler rejected Speer's arguments using the most specious rationalizations, as he thought that a massive attack with Tabun and Sarin would immediately put an end to Britain's, and then the United States', ability to carry on the war. Hitler still could not accept Ambros's conclusion that the Allies had chemical weapons as deadly as Tabun and Sarin, nor could he accept his resultant loss of power. JUNE, 1944, PEENEMUNDE. In October, 1942 Speer had presented Hitler with a proposal to modify the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket so that it could carry a much heavier payload of conventional explosives for a much shorter range. When von Braun and Dornberger had made their presentation on the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket in July, 1943 Hitler had picked up this idea and had demanded that they develop a rocket which could carry tens tons of explosive and which would be produced at a rate of 2,000 a month. von Braun and Dornberger had argued against this and had attempted to convince Hitler that this was an impossible goal as it would take five years to develop this rocket and that the use of such rockets would require enormous amounts of fuel. von Braun and Dornberger had made these reservations at a different time about a different rocket. At Hitler's order von Braun now resumed work on Dr. Walter Thiel's long range Assembly 9 Rocket and the intercontinental "America" Rocket. 1 JULY, 1944. Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg was born in 1907 to a family of noble and military lineage and following family tradition von Stauffenberg joined the army as a young man. He supported Hitler when he had come to power, but Hitler's persecutions of the Jews and his invasion of Poland led the Count to despise him. Despite his feelings the Count had just soldiered on. In the summer of 1941 the Count met Henning von Tresckow while on a visit to the Russian front. von Tresckow sounded the Count out about Hitler, but while the Count agreed that Hitler must be removed, he showed no sign of wanting to take an active role in doing it In March, 1943 von Tresckow unsuccessfully tried to kill Hitler by placing bombs aboard his airplane. In April, 1943 the Count was wounded while serving in North Africa and shortly thereafter began to work with the conspirators which by now included not only Canaris and Beck but also General Rommel, who was the commander of German defenses in France. In September, 1943 Beck assigned the Count to plan operation "Valkyrie", an operation to seize control of the government after Hitler's death. After the Count recovered from his wounds the Army sent him to Berlin to work on the staff of the Reserve Army. While he was on the staff the Count had performed his duties with such admirable efficiency that on 1 July, 1944 he was appointed Chief of Staff for the Home Army. von Stauffenberg now realized that he alone would now have the perfect opportunity to kill Hitler. He alone would be able to plant a bomb at one of the many conferences he would be having with Hitler. 6 JULY, 1944, HOUSE OF COMMONS, LONDON. The German conspirators now sent an offer to London. If they assassinated Hitler, would Britain accept Germany's surrender separate from a surrender to the Soviet Union? Deputy Prime Minister Clement Atlee rose in Parliament and accepted their offer. "So far as His Majesty's Government is concerned, it has repeatedly been made clear in public statements that we shall fight on until Germany has been forced to capitulate and until Nazism is extirpated. It is for the German people to draw the logical conclusion. If any section of them wants to see a return to a regime based on respect for international law and for the rights of the individual, they must understand that no one will believe them until they have themselves taken active steps to rid themselves of their present regime. The longer they continue to support and to tolerate their present rulers, the heavier grows their own direct responsibility for the destruction that is being wrought throughout the world, and not least in their own country." JULY, 1944, SWITZERLAND. The German conspirators relayed the same offer to the Americans through Allen Dulles, the head of United States intelligence operating out of Switzerland. If they assassinated Hitler, would the United States accept Germany's surrender separate from a surrender to the Soviet Union? Dulles sent their offer back to Washington, but whether the conspirators message ever reached Roosevelt or whether Roosevelt rejected the conspirators' offer is still unknown. 7 JULY, 1944, GERMANY. Since Speer did not support Hitler's new strategy, Hitler would now begin to exclude Speer from all future debates over strategy, and Hitler would begin to transfer control of the projects for chemical weapons and for rockets from Speer to Himmler. Hitler also ordered the experiments with the incendiary N-material to be transferred to Himmler's SS. JULY, 1944, PEENEMUNDE. At this time Hitler also stripped Speer of control of the rocket. The command structure at Peenemunde was reorganized and Dornberger was stripped of his powers over the rocket's development and production. Dornberger would loudly complain to those around him, but after SS manager of rocket production Hans Kammler met with members of the German Army they would call Dornberger to Berlin, reprove him, and reprimand him. JULY, 1944?, CASTLE SACHSENBURG. The Germans began construction of a plant for the production of vaccine against plague, undoubtedly for Himmler's friend Gross's new plague vaccine. Himmler now expected that an attack on Germany with plague would be made, most likely by the Russians in response to the German chemical attack with nerve gases. 6 JULY, 1944, WATTEN. Just as Dornberger had warned earlier, British intelligence experts identified the large bunkers being built near the coast in France as being connected with the rockets, and Churchill was determined to take them out. Since the bunkers were built of up to 18 feet of steel reinforced concrete, British engineers developed a special type of bomb to attack this type of structure. The Allies would first attack the bunker at Watten, and they would follow this with raids on the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket launch bunkers at Mimoyecques and Wizernes and on the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile bunker at Siracourt. The Allies' new bombs would render these bunkers completely useless, and in the end the Germans would have to move launch operations to the mobile platforms which Dornberger had already developed. Despite the effectiveness of the Allies bombing raids, Hitler would order that work be continued on the bunkers, whose design he and Speer had worked on together back in 1939. 6 JULY, 1944, LONDON. The barrage of London with Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missiles had started on 12 June. More than 2,000 missiles had fallen, and while the casualties had been light, their psychological effect had been terrible. While all of the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missiles had delivered less explosive than the amount delivered by one bombing raid, unlike a bombing raid there had been no start or finish to the missile’s attack. Everyone remained on constant alert, their nerves frayed by day after day of the buzzing sound of the cruise missile's engine, which alerted everyone that an explosion nearby would soon follow. While the Allies had already conducted bomber raids on the large bunkers for the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket and the launching ramps for the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missiles, British intelligence had also identified caves in northern France where 2,000 cruise missiles were stored, and from 4-8 July the Allies conducted massive bombing raids on these storage facilities. Despite the complete loss of these missiles the Vengeance Weapon 1 attacks continued. As bad as the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile attack was, Churchill expected worse, as British intelligence experts had estimated the payload of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket would be 10 tons, ten times that of the Vengeance Weapon 1. Churchill ordered a retaliatory bombing raid on Berlin, and he had suggested that a list of 100 German towns be published and that they be obliterated one after another until the barrage of London stopped. His military leaders rejected this plan because it would alert the Germans as to where their attacks would occur and thus the attacking bombers would suffer heavy casualties. Finally, Churchill asked the Joint Planning Staff to look at the use of gas against the launch points. The Joint Planning Staff rejected this tactic because if they used gas then the Germans might use gas against the Allied troops in France. The Joint Planning Staff also did not like Churchill's idea of using gas against the Vengeance Weapon 1 launch sites simply because it would be ineffective, because these sites were dispersed and usually unmanned. Churchill was not satisfied with the Joint Planning Staff's analysis and he now sent them a detailed set of orders: "1. I want you to think very seriously over this question of poison gas. I would not use it unless it could be shown either that (a) it was life or death for us, or (b) that it would shorten the war by a year. "2. It is absurd to consider morality on this topic when everybody used it in the last war without a word of complaint from the moralists or the Church. On the other hand, in the last war the bombing of open cities was regarded as forbidden; now everybody does it as a matter of course. It is simply a question of fashion changing as she does between long and short skirts for women. "3. I want a cold blooded calculation made as to how it would pay us to use poison gas, by which I mean principally mustard. We will want to gain more ground in Normandy so as not to be cooped up in a small area. We could probably deliver 20 tons to their 1 and for the sake of the 1 they would bring their bomber aircraft into the area against our superiority, thus paying a heavy toll. "4. Why have the Germans not used it? Not certainly out of moral scruples or affection for us. They have not used it because it does not pay them. The greatest temptation ever offered to them was the beaches of Normandy. This they could have drenched with gas greatly to the hindrance of our troops. That they thought about it is certain, and that they prepared against our use of gas is also certain. But the only reason they have not used it against us is that they fear the retaliation. What is to their detriment is to our advantage. "5. Although one sees how unpleasant it is to receive poison gas attacks, from which nearly everyone recovers, it is useless to protest that an equal amount of H.E. (High Explosive) will not inflict greater cruelties and sufferings on troops or civilians. One really must not be bound within silly conventions of the mind, whether they be those that ruled in the last war or those in reverse which rule in this. "6. If the bombardment of London really became a serious nuisance and great rockets with far reaching and devastating effect fell on many centers of Government and labour, I should be prepared to do anything that would hit the enemy in a murderous place. I may certainly have to ask you to support me in using poison gas. We could drench the cities of the Ruhr and many other cities in Germany in such a way that most of the population would be requiring constant medical attention. We could stop all work at the flying bomb starting points. "I do not see why we should always have all the disadvantages of being the gentleman while they have all the advantages of being the cad. There are times when this may be so but not now. "7. I quite agree it may be several weeks or even months before I shall ask you to drench Germany with poison gas, and if we do it, let us do it one hundred per cent. In the meanwhile, I want the matter studied in cold blood by sensible people and not by that particular set of psalm singing uniformed defeatists which one runs across now here, now there. "Pray address yourself to this. It is a big thing and can only be discarded for a big reason. I shall of course have to square Uncle Joe and the President, but you need not bring this into your calculations at the present time. Just try to find out what it is like on its merits." WSC" [Winston Spencer Churchill] 12 JULY, 1944, HOUSE OF COMMONS, LONDON. Probably in response to the offer of the German conspirators, during the question and answer period Churchill repeated before the members of the Parliament his advice to the Germans to "overthrow their Nazi taskmasters". JULY, 1944. Hitler took the statements made by the British Foreign Minister and Churchill seriously and he concluded that some Germans would attempt to either overthrow him or to assassinate him. He called in Speer and told him that he wanted him to give the SS an economic empire so that under his successors the SS would be able to stand up independently to any new government in Germany. 18 JULY, 1944. As British and American troops continued their advance into Europe, Hitler was finally forced to accept the conclusions which the German Army men in charge of the operational use of the rocket had reached earlier. Hitler gave them approval to abandon the launch positions south and west of the Somme River, positions which included his beloved bunkers, whose design he and Speer had worked on back in 1939. Despite this, Hitler would still insist that they continue work on the liquid oxygen plant at Watten and that they leave laborers at Wizernes, supposedly as a way to deceive the British and Americans and cause them to continue to waste bombs on it. All the resources which Hitler had put into the construction of the bunkers, resources with which he could have improved the defenses of the coast in France, he had wasted. Dornberger had been right. 20 JULY, 1944, WOLF'S LAIR, RASTENBURG, EAST PRUSSIA. While the United States and Britain had been less than enthusiastic in their response to the German conspirators' offer, the Red Army was advancing, and the conspirators knew that they could loose no time. von Stauffenberg passed up opportunities to kill Hitler on 11 July, 13 July, and 15 July only because Himmler and Goering had not been present as well, and thus he would not have been able to kill them also. The conspirators had sent the signal for operation "Valkyrie" so many times that even General Keitel, the dullard who headed the Supreme Command of the German Army, was beginning to become suspicious. On 20 July von Stauffenberg attended a conference with Hitler and left behind his briefcase, inside of which the conspirators had constructed a bomb. But one of Hitler's aides moved von Stauffenberg's briefcase, and when the bomb exploded the force of the explosion was absorbed and deflected away from Hitler by the heavy conference room table. 20 JULY, 1944, WOLF'S LAIR, RASTENBURG, EAST PRUSSIA. With incredibly bad luck in timing Mussolini had scheduled a meeting with Hitler which was supposed to take place only two hours after the failed assassination attempt. But Hitler did not cancel this meeting, and he now showed Mussolini the remains of the room where the bombing had occurred. "When I reflect on all this, I must say that it is obvious to me that nothing is going to happen to me. Undoubtedly it is my fate to continue on my way and to bring my task to completion. It is not the first time I have escaped death miraculously. First there were times in the first war, and during my political career there were a series of marvelous escapes. What happened here today is the climax. And having now escaped death in such an extraordinary manner, I am more convinced than ever that the great cause I serve will be brought through its present perils and the everything can be brought to a good end." Hitler then left Mussolini sitting while he dealt with tracking down the conspirators. Though it is remarkable that Hitler did not use the word God, it is obvious from this statement that he considered his mission was God's will and that God had made he himself His instrument. Hitler believed that killing the Jews who were not Christian was what God wanted and that destroying the atheist communists was what God wanted. Hitler was not alone in these beliefs: they were held by very many Germans. Indeed, at this time many of the Protestant and Catholic church leaders were engaged in keeping themselves ignorant about the death camps; or if they knew about them they remained silent; and if neither of these, they were actively engaged in identifying Jews and others to the SS. And most Germans knew these people were being killed or at least mysteriously disappearing, but they actively chose to not know anything more about it. After Hitler had started the process of rounding up the assassins, he had high tea with Keitel, Goering, Doenitz, von Ribbentrop, and Mussolini. Hitler was calm till someone mentioned Roehm, and then he burst into a screaming rage for a half hour. Hitler clearly revealed another aspect of his personality at the beginning of his rage: "Providence, by saving me from death, has shown that I am the man of destiny for whom the world has been waiting." To Hitler's mind anyone who interfered with God's will was certainly worthy of death. Hitler went on. He would not only kill the traitors, he would kill their wives and children. He thought that their bad blood extended to the assassins' families, and in von Stauffenberg's case Hitler would order the death of all of his relatives. As his rage continued, the extent of the guilt expanded, and at the end Hitler broke down into tears, and even accused his associates: "All Germans, even my closest associates, are ungrateful monsters." Mussolini then left the group while Hitler's colleagues comforted him. When Mussolini met again with Hitler later in the afternoon he managed to get him to transfer Italian troops from the eastern front with the Soviet Union back to Germany and Italy, and to get Hitler to agree to give better conditions to the Italian soldiers who the Germans had interned when he was forced out of power. Hitler then told Mussolini that he intended to regain control of the air by massing his planes into 2,000 or 3,000 plane groups and then throwing them against one front at a time. Hitler did not realize that he no longer had 2,000 planes left. As Mussolini boarded the train to leave Hitler bid him farewell. "I know I can count upon you, and, please, believe me when I say that I consider you my best and perhaps only friend I have in this world." As Mussolini left Hitler turned to an aid and gave him an order. "Keep an eye on him, Rahn." 20 JULY, 1944, BERLIN. Early on the conspirators had invited General Fromm to join them, and while Fromm had not joined them he had done nothing to stop them. Members of the conspiracy now went to Fromm to gain his support, but when Fromm found out that their attempt had failed he ordered them arrested. Fromm then allowed Beck to commit suicide, and he ordered the immediate shooting of von Stauffenberg and the other conspirators who were present at his office. Other conspirators would later be identified, arrested, tried, convicted, and then executed by slow strangulation with piano wire. Their deaths would be filmed and the films would be shown to German Army troops as a warning against revolt. Hitler himself would watch these films for enjoyment. As Hitler had promised, the members of the families of the conspirators would be arrested and shipped to concentration camps where it was expected that they too would be killed. In all nearly 5,000 people would be killed. Rommel was too public a figure to be arrested in this manner, and he was offered the choice of suicide with no retribution on his family, or of arrest and trial with retribution on his family implied. Rommel would commit "suicide". Canaris was implicated in the scheme, but he had taken great care to hide his diaries and his notes on the conspiracy. He was arrested and placed in rather good conditions in a concentration camp. Thus the secret of the remainder of the Black Orchestra and of Canaris' contacts with British and American intelligence remained safe for the time being. Despite his actions when the assassination failed, Fromm would also be implicated and he too would be arrested, though he would not be executed until February, 1944 and then on charges of cowardice. To this day it is not known if Canaris passed back to British intelligence any of Fromm's detailed knowledge of both the nerve gas and rocket programs. Dornberger had now lost his commander. 27 JULY, 1944, LONDON. After their initial work Churchill had broadened his order to the Joint Planning Staff to include an examination of the use of biological as well as chemical weapons against the Germans. Churchill had kept prodding the Joint Planning Staff to produce this report, and on 27 July they delivered it. The Joint Planning Staff pointed out to Churchill that if they used gas against the Germans, the populations of the countries in which gas was used were likely to be doused with it as well, and that they would then more likely come to the support of the Germans. Furthermore, the Germans would respond in kind upon Britain, and the people of Britain might hold it against Churchill. As for biological weapons, it would be another year before adequate stocks to conduct an attack would be on hand, and the war would be over by then. The Joint Planning Staff had no idea that the Germans possessed nerve gas. If Britain had now made a gas attack on Germany with conventional gases, Hitler would have immediately known that the British did not possess nerve gases. Hitler would have changed the warheads carried by the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missiles and the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rockets to the nerve gas warheads that had already been developed by the German Army at Spandau. Churchill would not have needed to worry about the resentment of the British people at their being gassed for the simple reason that they would have been dead. Britain would have fallen, but while it might have been able to launch an anthrax attack against Germany before it did, an attack that would have turned Germany into an uninhabitable death zone forever. At the same time Hitler would have unleashed a gas attack against the Red Army, and with the air superiority that the Germans still enjoyed on the Eastern Front he could have ended the Soviet Union by simply killing all of the Communist leadership in Moscow. The United States had massive quantities of gas and biological weapons, but Britain would have collapsed or fallen before they would have arrived in the theater. Without a base to work from in Europe, the United States would have withdrawn from Europe, and while the war with Japan would have continued although now with gas and biological weapons, the Japanese would have responded in kind on American troops with weapons supplied by Germany. The losses would have been very great. Would Roosevelt have had to stop the war? We can all give great thanks that none of this happened. Instead Churchill came to the conclusion that it made no sense to use conventional gas weapons until Hitler used them or the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rockets with their 10 ton warheads began to fall on London, both of which Churchill still viewed as being inevitable. "I am not at all convinced by this negative report. But clearly I can not make head against the parsons and the warriors at the same time. The matter should be kept under review and brought up again when things get worse." JULY, 1944, LONDON. When Hitler had invaded North Africa and then the Soviet Union, the German leaders had had to shift parts of their Air Force away from Britain in order to support their armies there. With the beginning of the bombing campaign against Germany, and then the entry of the United States into the war and the arrival in Britain of the United States Air Force, the Allies had forced Hitler and Goering to shift even more planes out of Northern France for the protection of Germany's cities. The Germans had not only lost control of the skies over their cities, which had let the British and Americans conduct bombing raids which had crippled the production programs for the cruise missile and the rocket, but they had also lost all control of the air over Britain and Northern France, and this allowed the British and Americans to conduct photographic reconnaissance flights, which now allowed them to conduct bombing raids which crippled the cruise missile and rocket launch sites. This lack of control of the air also made it impossible for the Germans to now use photographic reconnaissance to find out the results of their Vengeance weapon attacks on London. They now sent requests to their agents in Britain asking for information on where the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missiles were landing and how much damage were they doing. The XX Twenty Committee now came up with a new plan for foiling the Germans' bombardment. In an attempt to get them to change their aim, Churchill approved the plan the Committee proposed that they have the Germans' "agents" send false reports to them about the impact area of the missiles. But since other people would be killed at the new impact sites Churchill demanded that the project be placed under his personal control. The XX Twenty Committee's plan would work: the German "agents" would send their reports, and the Germans would change the aim of their Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missiles. A short while later when Hitler started his rocket attack the XX Twenty Committee would use a variant of the same technique to foil the aiming of the Vengeance Weapon 2 2ockets. An interesting result of the XX Twenty Committee's activities would be that for many years to come Wernher von Braun would have serious reservations about the accuracy of rockets. 7 JULY, 1944, BUDAPEST, HUNGARY. Admiral Horthy, the regent of Hungary halted the shipment of Jews from Hungary to the extermination centers. Hitler demanded that Horthy resume the shipments and told him that his action was treason. Horthy told Hitler that his conscious forbid him from acquiescing to his demand. In October Hitler would have Horthy removed from power and arrested. JULY, 1944, BLIZNA, POLAND. Churchill was notified that Blizna was about to be taken and he had asked Stalin for permission to send technical experts to examine the facilities for the testing of the rocket that had been built there. Stalin granted Churchill's request, but when Soviet troops took control of the "test" facility they began to strip it of everything of use. When the British technical experts were finally allowed to enter the facility nothing was left, and even the rocket fragments that they would be able to collect from the surrounding area would be intercepted by the Soviets as they were being sent back to London. LATE JULY, 1944, BERLIN. Speer knew Himmler's attempt to take over the production of the incendiary N-material was part of an attempt by him to gain control of the production of the nerve gas Sarin, which was also produced at Falkenhagen. Speer now attempted to convince Hitler that the SS should not run chemical plants, as they had no skill in doing so, and that the SS should not take over the production of the incendiary N-material, but should be limited to testing it. Speer argued that production of N-material would interfere with the production of Sarin, and he pointed out that it was unwise to put a plant for manufacturing an incendiary next to a plant for manufacturing nerve gas. Hitler agreed with Speer, and when Speer left he thought that he had managed to re-establish his control over these factories. 4 AUGUST, 1944, PEENEMUNDE. Speer's name had been found on a list of ministers that the assassination conspirators thought they would be able to work with after Hitler's death. Speer was put under suspicion, Fromm was gone, and the German Army was reeling from the discovery of the conspiracy. Himmler used the occasion to once again extend his authority over the rocket program. He now took over the corporation that Speer had set up earlier in an effort to shield the rocket program from Himmler’s control. On 4 August SS (Major? Lieutenant?) General Hans Kammler took over as Provisional Commissioner for the rocket program and on 8 August Hitler appointed Kammler General Commissioner for the entire rocket program. Kammler's authority not only included the manufacture of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket and its deployment in the field, but also von Braun's efforts to develop the winged long range version of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket and the intercontinental "America" Rocket. Dornberger was reduced to overseeing the management of a mobile launch battery for the rocket. Hitler gave Kammler his strategy and ordered him to make it a reality. For his part Kammler now harbored the idea that only he could win the war for Germany, and he threw himself into his work with complete determination. With Germany collapsing around him, Kammler would lead mankind's first attempt to build an inter-continental ballistic missile. AUGUST, 1944, FALKENHAGEN. Despite his earlier apparent agreement with Speer, Hitler had left the factories at Falkenhagen under Himmler's control. Hitler would now transfer ownership of the N-material plant from I.G. Farben to Himmler and the SS. 11 AUGUST, 1944, PEENEMUNDE. Since von Braun had received Hitler's order at the end of June he had been hard at work. He had picked up Dr. Walter Thiel's tests at the point that they had been stopped in October, 1942. He equipped Thiel's Assembly 7 Rocket with engines from the Assembly 5 Rocket, and then launched it from bombers to see how well it would fly. The tests had been a success, and they were followed by launches of the new rocket from the ground. While Thiel had proposed that they should use visol and nitric acid to fuel both the Assembly 9 Rocket and the Assembly 10 Rocket, von Braun decided they would stick with liquid oxygen and alcohol as fuels for Assembly 9 Rocket for the time being. Germany did not have sufficient supplies of visol and nitric acid and they were difficult to handle. von Braun did not know how visol and nitric acid would perform in regular use, and the German Army would be able to put the rocket into immediate operational use if they kept the normal fuels of liquid oxygen and alcohol. von Braun gave the new rocket the new name of "Assembly 4B", which secured for the development of this new rocket the same priority as that enjoyed by the Assembly 4 Rocket. His calculations complete, on 11 August von Braun gave via the Army Ordinance Department his personal guarantee to Kammler that the range of the winged version of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket would be 435 kilometers (270 miles). AUGUST, 1944, BANSIN. Dornberger was depressed by his loss to Kammler of control over the rocket's development, and he now decided to also give up his role in the field operation of the rocket. He discussed his decision with his friends at Peenemunde and then returned to his home in Bansin to fill out an application for reassignment von Braun and Steinhoff showed up at Dornberger's home. von Braun's motives for pleading with Dornberger are clear. For the last ten years von Braun had worked for Dornberger developing weapons for Hitler. von Braun had received his authority from him, and in the past he had depended upon Dornberger as a moral compass. Now von Braun depended upon Dornberger to keep him out of Himmler's clutches. With Steinhoff the situation was different. Steinhoff was responsible for the development of the guidance system for the rocket, and he had developed a relationship with Stegmaier, the Nazi fanatic and SS commander at Peenemunde, shortly after Stegmaier had arrived there. Since Steinhoff had struck up his relationship with Stegmaier the SS had always interceded to provide him with the resources von Braun had requested and they had made sure that he had been included among the participants at all major meetings. von Braun and Steinhoff now pleaded with Dornberger to stay on with the project. He would have to help Kammler, they pleaded with him, who would otherwise be unable to understand the rocket's technology. Dornberger rejected their plea by pointing out to them that Kammler would not listen to him. von Braun and Steinhoff then switched to another argument. They told Dornberger that irrespective of their own views and wishes, the A4 [Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket] had to be completed and brought into action lest they be blamed for its failure. At first Dornberger did not give them any immediate answer, and they left alone. Whether from a sense of duty, or from the realization of what the consequences of the failure of the rocket would be for himself and his family, Dornberger would change his mind. Several days later Dornberger would decide to stay on at Peenemunde. 26 AUGUST, 1944, BERLIN. Himmler now decided to try to continue Hitler's strategy of dividing the United States and Britain from the Soviet Union by negotiating a separate peace with them. With the help of Carl Langbehn and General Wolff, Himmler tried to open a channel of negotiations with the United States through Allen Dulles in Switzerland. Apparently either the leadership of Britain or the United States had by now decided that not only was Himmler's offer unacceptable, but that the channel itself was of no value. They decided that if Himmler's attempt were made known it would cause confusion among the leadership in Germany, and they quickly publicized Langbehn's effort. Himmler then ordered Langbehn's arrest. At about the same time the line of communication that Brand had established earlier in year in Turkey, and a channel which had been kept open since then, was shut down. In August Brand would be lured to Cairo, and news of his offer would be made public. The United States and Britain would then publicly reject the offer and arrest Brand, perhaps with the intent of trading him for Langbehn. AUGUST, 1944, PEENEMUNDE. Klaus Riedel was killed when his automobile failed. The right axle of his car had been sawn through. Who did it, whether it was the SS, or British agents that had been infiltrated into the facility among the laborers, or whether it was somebody else, would never be established. Wernher von Braun's brother Magnus visited with Riedel's widow and told her, "You should not speak of murder. That could cost you dearly." AUGUST, 1944. Hitler had already restricted Speer's powers and expelled him from his counsels, and he would now begin to openly insult Speer. When his power had been stripped from him, Speer had begun to think independently, and Hitler's insults finally forced him to the conclusion that the war was lost and that Hitler had long been insane. 29 AUGUST, 1944. By 29 August, 1944 Hitler decided that no matter what the difficulties it was absolutely necessary that the bombardment of Britain begin. Kammler went to Brussels, set up his headquarters, and called Dornberger and the other Army commanders in to give them their orders. Dornberger and the others insisted that they were still in charge of the deployment of the rocket. Kammler told them that he would get new directives from Himmler and told them to report to their commanders. On 31 August Kammler received yet another document assigning him responsibility for all military deployments of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket. SEPTEMBER, 1944. In response to Churchill's prodding of July, the biological weapons researchers had come up with a scheme. The German potato had a natural pest, the potato beetle, and without potatoes it would be impossible for the Germans to brew the alcohol which they used to fuel their rockets. The biological weapons researchers proposed to breed millions of potato beetles and release them over Germany by bomber. Whether their plan was adopted or not is not known, but Germany did indeed suffer an infestation of the Colorado potato beetle in the winter of 1944. 6 SEPTEMBER, 1944, PARIS. As the Allies approached Paris Hitler ordered his commanding general there to destroy it. The general then decided to preserve the city and he ignored Hitler's orders and Paris fell intact to the Allies. Hitler now decided that Paris would be a suitable target for destruction by rocket, and in this way the first use in history of a ballistic rocket against a civilian target would not be made against London, but against Paris. As von Braun and Steinhoff had still not ironed out the rocket's control problems, instead of falling in the center of Paris the rocket fell in a remote area and did little damage. 8 SEPTEMBER, 1944, CHESWICK, OUTSIDE LONDON. People in the south of Britain heard an unusual sound. Throughout the war there had already been many large explosions and many different sounds, but this one was a little different. To many the sound was like thunder. What the people were actually hearing was something entirely new: it was the sonic shock wave produced as one of Wernher von Braun's Vengeance Weapon 2 Rockets flew faster than the speed of sound. The rocket fell in Cheswick and exploded, killing 3 people and wounding 10 more. As there had been no sound of the rocket's approach its victims were absolutely surprised by its warhead's explosion. Those not close enough to have their hearing deafened by the explosion noticed something unusual: after the explosion, they could hear the sound of the rocket approaching. SEPTEMBER, 1944, NEW YORK. After the disastrous tests of 1936 Willy Ley had put aside rocketry for the time being and devoted his efforts to staying alive by doing science writing. When the war broke out Ley's knowledge of explosives which he had acquired in rocketry allowed him to make himself the weapons expert for a newspaper, and he had also written a civil defense book on bombs and their effects. But Ley had not abandoned rocketry completely, and in May, 1943 he published his book "Rockets: The Future of Travel Beyond the Stratosphere", in which he had predicted that rockets would not be used in the current war. When the first Vengeance Weapon 2 Rockets hit London in September, 1944 Willy Ley instantly became THE AUTHORITY in the United States on rockets. A short while later the United States government would hire him to provide them with intelligence estimates on von Braun's rockets. SEPTEMBER, 1944, AUSCHWITZ CONCENTRATION CAMP. Commandant Hoess realized that the success of the British and American amphibious assault meant that a victory over Germany by the Allies was now inevitable. Hoess began to plan for the destruction of all evidence of his crimes: the records, the camps, and the prisoners themselves. SEPTEMBER, 1944, GERMANY. Dr. Robert Ley, the SS man in charge of all laborers in Germany, including those working in Himmler's concentration camp factories, confronted Speer as they shared drinks after dinner aboard his private railway car. "You know we have this new poison gas. I've heard about it. The Fuehrer must do it. He must use it. Now he has to do it! When else? This is the last moment. You too must make him realize that it is time." SEPTEMBER, 1944, GERMANY. In addition to Robert Ley, Propaganda Minister Goebbels would also urge Hitler to use the nerve gaess. Hitler knew that if he used the gases he could expect retaliation, and he now sent out an order to start a crash program to equip the entire population of Germany with gas masks. SEPTEMBER, 1944, FALKENHAGEN. Although the German Army's tests had shown that N-material was unusable as a weapon, Himmler had begun its production at Falkenhagen in order to take control of the production there of the nerve gas Sarin. As Speer had predicted, the production of N-material diverted resources from the production of the nerve gas Sarin. Himmler began to move the machines used to produce Sarin into underground bunkers. 17-22 SEPTEMBER, 1944, ARNHEIM. As the Allied armies advanced in the west Hitler planned to organize the defense of Germany around the "Western Wall", a series of fortifications along Germany's western border. On 10 September British General Bernard Montgomery came to Eisenhower with his own plan to counter this strategy. Montgomery proposed to Eisenhower that instead of scattering their effort along a broad front, they should mount an air borne assault at Arnheim to flank the Western Wall and then make a drive on Berlin. Coincidentally, this flanking movement would also cut the Germans off from their launch points in Belgium for the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile and the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket, and thus would end the current danger to London. Eisenhower gave Montgomery his approval and on 17 September the attack began. Unfortunately for the Allies the Germans recovered a copy of their plans for the operation from a wrecked British glider and thus they would foil their effort to seize Arnheim. In early October Kammler would return to the Hague, and from there he would continue the rocket attack on London. As the Allies would move into Germany in the south at Remagen, from their new position Hitler and Kammler would be able to continue their rocket launches against London until the last weeks of the war. 23 SEPTEMBER, 1944. The British and American armies were advancing and the fixed ramp launch sites of the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile were being overrun. But thanks to Dornberger's earlier work, the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket had the ability to be launched from mobile batteries, and thus was free from the cruise missile's limitation. Hitler shifted his resources. He ordered a reduction in the cruise missile's priority, placing it after hand grenades and mortar rounds. At the same time he ordered resumption of the production of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket at the peak levels of May, 1944. OCTOBER, 1944, CUXHAVEN. The loss to the advancing Allied armies of the fixed launch bases in France for the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket presented Kammler with several problems. The Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket did not have enough range to reach London from the launch sites that were now available. At Cuxhaven on the western part of Germany's northern coast Kammler began construction of what would later be called "test stands for launches along the coast of Denmark". While test launches from Cuxhaven could land the winged long range Assembly4B Rocket somewhere in northern Norway, which was still under German control, the launch facility at Cuxhaven would also once again bring London within range of the winged long range version of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket. Having put Cuxhaven under construction, Kammler was still left with problems concerning the rocket's self contained mobile launch batteries. Kammler feared that the launch facility at Cuxhaven could be destroyed by bombers, and as Dornberger had long ago predicted, the mobile batteries had turned out to be the most effective way of launching the rockets and were free from bomber attack. But the mobile batteries depended upon fuel for movement, and the Allied bombing campaign was causing severe shortages of fuel in Germany. Kammler now also ordered the resumption of work on the development of the self contained railway train for launching the A4 rocket, as well as on the development of a mobile launcher which would burn wood instead of fuel for propulsion. OCTOBER, 1944, WASHINGTON. As the United States had moved across the Pacific island by island the Japanese soldiers had fought down to the last man with tremendous ferocity. The Japanese Army had now heavily fortified the island of Iwo Jima and turned a large part of it into one vast system of bunkers. The Joint Chiefs of Staff realized that Japanese resistance would only get worse when the United States invaded Japan proper, and they approved a plan for the use of gas against the Japanese troops on Iwo Jima. Roosevelt had always loathed the prospect of gas warfare, and he had already strongly rejected any first use of gas by the United States. Roosevelt now bluntly rejected the plan which had been put forth by his top military advisors, and put a postscript on it to remind them who was boss. "All prior endorsements denied - Franklin D. Roosevelt, Commander in Chief." OCTOBER, 1944. Himmler recommended to Hitler that he give General Dornberger the Knight's Cross. When Himmler asked Speer to make the formal application Speer recommended that von Braun be given the medal as well as Dornberger. Apparently thanks to the work of the XX Twenty Committee, Hitler was by now convinced that von Braun was a traitor. In addition, because of Speer's opposition to his current strategy, Hitler now questioned Speer's own loyalty. Hitler ignored Speer's suggestion. OCTOBER, 1944, GERMANY German Army scientists had long since developed other methods besides the Vengeance Weapon 1 and Vengeance Weapon 2 for `delivering the nerve gases Tabun and Sarin. Besides gas filled shells for the artillery and gas filled bombs for the Air Force, the Germany Army had also developed a nerve gas charge for the Nebelwerfer, a barrage rocket, for use against troops, and they had developed poisoned machine gun shells for use against tanks. With gas masks for the German people now in production, Hitler proposed to his generals that they could use gas against the Red Army. Hitler speculated to them that the British and American governments would not object to this because they desired to stop the Russian advance. When none of his generals spoke up in support of his idea, Hitler stopped conversation on the topic and he and his staff moved on to other matters. 11 OCTOBER, 1944. Speer broke with Hitler in June when he had realized that using nerve gas would lead to massive retaliation by the Allies' bombers upon the cities of Germany. By August, Speer realized that the war was over and that Hitler had been insane for quite some time. By September, Speer determined upon a plan to stop Hitler's folly by preventing the production of gas weapons by denying the factories which produced them the chemicals which they needed. On 11 October Speer informed Field Marshall Keitel that production of the chemicals used in the manufacture of the nerve gases Tabun and Sarin had stopped. Keitel would then go to Hitler, and Hitler would order that they were not to reduce the production of the nerve gases under any circumstances. 15 OCTOBER, 1944, CENTRAL WORKS. The resistors in the concentration camp at Buchenwald had concentrated their first efforts on the main tasks of smuggling out to the world a description of the holocaust that was occurring there, as well as the immediate tasks of their own survival. When the SS had started construction of the new munitions plants at the Central Works the resistors had found an the opportunity to begin new tasks, those of stopping and hindering the construction of the new munitions plant and smuggling out the details of its existence and location to the Allies. Among the German political prisoners who were involved in resistance were Albert Kuntz, Christian Beham, August Kroneberg, Fritz Lehmann, Otto Runki, Heinz Schneider, Ludwik Szymczak, George Thomas, Jupp Wortmann. Among the Czechs involved were Jan Pisala, Jan Cespiva, Lubomir Bastar, Frantisek Blaha, Jan Chaloupka, Frantisek Linhard, Vaclav Polak. Among the Poles involved were Jan Boleslaw Krokowski, Jan Bogusawski, Marek Kolczynski, Antoni Kuligowski, Bohdan Kwiatkowski, Tadeusz Patzer, Stanislaw Ponikiewski, Jozef Radzyminski, Jerzy Sokolowski, Michal Soltyk, Lech Wroblewski, Andre Wysogota-Zakrewski. Among the Russians involved were Aleksandr Manko, Mikhail Piskunov, Lutsian Galkin, Semeon Grinko, Yuri Yevgorov, Yuri Nasyakin, Nikoly Petrenko, Daniel Piekarov, Misha Plaksin, Konstantin Zhuravsky. In keeping with their proposal in May, those prisoners the SS had sent to the Central Works were among some of Europe's best technicians. As the prisoners worked they had developed methods of sabotaging the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket in ways that could not be detected. Of the rockets launched, nearly half would fail due to mechanical malfunction. Though the prisoners did not know it, their sabotage had an additional benefit: As long as the rockets failed in large numbers, they could not be armed with nerve gas warheads. For if a rocket were to be armed with a nerve gas warhead and exploded on the launch pad, it would kill the launch crew and all the people in the surrounding area. If it were to land in an unintended area nearby it would kill all the people living there. The prisoners did their best to make their sabotage undetectable, for if the SS caught them their punishment was slow strangulation with piano wire. Among the known saboteurs of both the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket and the Vengeance Weapon 1 Cruise Missile were Bignon, Bonchart, Henri Chayot, Cottet, Davesne, Douay, Dunouau, Dutillieux, Fischer, Fliecx, Foiret, Fourquet, Gross, Charles Hauter, Heumann, Lacour, Edouard Lambert, Charles Landy, Latappy, Laurent, Lucas, Jazbinsek, Korenfeld, Noel, Mefret, Pierrel, Ramillon, Ribault, Rieg, Ronchain, Roulart, Sadron, Schmitt, Schwertz, Trotebas, amd Bernard Zuber. On 15 October, 1944 a convoy of new laborers arrived at the Central Works. Among these prisoners were members of the French Resistance, who joined in the sabotage that was already taking place and added some new disruptions of their own. Among the known French Resistance members were Bollaert, Andre Boyer, Jacques Bordier, Andre Cazin d'Honincthun, Andre Caruana, Paul Chandon Moet, Rene Cogny, Edmond Debeaumarche, Pierre Dejussieu Pontcaral, Jean Demichels, Gentil, Pierre Hemery, Gabriel Lacoste, Roger Latry, J. Claude Lauth, Gustave Leroy, Marien Leschi, Andre Meresse, Jean Michel, Ferdinand Paloc, Gaston Pernot, Marcel Petit, Jacques Poupault, Pierre Rozan, Gilbert Turk, Alfred Untereiner, and Pierre Ziller. There were others whose identities remain unknown. 19 OCTOBER, 1944, PEENEMUNDE. von Braun had completed his tests with the subscale models of the winged rocket, and the order was given for the construction of the first five Assembly 4B long range rockets. While von Braun felt comfortable with the Assembly 4B Rocket, the design of the intercontinental "America" Rocket had presented him with difficulties. von Braun had known that he would need time if he were to develop the large nitric acid and diesel fueled engine that Thiel had started work on much earlier, and that time was of the essence. von Braun briefly explored Thiel's original suggestion to power the "America" Rocket's first stage with a cluster of 6 of the already developed liquid oxygen and alcohol engines. von Braun had concluded that if they were to be used, the entire rocket would require a substantial redesign if it was to keep its 2,500 mile range. Despite Thiel's optimistic forecast of 1942, von Braun had realized that even the development of this engine cluster would require some time, time which Hitler's Germany did not have. von Braun decided to stay with Thiel's design for a rocket with a single large nitric acid and diesel fueled engine of 400,000 pounds thrust. The first stage of this rocket would weigh 144,000 pounds, be 65 feet long, and 162 inches in diameter. The second stage of the intercontinental "America" Rocket would be a fully loaded Assembly 4B "Assembly 9 Rocket" of 30,000 pounds weight. This rocket would be capable of delivering a warhead carrying 1 ton of nerve gas some 2,500 miles to the United States. With a design of "America" Rocket finalized, other problems appeared for von Braun. Germany no longer had access to the "America" Rocket's launch sites in Spain or France, sites which would be necessary if the rocket was to reach the United States. Launch from the new facility at Lehesten would require a rocket with an even greater range, and that meant that von Braun would have to redesign it once again. In addition, there was no way von Braun could ensure that the "America" Rocket's warhead would land on its target. He and Steinhoff had already had significant problems guiding the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket, problems which had been enormously magnified thanks to the work of the XX Twenty Committee. von Braun concluded that it would be almost impossible to control the "America" Rocket's flight over the far greater distance of 2,500 kilometers, so he began to search for another solution. In 1942 von Braun had been approached by Fritz Steinhoff, a submarine commander who was the brother of Ernst Steinhoff, who was in charge of developing the rocket's guidance system. Fritz had presented von Braun with his idea of launching solid rockets from submarines. That project had proceeded and such rockets had been successfully tested in the fall of 1943, though the project had been rejected by the navy and then dropped. Separately, in the autumn of 1943 an engineer by the name of Laffering had proposed to Dornberger that the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket could be launched from floating containers towed to their launch point by submarine. Laffering's project had lingered under the pressing demands for the perfection of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket. But von Braun now revived Laffering's project. von Braun began work on the design of underwater barges which would hold Thiel's Assembly 6 Rockets, the Assembly 4 Rocket pre-fueled with visol and nitric acid. Three barges would be towed by a snorkel equipped submarine to a launch point off the coast of the United States, where the submarine and the barges would surface. The barges would then be flooded to a vertical firing position, and the rockets would be launched. While the scheme required an enormous amount of resources, for each submarine trip it would be possible to land three rockets on the cities of the United States, rockets whose warheads would have the ability to carry either the nerve gases or phosgene. 22 OCTOBER, 1944. After their rout in France, the German Army by now had managed to rally their troops and establish a line of resistance. With the rout checked, Hitler began to develop a scheme for launching a final coordinated offensive on the port Antwerp. The German Army would coordinate its ground attack with a barrage of Antwerp by Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missiles. This ground attack would take place when the weather would prevent Allied aircraft from taking off. Hitler hoped that by capturing Antwerp he would be able to cut the Allies off from their supplies and to encircle the British Army and force its surrender. He hoped that the attack would gain time for the development and deployment of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket, the new submarines, and a new type of small, inexpensive jet fighter which would take on the Allies' bombers. Hitler's generals knew that he hated bad news and had adopted the habit of withholding it from him. By now Hitler realized that his generals were withholding bad news from him and he no longer trusted them. Hitler transferred his trust to the SS, and he placed an SS division under Sepp Dietrich at the head of the thrust for this new offensive. LATE OCTOBER, 1944. With the Red Army approaching Germany from the east, Hitler hoped that he would now be able to strike a deal with the Americans and the British. Hitler allowed Himmler to send representatives to both the British and the Americans to offer a deal. If the British and Americans would be willing to ensure the inviolability of the Reich area and its population, the Germans would cease hostilities on the western front and provide the British and Americans with 25 German divisions to maintain order in Central Europe. After meeting with a British contact, Himmler's representative met with Dulles in Switzerland and told him the terms of the offer. While such a deal was ludicrous, by now the United States had become aware of the concentration camps and Dulles now conspired to save some of their inmates. Dulles told Himmler's representative that Roosevelt wished to make contact with SS circles so that he could disengage from Europe and concentrate his forces against Japan. Dulles explained to him that Roosevelt might be able to make such an agreement, if the pressure of the Jews in the United States was relieved. Dulles also told him that if word of the contacts should leak out, the Jews would work to defeat Roosevelt, and that their contact should only be resumed after Roosevelt's re-election. Dulles' deception would give him time to act. Dulles arranged for a meeting at the beginning of November between representative of American Jews and Himmler's representative. The Jewish Americans offered Himmler 50 Swiss francs for every Hungarian Jew released to Switzerland, and a payment of 500 francs each for the release of every prominent person. Himmler accepted their offer. The reasons for his decision are unknown. The Russians were approaching the concentration camps in Eastern Europe, and Himmler may have thought that they would have to be shut down anyway. As the Jews in Germany and large parts of Europe had already been killed, perhaps Himmler concluded that his work was already done. Perhaps Himmler thought that as they would not be releasing Jews in German territory, if the Swiss wanted them that would be perfectly alright. Perhaps in his own mind Himmler had separated Jews from Bolsheviks, as by this time Himmler was even trying to use the Zionist leader Chain Weizman to make contact with Churchill. Whatever convolutions Himmler's twisted logic took, on 26 November, 1944 Himmler ordered his men to stop killing the Jews in the concentration camps. Hitler had certainly known of Himmler's earlier attempts to open negotiations with the west. Whether he knew of this deal is unknown, but it does not seem likely that he did. 1 NOVEMBER, 1944, BERLIN. On 1 November Speer once again attempted to put a stop to Hitler's plans, this time by issuing another order to stop the production of Tabun and Sarin. Hitler's personal physician Dr. Brandt then asked for the continuation of the production of nerve gases, and Brandt also suggested that the resources devoted to the production of Tabun be shifted to the production of the more potent Sarin. Next, Himmler seized control of the Sarin plant at Falkenhagen and started to move the production machinery to bomb proof bunkers. In the end Hitler would again countermand Speer's instruction and he would continue the production of both Sarin and Tabun. 4 NOVEMBER, 1944. Dulles reported from Switzerland. [The brackets given here contain explanatory notes.] "Certain highly placed persons in the [German] Army and the [Nazi] Party [not further identified, but quite likely Himmler's representative] have expressed the following opinions: "1. There are still large reserves of fighter planes. However, these are being held back at the Fuhrer's command for the final battle. The airforce [bombers] is reserved, too, for launching new weapons [possibly air launching the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile from under their wings], gas attacks [Tabun and Sarin], and a new extremely high explosive now being manufactured [N-material]. "2. During a recent military conference on the general situation, the Fuhrer [Hitler], alluding to new weapons, is supposed to have said: "Up to this day I can answer for all the acts that I have committed before God and my compatriots, but for what I am going to order in the near future, I will no longer be able to justify myself before God." [As of the current time it is not known who Dulles talked to or how accurate the information was that he relayed.] (WINTER, 1944?), CENTRAL WORKS, NORDHAUSEN. By August the British had identified the location and function of the Central Works. While the factories that produced the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile and the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket were located inside caves running underneath mountains and thus immune from bombing, the Allies concluded that if the railroad tracks that the trains used to deliver the weapons from their factories to their launch points were destroyed, it would neutralize the danger. This bombing began. 9 DECEMBER, 1944, PEENEMUNDE. The first outside contracts were let for the construction of the underwater barges in which the Assembly 6 Rockets, the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rockets powered by visol and nitric acid, were to be towed to the coast of the United States. It was estimated that construction of the barges would take 3 months. DECEMBER, 1944, CASTLE SCHLOSS BURG, OUTSIDE REMSCHEID, THE RUHR. By now Hitler had shifted the focus of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket attacks from London to the British and American armies new supply port in Antwerp, Belgium, and the rockets' launch base had been set up surrounding the Castle Schloss Burg. Speer managed to settle the issue of awards and honors, and he now summoned von Braun along with the others to Castle Schloss Burg to receive their awards in a truly unique awards ceremony which he himself had designed. In the early evening Speer sat the participants in the large hall of the castle and gave them dinner. Night fell, and as the guests sat enjoying drinks the curtains covering one of the hall's windows were drawn open. A Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket was launched, and Speer then gave the first honoree his award. And so it continued throughout the evening, curtain by curtain, rocket by rocket, award by award, until everyone present had received their due. On the other end of the rockets' flights the citizens of Antwerp suffered and died, wound by wound, and death by death. DECEMBER, 1944, BUDAPEST, HUNGARY. Adolph Eichmann now met with the leader of the Jewish community in Hungary and discussed with him the deal Himmler had made with Dulles and the American Jews. Eichmann told him that the low point had been reached, and that Germany was going to win the war. "A new weapon is being produced against which the Allies will be powerless." 25 DECEMBER, 1944, BASTOGNE. As he had planned, Hitler had launched his attack toward Antwerp under the cover of bad weather. But the weather now cleared and allied fighters stopped Hitler's thrust. To make sure that the thrust was stopped Eisenhower diverted the tanks of the American Third Armored Division under his old friend George Patton from their drive into central Germany and into the thrust's flank. 27 DECEMBER, 1944, PEENEMUNDE. The first launch of the long range Assembly 4B Rocket ended in failure when the rocket's guidance system failed at an altitude of 50 meters (164 feet). 8 JANUARY, 1944, PEENEMUNDE. The second test launch of the long range Assembly 4B Rocket also ended in failure. 17 JANUARY, 1945, BERLIN. Himmler had had wo choices. He could either evacuate the concentration camps, or leave them to be conquered by the enemy. His ability to make this decision was taken from his hands when the concentration camp at Buchenwald was liberated on 15 January by United States Army troops, and its inmates had then escaped and raped and pillaged the nearby town of Weimar. Hitler now ordered Himmler to "evacuate" the camps: they were to be destroyed and not one prisoner was to be captured alive by the Allies. Himmler ordered the destruction of Auschwitz and the destruction of all evidence and witnesses. After the camp leaders carried out these orders they took the remaining prisoners on an aimless forced march to the west and along the way many more thousands of their prisoners would die or be killed as well. 20 JANUARY, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Hitler's offensive towards Antwerp had been stopped by the Allies, and the Red Army had crossed the Vistula. Hitler now left the Wolf's Lair and moved into his bunker in Berlin, where he would remain until the end of the war. Hitler now developed his final strategy for winning the war: he would use nerve gas on the Allies. He knew that his generals still opposed using gas, but he thought that Himmler and the SS could be depended on to show the same kind of support that they had given him for the concentration camps and the extermination of the Jews. Hitler placed SS Field Marshall Scorner in charge of central section of the Eastern Front and placed Himmler himself in charge of the Eastern Front's northern sector. Hitler discussed his strategy with Himmler and they called Kammler in to give him his orders. Kammler was to remove the remaining Vengeance Weapon 2 rockets and Messerschmitt 262 jet aircraft to Bavaria. The nerve gas stocks were to be moved from their storage places and nerve gas bombs prepared for the jets and nerve gas warheads prepared for the rockets. [?The rockets were to be armed with nerve gas warheads and launched against London and Antwerp and other cities of the Allies, while the Messerschmitt 262 jet bombers would be armed with nerve gas and used to attack the Allies' ground troops.] Having started his rocket attack, Hitler intended to use his new long range submarines, which were equipped with rubber coated hulls to avoid detection by sonar, and with snorkels to allow them to run on diesel and recharge their batteries underwater, to cut off Britain and the armies in Europe from the United States. If all of this was not enough to force the Allies to surrender, Hitler intended to begin nerve gas attacks on the United States with the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rockets, which would be towed by submarine to the coast of the United States on the underwater barges. The barges were now under construction and would be completed by March. The Allies could be expected to retaliate against the remaining German cities, but the cities of Germany were already under aerial attack and this retaliation could not be much worse than what the Allies were already doing. The German people were strong, and they could bear the suffering; the Americans and the British were weak, and when faced with these costs their leaders would certainly then be forced to sue for peace. The Soviet Union was almost completely defenseless against an attack of this type, and they would be destroyed. Hitler also discussed with Himmler his other strategy for saving Germany. He hoped that he might be able to split the Allies' coalition by forming an alliance with Britain and the United States against the Soviet Union. He would authorize Foreign Minister Ribbentrop to send out an initial offer to the west via the American Allen Dulles in Switzerland. Thus, in Hitler's thinking, the choice would be up to the west: either they would enter into negotiations or they would face an attack with the nerve gases. What Hitler and the other members of the German leadership did not know was that the British government had been infiltrated by Soviet agents, and that each of their attempts over the coming months to break the coalition or at least to surrender Germany to the west would promptly be reported to Stalin, who in turn would then complain to Churchill and the American President Roosevelt, who in turn would stop the Germans' efforts cold. 24 JANUARY, 1945, PEENEMUNDE. On 25 January, 1945 von Braun's Assembly 4B Rocket successfully completed its first flight. But von Braun and his men could not launch the rocket into its normal horizontal flight because the eastern part of the Peenemunde test range was now under the control of the Red Army. Instead they launched the rocket straight up, and it flew to an altitude of 77 kilometers (48 miles), reaching a speed of 4350 kilometers per hour (2700 miles per hour). 31 JANUARY, 1945, PEENEMUNDE. In October, 1044 von Braun had learned that Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin had met at Yalta and decided to partition Germany after the war. It seemed likely to him that Peenemunde would end up in the Soviet sector and he had started to consider how to flee to the west. In December von Braun's concerns had mounted when the local army commander began to train the scientists at Peenemunde for a last ditch defense of the site. On 31 January von Braun received orders from Kammler directing him to evacuate his team to the area around the Central Works, where they were to contribute to the "ultimate victory". von Braun called a meeting of his closest associates and discussed the situation with them. von Braun and his men knew that the Red Army would soon be in Peenemunde. While they would never admit it, they also knew that if they fled directly to the west they most likely would be captured by the British, who would most certainly hang them. They unanimously decided to follow Kammler's orders, because it would take them to a zone likely to be occupied by the Americans, the only one of the Allies to whom they would be able to surrender and live. 2 FEBRUARY, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Hitler had always kept the production of the nerve gases under his personal control, and he knew he would need Tabun and Sarin for his final offensive. Even when Hitler knew that the Red Army was approaching the gas factory at Dyhernfurth, rather than shut it down and destroy it, he kept it in production and ordered it to be defended. But the German Army was no longer able to hold the Red Army, and on 20 January the Red Army had stormed into Dyhernfurth and captured the nerve gas factory intact before the German forces could destroy it. So that they would not fall into the Red Army's hands, Hitler immediately ordered that the evacuation of gas weapons be given the highest priority, and he also ordered an attack on Dyhernfurth for 6 February to try and retake the factory. 6 FEBRUARY, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Hitler met with von Ribbentrop and General Wolff and he authorized General Wolff to try to establish contact with the United States through Switzerland. Regardless of Hiltler's fantasies, Wolff himself had already concluded that the only way to prevent an onslaught by the Red Army would be to surrender the German Army in the south, and regardless of Hitler's instructions he was prepared to use these talks as an opportunity to arrange that surrender. When Wolff would later meet with Allen Dulles he would tell him, "My dear sir, have a little patience and I will present you with Italy on a silver platter." 6 FEBRUARY, 1945, DYHERNFURTH. The German counter attack to try and retake the nerve gas factory at Dyhernfurth failed. Stalin now had control of a nerve gas factory. 6 FEBRUARY, PEENEMUNDE. Kammler lost no time in drawing up his plans for the use of the rockets, and in early February Dornberger received orders transferring him to Kammler's command. Shortly thereafter Nimwegen, the man Kammler had picked to head the move from Peenemunde to the Central Works, arrived at Peenemunde. The move itself would be known as the "Project for Special Dispositions". Whether this name was given by accident, as von Braun and his associates would later state, or by intention, it is faintly reminiscent of the name "Transport Actions", which had been given to the euthanasia and political killings in 1939. FEBRUARY, 1945. Kammler also started to assert his operational authority over the Messerschmitt 262 jet bombers. By March he would also take complete control of the jets' manufacture. 14 FEBRUARY, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. On 13 February the city of Dresden was destroyed by a massive Allied air attack and a large number of its residents killed. Goebbels began to press Hitler to use the nerve gases against the cities of Britain, and Hitler concluded that the bomber attack on Dresden provided him with the rationale that he needed for launching a nerve gas attack against the Allies. 17 FEBRUARY, 1945. Nimwegen lost no time in assembling the resources necessary for the move from Peenemunde, for those he approached knew that he would not hesitate to kill them if they hesitated in providing them. von Braun flew to the Central Works and located lodgings for his team in the nearby town of Bleicherode. On 17 February von Braun's team members and their families left Peenemunde by train. On 22 February the first part of the Army guidance team and their families would head for the Central Works, and on 27 February von Braun would fly back to Peenemunde and order Dr. Kurt Debus and the Army mobile launch teams to the launch site at Cuxhaven. Debus and his men would not make it to Cuxhaven before the Allied army arrived, and they too would go to Bleicherode. FEBRUARY, 1945, BERLIN. By August, 1944 Speer had concluded that Germany would loose the war and that Hitler was quite mad. In late 1944, when Hitler had begun to order the destruction of German plants as the enemy overran them, Speer had seen that this was not merely an effort by Hitler to deny the enemy resources for carrying on the war, but in fact a kind of national suicide which Hitler intended to lead. Speer had initially done everything in his power to quietly foil his orders. Hitler became aware of Speer's insubordination, and Speer then argued with Hitler about his orders for destruction. Speer found that Hitler's mind could not be swayed, but he decided that he would play along with him so as to retain his ability to prevent Hitler's complete destruction of Germany. Hitler's intention to use poison gas was the last straw. Speer now came up with a plan to kill Hitler by putting poison gas into the ventilator that provided fresh air to Hitler's underground bunker in Berlin. Since he had overseen the production of poison gas as Armaments Minister, Speer knew exactly where the poison gas was and as Armaments Minister he would have no trouble getting hold of it now. But before Speer could carry out his plan the ventilator shafts were sealed by Hitler's staff in preparation for the start of gas warfare. Speer then had a change of heart. After overhearing some workers talking about the Hitler, Speer concluded that it would be necessary for Hitler to remain alive in order to prevent a collapse of the government and the complete destruction of Germany. Speer decided that he would not kill Hitler, but that he would continue with his charade of obeying Hitler's orders for the destruction of Germany in his effort to save it. FEBRUARY, 1945, SWITZERLAND. Himmler now sent Ernst Kaltenbrunner to negotiate with Dulles. Kaltenbrunner told Dulles of Hitler's plans to use the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rockets to attack London and other cities with nerve gas, but he placed the location of the forces in an "Alpine Redoubt" instead of in Bavaria. If the west would guarantee that Austria would not be occupied by the Russians or divided into zones, and if the area would be made into an area excluded from war crimes trials, then the he would arrange the surrender of the "Alpine Redoubt". While Dulles knew that these terms were completely impossible, he quickly realized he would have to string along this source of information. In January, immediately after Hitler's decision, his sources had warned him of an "Alpine Redoubt" strategy, and he had been filing weekly reports on the "National Redoubt". But now he finally understood the nature of redoubt, and immediately after his visitor left, Dulles sent an urgent warning to United States intelligence. FEBRUARY, 1945, LONDON. Dulles’ warning led to immediate action. While the factories that produced the Vengeance Weapon 1 cruise missile and the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket were located inside caves running underneath mountains and thus immune from bombing, the United States Eighth Air Force bomber targeting group had a solution for the problem. They planned to drench the entire mountain with napalm, an extremely flammable mixture of gasoline and detergent, which they would ignite after it had seeped into the factories. Dulles now learned that the rocket plant at the Central Works had been staffed with political prisoners. This information was forwarded to the targeting group, and they had to cancel their plan to use napalm against the Central Works, and instead they planned and carried out a limited bombing campaign. 19 FEBRUARY, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Since the bombing of Dresden, Hitler had continued to press his generals to use nerve gas. "Why shouldn't the German nation leave the Geneva Convention? Why not, when not only the Russians, but also the western powers with their attacks against the defenseless people and the residential areas of the cities have placed themselves outside of the bounds of every international law. "We ourselves must take up the same view as the enemy has shown himself to hold. We are determined to fight with every means, even those most extreme, at our disposal. Because of these attacks our own people are crying out for the most extreme methods of resistance." In an effort to delay him Hitler's commanders managed to get him to change his order to use the nerve gas changed into an order asking for a report on the use of it. When Admiral Doenitz and General Jodl reported back to Hitler on 20 February, they advised him against the use of the gases. But by now Hitler was well on his way to transferring the control over the use of the gases from the traditional military to the control of the SS. FEBRUARY, 1945, BLEICHERODE, NEAR THE CENTRAL WORKS, NORDHAUSEN, BAVARIA. Kammler had already re-enforced the defenses of the Hague, which would continue to be the site for launching the Vengeance Weapon 2 rockets against the west. He had also ordered the preparation of launch sites near to the Central Works in case this site in Holland was lost, but Vengeance Weapon 2 Rockets launched from there would still fall far short of London, and they would only be able to use them to attack the advancing Allied armies. Even the winged long range Assembly 4B Rockets launched from Lehesten would not have sufficient range to hit London, and Kammler knew they would only be able to carry out an attack on London if they managed to hold a launch site in the Hague, Cuxhaven, or somewhere else in western Germany. Kammler decided that the facilities developed for the "America" Rocket would provide part of resources that they would need for the rocket attack. Kammler ordered the modification of the test stands for the "America" Rocket at Lehesten so that they could be used to test engines for the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rockets and he decided that the underground liquid oxygen plant there would provide part of the fuel for the rocket assault. Hitler had intended to launch Vengeance Weapon 2 Rockets with nerve gas warheads against the Soviet Union as well as against Britain. But the Germans had had to abandon the launch site at Blizna, Poland the previous July as the Red Army had continued its advance to the west. They had constructed a new launch site in the Tucholska Forest, but the Red Army had continued its advance and they had had to abandon this launch site as well. From Tucholska Forest they had moved the launch site to Wolgast, not far from Peenemunde. But now the Red Army was continuing to advance, and was now approaching Peenemunde. Kammler now moved the rocket’s launch site from Wolgast to Rethen on the Wesser. As the cities of the Soviet Union would no longer be within range of the rocket, from here they would only be able to use the rockets against the troops of the Red Army. MARCH, 1945, MILITARY MEDICAL ACADEMY, POSEN. The Red Army overran the German research institute for developing biological weapons and captured it nearly intact. Professor Blome, the director of the institute, tried to get the German Air Force to bomb it. But not only was the Air Force unable to bomb it, they also pointed out to Blome that bombing the facility would expose the civilian population surrounding it to the viruses it held. Stalin now had possession of a laboratory and production facility for biological weapons. 15 MARCH, 1945, THE HAGUE. To impede the British and American advance Hitler ordered the destruction of all the bridges across the Rhine River. Unfortunately the German Army had failed to blow up the bridge at Remagen and the United States had captured it intact. Elements of the United States Army were now pouring across this bridge. When Hitler discovered this he ordered an attack to be made against this bridge with Vengeance Weapon 2 Rockets. Hitler had no idea of how inaccurate the rocket was. Local commanders complained to him about the danger to the local civilian population, but he rejected their arguments. Kammler now launched an attack with 11 rockets. This rocket attack faced a problem which was unknown to the participants at the time. With typical German thoroughness von Braun and his engineers had incorporated the false information sent by XX Twenty Committee's German "agents" in London into their trajectory calculations. With the use of their new calculations the rockets would most certainly miss their target, and in the event the attack failed completely. 19 MARCH, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Speer continued his efforts to stop Hitler's destruction of plants on German territory which the allies would overrun. On 19 March Hitler set out an order which made his thoughts on the matter perfectly clear. After the gas attack was launched, the Allied armies could be expected to retreat. "On his retreat the enemy will leave behind only scorched earth and refrain from any consideration for the population." Since this was the case, the German people should leave nothing behind that would help the Allied armies while they held onto the land. Speer immediately sent out his own interpretation of Hitler's order, an interpretation which restricted the destruction to methods of transportation. Besides limiting the total extent of the damage to Germany, this would have the additional benefit of hindering the movement of the nerve gas munitions from their storage areas to the field units. 19 MARCH, 1945, ZURICH. Allen Dulles once again met with General Wolff. Dulles intended to use the occasion to solicit from Wolff further information about the "Alpine Redoubt". Dulles viewed the situation as being so dangerous that he arranged for the Deputy chief of Staff of the United States Fifth Army and the Director of British military intelligence for Italy to join him for this meeting. As the talks proceeded Dulles tried to draw Wolff out about the "Alpine Redoubt". "Madness! It would only bring additional suffering to the German people. Everything possible must be done to prevent such last minute resistance." Wolff did not go into the details of the plans for the use of the nerve gas. 25 MARCH, 1945, MONTGOMERY'S HEADQUARTERS. It appears that Stalin's Cambridge spies had been busy, for Churchill now met with Eisenhower and gave him a copy of a note from Molotov accusing the West of letting the German commanders in Italy (General Wolff) negotiate a separate surrender to them. Eisenhower told Churchill that he would accept surrenders in the field when offered, and if political matters arose he would consult the heads of government. Churchill did not like the agreement that had been worked out with the Soviets dividing up the zones of control in Europe. He and his generals pressed Eisenhower to let United States and British troops move forward so that more of Germany would come under the control of the west at the end of the war. Eisenhower refused the British requests and would only allow the United States Army in the south of Germany to advance into what would become the Soviet Union's zone of occupation. Since Canaris had been taken prisoner by the SS in September, 1944, Churchill had been blind as to the innermost workings of Hitler's court. Neither Churchill nor his generals could reason why Eisenhower had decided on this strategy, and Eisenhower's decision would be a matter of public mystery for many years to come. For Eisenhower the need to restrain the American and British troops was evident. After they defeated Germany the United States would be conducting A full scale invasion of Japan, and the fighting would be fierce with large casualties. The United States would need help from the Soviet Union in undertaking this campaign and thus it was vital that he not alienate Stalin with a confrontation in Europe. Despite this need, Eisenhower knew that it would be absolutely necessary to violate one part of the Soviet zone. The United States intelligence service had passed Dulles' report on the Alpine Redoubt and Hitler's plans to use nerve gas on to Eisenhower, but for some reason it had not passed it on to the British. Wolff's statements had not been conclusive, and the British military officer had not passed on Dulles' report either. Eisenhower had already determined that he would do what was necessary to eliminate the danger from the Alpine Redoubt, and he had ordered the United States Army's Third Armored Division under his old friend George Patton to advance to the south toward the Central Works. 27 MARCH, 1945, THE HAGUE. When it had appeared to Kammler that the only rail line to the Hague, the last site able to launch Vengeance Weapon 2 rockets on London, was about to be cut off from Germany, Kammler had immediately moved to its defense with the last German reserve troops available. In spite of Kammler's fierce efforts the Allied armies continued their advance, and by 27 March they were about to surround this launch site. It was evident to Hitler that he could no longer use von Braun's rockets to launch the nerve gas attack. There also was no way that he could attack London from any possible new launch site; the rockets could not be transported to the launch sites, and neither could the fuel for them. On the other hand he could use the Me 262 jet bombers to carry nerve gas bombs to London; they could be used multiple times, and furthermore the fuel for them was still available. Hitler ordered Kammler to abandon the rocket launch site and to return his men to Germany. MARCH, 1945, LUDWIGSHAFEN, GERMANY. The information that Dulles had obtained about the German poison gases had been passed on to the United States Chemical Warfare Service. Their chief of intelligence Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tarr was now trying to locate the chemical engineers responsible for it in the area that the allies had captured at the I.G. Farben factory in Ludwigshafen. At the end of March Tarr caught Gerhard Schrader, the inventor of Tabun and Sarin, who quickly provided him with the formula for their manufacture. Tarr was delighted with this information, but his delight instantly became urgency when Schrader also told him that the Red Army had overrun the plants for the production of Tabun and Sarin at Dyhernfurth. 1-3 APRIL, 1945, NORDHAUSEN. On 1-3 April the Allies bombed Nordhausen, near to the Central Works. 1 APRIL, 1945, BLEICHERODE. Kammler finally realized that Hitler's plan was insane. Even if he succeeded in launching some rockets and aircraft, after their first strikes the Allies would immediately launch a bombing campaign and wipe off the face of the Earth the remaining German rockets and aircraft, along with a sizeable portion of the people of Germany. Kammler also realized that the Allies would hold him responsible for his role in the concentration camps and would likely execute him. Kammler came up with a scheme. He would hold von Braun and his team and the Messerschmitt 262 jet aircraft scientists hostage and attempt to trade them for his own freedom. Kammler ordered von Braun to take 500 of his men and put them aboard his train and send them to Oberammergau, where he put them into an army camp surrounded by barbed wire fences and guards. Oberramergau was a town famed for both its annual anti-semitic Passion Play and the German composer Richard Wagner's martial symphonies. It seems appropriate that it would be at Oberramergau where von Braun would finally, fully, at last understand the true nature of Fascism and the enormity of his own crime in making his deal with it. von Braun quickly convinced his jailers that it was necessary to release himself and his men from the camp lest an Allied air strike kill them all. 3 APRIL, 1945, ADLERSHORST. Hitler called Kammler to his command post to discuss his progress on the preparations for the nerve gas attack. Hitler gave Kammler his last order: he was to defend the cruise missile, jet aircraft, and rocket factory at the Central Works with every means, and was to hold it at all costs. 3 APRIL, 1945, ADLERSHORST. After his session with Hitler, Kammler visited with Speer and tried to get him to go with him to Munich. While Kammler had already concluded that the situation was hopeless, he had lied to Hitler during his meeting with him. Kammler told Speer that efforts were being made within the SS to get rid of Hitler; presumably Himmler had by now decided that he could depose Hitler, form a new government, and then negotiate a surrender to the west. Kammler told Speer that he intended to contact the Americans and offer them Germany's entire technology for jet aircraft and rockets in exchange for his freedom. Kammler had already assembled the experts in these fields in Upper Bavaria and he invited Speer to join with him. (Claim first offer came via Gestapo in November, 1944) 5 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Hitler and Keitel issued a formal order placing Kammler in charge of the defense of the National Redoubt at the Central Works, and they ordered Kammler to hold it at all costs. 5 APRIL, 1945, BLEICHERODE, NEAR THE CENTRAL WORKS, NORDHAUSEN. Kammler knew that there were no longer sufficient fuel supplies for launching the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rockets. Without the launch site in the Hague there was no appropriate target for them, and without their nerve gas warheads the effects of their launch would be negligible. Kammler now folded the Vengeance Weapon 2 launch teams into the rest of his army. Despite his statements to Speer several days earlier, Kammler also now told Dornberger that he intended to prevent the United States and Soviet armies from meeting and joining forces. 5 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. A file containing suspicious documents implicating Canaris in the Ju;y 20 assassination plot had been found on 22 September, 1944, and since that time Canaris had been under heavy questioning. Despite this the Gestapo had still not learned the full extent of his involvement with the British. In the first days of April, 1945, folders containing Canaris's diaries had been found by accident. They proved beyond doubt that Canaris had been working with British intelligence for many years. On 5 April, 1945 the results of this discovery were reported to Hitler. Hitler was inchoate. He realized that he had been the victim of a British plot and had been surrounded by their dupes who had been scheming to overthrow him. He ordered the immediate execution of Canaris and the other plotters. 5 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Hitler was determined that the British would pay dearly for their treachery. He gave an order to move the nerve gas munitions to the Air Force base at Koellada. 6 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. After the information from Canaris's notes had been revealed to Hitler the previous day, he immediately called Ribbentrop to come the Chancellory. In light of the new information on Canaris they would have to review all of Germany's diplomatic initiatives. Ribbentrop now arrived and Hitler discussed with him both the diplomatic situation as well as his plans for the nerve gas attack. "Ribbentrop, " he told him, "We are going to win this war by the length of a nose." Ribbentrop expressed disbelief, and Hitler went on to explain to him about his plan to use the Me 262 jet bombers to deliver nerve gas. 7 APRIL, 1945, CENTRAL WORKS. The United States Third Armored Division under Eisenhower's old friend George Patton was closing on the Central Works. Rudolph and the other German scientists now received orders to go and join with von Braun. When the Red Army closed on Auschwitz, the SS guards there had fled, and they had been pointed toward the Central Works as their final destination. By now they had arrived and joined with the SS guards already there. The SS guards at the Central Works now started a forced evacuation of the slave laborers. Where they were going to take them is unclear, as the Central Works itself was the final redoubt and it was falling. Perhaps Hitler intended that after he had launched his gas attack using the Messerschmitt 262 jet bombers he would once again re-establish production of the rocket. Perhaps the guards were just going to take the slave laborers nowhere, as along the way they herded 1,000 of them into a barn, locked them in it, and set it on fire. 8 APRIL, 1945, BERLIN. On 8 April American fighter planes strafed and bombed the convoy which Hitler was using to move the nerve gas munitions. The munitions were not detonated, but the attack forced the evacuation of a 20 square kilometer area. The close call so alarmed both the local German Air Force commander and Keitel that they ordered that no more attempts to move gas munitions be made. 9 APRIL, 1945, FLOSSENBURG CONCENTRATION CAMP. Admiral Canaris was executed. 15 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Keitel read Hitler a report from the command staff on the use of the nerve gases. "1. It can not be avoided, that if the gas stocks in the area of the enemy's and our own fire fields are moved, an unintentional use of gas with effects on friend and foe will become possible through shelling." Hitler observed that such a thing could not be avoided, and that the gas at the army's chemical weapons facilities at Raubkammer was just as harmless as it would be anywhere else. He ordered all recipes and files to be removed, while the munitions at the plants could be left laying. "2. Furthermore, it can not be avoided that gas filled munitions will fall into the enemy's hands." Hitler ordered that the gas filled munitions were to stay near the commands of the evacuation transport barges and of the warehouse in Kahne. If the barges were not able to carry the gas filled munitions out to sea [or for transport to the redoubt], the barges were not to be sunk, but to be stored apart from small towns. From this and the preceding comment, it is clear that at this time Hitler could not accept that both the gas munitions as well as their manufacturing plants were already outside of German control. "3. Both possibilities can offer the enemy a welcome opportunity, to implicate Germany in the beginning of gas warfare, which is something Germany is believed thought allowed to do in view of the military position of Germany, above all in neutral foreign countries." Hitler ordered nothing changed. He observed that all states had undertaken such preparations and if they found themselves in a similar military position they would themselves use them against Germany without hesitation. "4. If because of that were the enemy to begin their own use of gas, that this would lead, with the enemy's air superiority, and in view of the narrow space that our own population, military equipment, etc. are crowded together in, to disadvantageous consequences for our war making abilities, is evident." Hitler observed that those were the costs precisely. Clearly, those costs were exactly the ones that Hitler still intended to make Britain pay, using Kammler's Me262 jet bombers to extract that price. "5. These lead to the conclusion, that such a possible development through our own measures with foresight should be worked against. In view of the impossibility of freeing the evacuation transport barges or alternatively the destruction or rendering harmless of all gas stocks which they contain, those which the enemy and neutral foreign opponents now clearly hold, a gas attack by Germany should not be started. It is therefore recommended that the Foreign Office, via the protection agency [the Jewish Protection Agency, in other words through Allen Dulles in Switzerland], approach the western powers, and raise with them the possibility, that gas munitions remain left in evacuated areas, etc. This could be an effective measure against enemy accusations, through the information given." Hitler said no, and Keitel seconded him. "The documentation of the previous existence of gas in Germany as a prepared counter measure to the same kind of gas attack by the enemy could in this connection be communicated, without anything further permitted." Hitler pointed out that the enemy had known of it for a long time, and again Keitel seconded him. Had Hitler finally given up on his nerve gases? Or perhaps Hitler did not intend to give the enemy any warning of his coming attack. "On the other hand the question remains open, to what degree the enemy should be told the place particulars of the gas warehouses, as far as they lay in the danger area. "We are asking for a decision in this regard." Hitler was furious. Here was a document that argued that his plan for a final offensive with the nerve gases would lead to disaster, that the war was over, and that he had lost the war. Hitler gave his decision, "I flatly reject each and every one of these suggestions.", and he demanded that Keitel tell him who was responsible for the memorandum. Keitel, wishing to shield his and Himmler's staff from Hitler's wrath, offered up Dr. Brandt, and Hitler ordered Brandt's immediate arrest. To make sure of Brandt's conviction Hitler then dictated a letter to the court accusing Brandt of having lost faith in victory. 16 APRIL, 1945. It is clear that whoever wrote this memorandum on gas warfare knew about the secret efforts to negotiate a separate peace with the Americans and British through Dulles in Switzerland, and it is also clear that Dr. Brandt was not among them. On 16 April Brandt was arrested, and a short time later he would be tried and sentenced to death. Bormann would monitor the course of these criminal proceedings for Hitler, and Bormann would oversee Brandt's imprisonment in Kiel. 16 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. In the course of negotiating with Dulles Himmler discovered that the German General Wolff had also been conducting negotiations, and Himmler summoned Wolff to Berlin. Wolff told Hitler that he had succeeded in opening a door to the "President's Palace" in Washington. Hitler still harbored the illusion that it would be possible to break the coalition, and he gave his endorsement to Wolff's efforts. But Hitler also warned Wolff that, "Should you fail, then I shall have to drop you exactly like Hess." 20 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Hitler ordered the execution of 28 political prisoners. Among them was Albrecht Haushofer, the man who had opened the channel of communications in Switzerland many years before even Hess's attempt. 21 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Hitler had prepared a final strategic plan. He would divide the Army up into two groups. The first army section was to be in the south in Bavaria and it was to protect the air bases from which they would fly the jet planes which would carry the nerve gases. The second army group was to be in the North and it was to protect the submarine bases. They would use the submarines to cut off the British and American troops after they began the nerve gas attack. Hitler himself would fly out of Berlin and take personal command of the group in the south. Hitler was never able to accept his commanders' advice, even when Germany was winning the war, if it conflicted with his wishes. Since the tide of the war had turned, and in particular since Ambros had convinced Hitler in May, 1943 that the Allies had nerve gas as well, Hitler had almost completely stopped taking his commanders' advice. Hitler knew that many of the commanders of the German Army were morally opposed to gas warfare, and he had not dared to discuss it with them. The true situation was such. While it was true that Hitler had the world's best aircraft in the Me 262 jet bomber, he had no fuel to fly them, just as Speer had predicted many months before. And that was just as well, for if Hitler had succeeded in launching a nerve gas attack with his jet bombers, they would have been traced back to their home bases by American radar and been destroyed there on the ground. The United States would have immediately launched a bomber attack on Germany with bombs filled with BTX, which would have killed many millions, and almost certainly have led to political consequences which would have ultimately led to the Communist domination of all of Europe. On 21 April Hitler added a new part to his plan. Goering would lead the nerve gas attack by the southern group, while he himself would stay in Berlin and lead the defense there. New troops would be brought into Berlin and they would all be resupplied by air. Hitler issued a statement to be broadcast over the radio. "The Fuehrer is in Berlin. The Fuehrer will stay in Berlin. The Fuehrer will never leave Berlin. The Fuehrer will defend Berlin to the very last." 22 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Hitler met with von Ribbentrop in the morning, and Hitler told him that while he expected a Soviet attack, the lines would hold, and he instructed von Ribbentrop that the offensive against the British and the Americans had to be launched. Hitler had long before lost faith in the German Army. He had placed his hopes in the SS troops, who he felt would not fail him. Hitler now spent time trying to establish contact with SS General Steiner, whom he had appointed to lead the battle to save Berlin. When no contact could be made with any of the groups, Hitler realized that Berlin would fall. Hitler next checked to learn if his message that he would make a stand in Berlin had already been broadcast. It already had, and Keitel now met alone with Hitler and explained to him that since he had already told the German people that he would make a stand in Berlin, he now could not leave Berlin and move to the National Redoubt around the Central Works. Hitler finally broke down. Regardless of whether or not Germany finally managed to win the war, Hitler realized that he would die in Berlin. "I must die here in Berlin", he told his personal staff again and again as he struggled to maintain his composure and to discuss his plans with them. Later in the afternoon Hitler called in Keitel, Jodl, and Bormann and gave them his instructions. Berlin would only be able to hold out for 2 or 3 more days, or a week at the most. He would stay in Berlin, lead its defense, and then shoot himself. His commanders argued with him that he should go south to lead the defense from there and that they could move troops from the west to the east. "Everything is falling to pieces anyway. I can do no more. That should be left to the Reichsmarshall.", he told them. "No soldier will fight for the Reichsmarshall.", someone pointed out. "What do you mean fight? There's precious little more fighting to be done, and, if it comes to negotiating, the Reichsmarshall can do it better than I can." 23 APRIL, 1945, BERCHTESGADEN. Through Air Force channels Goering received a garbled account of Hitler's decision, and he understood it to mean that he was to begin negotiations with the Allies for Germany's surrender. The Allies were closing in on Berlin, and like Himmler, Goering had concluded that the best that could be done was to try to negotiate a separate surrender to the Americans and the British. Goering immediately wired for confirmation of Hitler's instructions, but added that if he did not hear from Hitler by ten o'clock that night he would proceed. 23 APRIL, 1945, LUBECK Himmler received an account of Hitler's actions on 22 April and he concluded that he should attempt to negotiate a separate surrender to the west on his own authority. On the evening of 23 April Himmler met with Count Bernadotte of Sweden who agreed to carry his offer to the British and the Americans. 23 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Hitler's secretary Martin Bormann first received Goering's telegram, and he then used it to convince Hitler that Goering was guilty of high treason for attempting to negotiate a surrender without Hitler's order, and he urged Hitler to remove Goering from power. Hitler signed the order. 23 APRIL, 1945, PORTON. British troops had captured a German munitions dump and found a new type of gas shell. The shell was sent to the British chemical warfare laboratory at Porton, and there it was carefully opened. The shell contained Tabun, and this was the first knowledge that the British had that the Germans had developed nerve gas. Churchill realized he had moved in ignorance through the war on the edge of a great chasm. He soon became even more alarmed when he discovered that the Russians had captured the German Tabun plant intact. 24 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. At Bormann's urging Hitler removed Goering from control of the Air Force, and at this critical juncture what was left of the German Air Force was now left without an effective leader. Hitler selected Air Force General Greim to be the next commander of the Air Force, but as Hitler had never discussed the use of nerve gas via ordinary military communication channels he now sent orders to Greim to come to Berlin for instructions. Greim was flown to Berlin by the daring woman test pilot Hanna Reitsch, the same woman who had flown the Vengeance 1 cruise missile in 1942 in the attempt to discover its fatal control flaw. On their way there they came under attack by American fighter planes and Greim was wounded in the ankle. When Greim arrived at the bunker Hitler handed him a copy of the telegram Goering had sent him. After Greim finished reading the telegram Hitler began to shout. "An ultimatum! A crass ultimatum! Now nothing remains. Nothing is spared to me. No allegiances are kept, no honor lived up to, no disappointments that I have not had, no betrayals that I have not experienced. And now this above all else! Nothing remains - all wrongs have been done to me!" After Hitler met with Greim and gave him his orders, he met with Hanna Reitsch and gave her a cyanide capsule. Hitler explained to her that they all had them, and that he did not want the Russians to capture them. After going on for some time Hitler finally told Reitsch that he still had hope that General Wenck would soon arrive from the south and save Berlin, and that he himself would then return to hold the south. If one is to believe Reitsch, Hitler never told her why this would make any difference in the final outcome of the war. APRIL, 1945, PEENEMUNDE. Wernher von Braun would leave nothing for the Soviets. He had taken with him all the documentation on all of the rockets, including the only copies of their design work on the long range Assembly 6, Assembly 7, Assembly 8, Assembly 9 and Assembly 10 rockets. Not only had von Braun taken the documentation, but he had also taken along with him each and every one of the scientists who had worked on the long range rocket projects. As the Red Army approached Peenemunde, von Braun was left facing two problems. The first of these was the final two test copies of the long range Assembly 4B Rocket were still in existence. von Braun ordered these rockets' destruction, and they were blown into small fragments by placing dynamite around them while they were fully fueled. This left von Braun facing one final problem. There were still slave laborers at Peenemunde in the Trassenheide Camp. They knew the rockets, as they had been building them for months. They knew how all of the rockets performed, and they knew about the long range A4B version of the rocket. More importantly, as they had helped them pack up they knew where von Braun’s engineers had gone to. There had been no transportation available to bring the slave laborers to the Central Works, and there was no way that von Braun could now allow them to be released without compromising his standing with Nimwegen, and thus endanger all of his fellow scientists. SS Major Wernher von Braun ordered the execution of the slave laborers at Peenemunde. 24 APRIL, 1945. Though the United States' groups which were to take control of the research facilities that had produced the German rocket, jet, atomic, gas and biological weapons had long been in existence and were already at work in Europe, Eisenhower now received an urgent order from Washington: "Preserve from destruction and take under your control records, plans, books, documents, papers, files, and scientific, industrial and other information belonging to German organizations engaged in military research." 28 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. The Red Army was closing in on the Chancellory. Hitler was desperately trying to get troops and ammunition flown to Berlin, but by that afternoon he realized that this effort was futile. Hitler realized that the Russians would take Berlin, and that he would have to commit suicide, and that Germany would lose the war. But at the same time he could not accept this outcome and he would continue to act as though the reinforcements would arrive in Berlin, the nerve gas attack would be launched, and Germany would win the war. At a final war conference Hitler's comrades pointed out to him that some troops might be left to bring about the relief of Berlin. Hitler authorized them to send the orders, and Hitler's final order was sent to Keitel on the 28th. "I expect the relief of Berlin. What is Henrici's army group doing? Where is Wenck? What is happening to the 9th Army? When will Wenck and the 9th Army join us?" Hitler's military leaders had long before stopped giving him bad news because he rejected it. They already knew that Henrici's army group was retreating to the west in an effort to save itself from the Red Army, and that Wenck and the 9th Army had been destroyed. But even now they did not tell this to Hitler. On the evening of the 28th Hitler received news that Himmler had tried to negotiate with the British and Americans. In the same manner as had happened to all of Himmler's earlier attempts to open separate negotiations, news of this attempt had been immediately leaked to the press. Hitler was livid. He immediately dispatched Greim and Reitsch to the south with an order to arrest Himmler. Greim left from the bunker to begin his trip south. Before flying south, Greim met with Keitel that evening outside of Berlin. Shortly after Greim arrived in the south he would die of the wound he had received on his flight into Berlin. 29 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Hitler married his long time mistress Eva Braun and wrote his last will, which authorized Martin Bormann to divide up his personal possessions. Personal matters taken care of, Hitler now wrote a final note to the German people. He blamed the war on the Jews in Britain, who had prevented the British government from accepting his peace offer. Hitler had no idea that Lord Hamilton had been worked by the XX Twenty Committee. Hitler pointed out to the German people that he had kept his promise to kill the Jews if another world war occurred, and claimed that he had been "humane" about it. Hitler told the German people that since defeat was inevitable, he was committing suicide, but he urged the soldiers to continue their resistance: "From the sacrifices of our soldiers, and from my own comradeship with them, there will come in one way or another into German history the seed of a brilliant renaissance of the National Socialist movement and thus the realization of a true national community." Hitler now wrote a section which removed both Goering and Himmler from office, and he appointed their successors. He closed this addendum with these last words for the German people: "Above all I charge the leadership of the nation and their followers with the strict observance of the racial laws and with merciless resistance against the universal poisoners of all peoples, international Jewry." When Hitler met with his staff to distribute vials of cyanide early in the afternoon he told them that he intended to break through the Russian encirclement and flee south. 30 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. When the military report came in at midnight of the 29th Hitler realized there would be no break out. Nor would there be a nerve gas attack. Hitler had his dog poisoned. He called his staff together, bid them farewell, and then went to sleep for a few hours. When Hitler woke up he was given a military report of a German victory, but at noon he learned that the Red Army was a block from the Chancellery. Hitler had his last meal, went into his bedroom with Eva Braun, placed his gun in his mouth, and blew his brains out; Eva Braun bit into her cyanide capsule at the same moment. They died at 3:30 on the afternoon of 30 April, 1945. At first Hitler had blamed his generals for his defeats; then he had blamed the German soldiers; and finally he had blamed the German people. Hitler had never blamed himself for the Anglophilia that had prevented him from crushing Britain before he had launched his attack on the Soviet Union, a disastrous decision which plunged the German nation into the two front war which all of Hitler's associates had told him beforehand that Germany would lose. Hitler never blamed Franco, the fascist leader of Spain, for not attacking the British; and he never blamed the leaders of Japan for not joining in his attack on the Soviet Union. Hitler did blame Mussolini for his incompetence, but he never blamed his allies for not coordinating their plans with his, simply because he knew that they trusted him as much as he trusted them. Adolf Hitler had waged a carefully planned and coordinated war based on the best information he could obtain. He had never learned that the best information which he had obtained had been fed to him by the XX Twenty Committee, until Canaris' diary had been given to him on 5 April, 1945. Hitler had also never realized that the carefully planned details and coordinating instructions which had been communicated by the German cipher machines had been read by the British codebreakers throughout the war. Hitler had trusted his intelligence sources and the security of his communications, and he paid for that trust dearly. This may be reflective of the man as a whole. Perhaps earlier experiences with misplaced trust had turned Hitler into a person who trusted no one, and therein may lay Hitler's essential personality flaw: He lacked the ability to know who he should trust. 31 APRIL, 1945, BUNKER AT THE REICHS CHANCELLORY, BERLIN. Hitler had ordered that his body was to be burnt, but the cremation was incomplete. Soviet troops found the remains, identified them as being those of Adolf Hitler, and notified their headquarters. Stalin refused to believe the news and had the remains sent to Moscow where they were re-examined. Stalin then ordered Hitler’s remains buried in East Germany. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev would have Hitler's remains completely destroyed in the early 1970's, lest they be used as a fetish by future fascists. 2 MAY, 1945, OBERRAMERGAU. von Braun's brother Magnus had been studying English since the Red Army had defeated the German Army at Stalingrad in 1943, and Wernher von Braun now sent Magnus to make contact with the United States Army. The first set of soldiers Magnus met took him to an intelligence officer, and Magnus relayed Wernher's message that the rocket scientists wished to surrender to the Americans. Magnus also told the American intelligence officer that there was an SS colonel in Innsbruck who might kill them all in keeping the Nazi’s orders to prevent them from falling into Allied hands. Thus Nimwegen disappeared from the pages of history. 3, MAY, 1945, FLENSBERG. As the Red Army swarmed over Berlin and the British and American armies moved across northern Germany, it finally become clear to Heinrich Himmler that Germany had lost the war. There would be no cruise missiles and rockets raining down nerve gases on Paris, Antwerp, Brussels, Moscow and London, no submarine attacks. There would be no separate deal with the west. and Himmler and his men would be held accountable for the murder of 11,000,000 Jews, political prisoners, socialists, homosexuals, insane, and "incurable" people. Himmler gave his last order to his men: "Hide yourself in the army." He himself would try to escape in disguise to Denmark, but he would be captured by British and commit suicide by taking poison. 5 MAY, 1945, PEENEMUNDE. When Red Army troops finally entered Peenemunde they found it deserted, with essential facilities destroyed, all documentation removed, and all personnel "missing". 9 MAY, 1945, BAD WISNACK. After the Allies had bombed Nordhausen, near to the Central Works on 1-3 April, Nebel had fled to Bad Wisnack. Nebel got the Mayor to hide his blueprints for rockets, patent files, and old rockets. One week after the Red Army overran the town, Nebel surrendered to Soviet Commander Maximov and surrendered his old rockets, which were immediately shipped to Moscow. Nebel kept his documents concealed. 1945, PRAGUE, CZECHOSLOVAKIA. Hans Kammler disappeared, and though it was rumored that after he had gone to Prague, Czechoslovakia to lead the defense there and he was shot by either Soviet troops or by his own SS aide, nothing is certain Perhaps Kammler made a deal with the Soviets, or perhaps he just simply escaped into Italy and then went on to South America. Whatever the answer, it is certain that Stalin and the Soviet Union recovered the documentation of the Messerschmitt 262 jet aircraft and the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket that Kammler was attempting to bargain for his freedom. The first jet powered bomber interceptors that Stalin would deploy would be based on the Me 262, and Soviet scientist Vasily Mishin would spend his post war years in Prague examining the documentation of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket. AUGUST, 1945, JAPAN. While Roosevelt had loathed gas weapons, he had had no difficulty in accepting the development and use of the atomic bomb. While for Roosevelt it would be horrible to kill people with gas or biological weapons, it was perfectly alright to kill them with explosion and fire. This is a strange delusion as the difference between the two is moot: they both make people just as dead. Perhaps Roosevelt's abhorrence to chemical and biological weapons may lie in the fact that at that time other countries besides the United States were able to develop, produce and deploy them. After the United States destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs and threatened the destruction of many more cities with these bombs, Japan surrendered in August, 1945. The Japanese government did not know that the United States had used all of its atomic bombs, but it is just as well that they surrendered. Roosevelt's successor, Harry S. Truman, may have agreed with Churchill about the use of gas weapons. 1945. And so the immediate threat of death by gas or biological weapons for tens of millions of people ended. The British had retained their stock of gas and the captured German nerve gas for possible use against Japan, but following Japan's surrender they publicly dumped their gas stocks at sea. They would continue to work on chemical weapons at their laboratory at Porton. The Russians also publicly dumped at sea the German gas stocks which they had captured, except for the captured stocks of the German nerve gases. These they sent home, along with the disassembled factories for the manufacture of them. These they reassembled in the towns where they had performed chemical weapons research before the war. Soon they would build plants for the production of rockets which would be able to deliver chemical weapons to any nearby enemy. After the United States publicly dumped at sea the Japanese gas munitions which they had captured, the United States dumped its own gas stocks at sea as well. As for the United States plants for the production of gas, these were quietly converted to the production of atomic bombs. SEPTEMBER, 1945. Those responsible for Hitler's chemical and biological weapons programs had quickly carried out Hitler's orders for the destruction of documents, the document which showed their own roles in it. They had known that if the Allies found those documents they faced certain execution. Lieutenant Colonel Tarr had written up a secret report on the production of Tabun and Sarin, and it had been shared with the British. The British had demanded access to the Germans responsible for the nerve gases. For their part the French moved into the factory at Ludwighaven, seized all the German nerve gas scientists that they could lay their hands on, moved them to their occupation zone, and put them to work. When the first British and American teams of investigators arrived in Germany and managed to locate the German scientists responsible for work on chemical and biological weapons, the scientists lied to them and denied that Hitler had ever planned to launch a nerve gas attack. The teams would believe the scientists lies, and in their first report British investigators would even claim that Hitler had developed an aversion to chemical warfare when he had been gassed in the First World War. At the same time the British would put Dr. Gerhard Schrader, the man who had invented the nerve gases Tabun and Sarin, to work investigating similar chemical compounds to see if any of them could also be used as weapons. The first report by the American team would echo the British team's absurd claims. As the British and American public had been repeatedly warned about the German gas menace, it had been necessary to satisfy them that the fiends who had plotted it were in hand and punished. The Allies reached Kiel before the Germans had executed Dr. Brandt, and the Allies quickly tried and executed Brandt for his role in both the Action T 4 euthanasia program as well as the German nerve gas warfare program. The scientists' lies could not hold. Early on Tarr had established that Ambros had helped to set up tests of the new gases on human beings at Natzweiler concentration camp, but nonetheless when Tarr had finally captured Ambros he offered him the same deal that he offered Schrader: his freedom for his cooperation. But by now other people were beginning to see through the scientists' lies. A war crimes prosecutor also learned of Ambros' human experiments, and he demanded that Tarr turn Ambros over to him. Tarr placed Ambros in storage and went to Frankfurt, Paris, and London, and demanded that all German chemical warfare experts be transferred into his custody. As the scientists' crimes were truly heinous, the war crimes prosecutor in Frankfurt refused Tarr's demand. The French government in Paris had no intention of giving up its newly owned gas warfare experts. The British government in London felt that the only way that they would be able to get their hands on any of the scientists was if they were jailed as war criminals. His demands refused, Tarr allowed Ambros to escape. Ambros quickly found employment with the French, who would later refuse to release him to the British. Ambros would finally be taken into custody in January, 1946 and in July, 1948 he would be sentenced to eight years in prison for his war crimes, which included participating in the murder of many people with nerve gas and the dissection of their corpses. Ambros would not have to serve even eight years though. He would be released early from prison and become chairman of the Board of Knoll AG of Ludwigshafen. He would later go on to serve on the boards of other corporations. Tarr would continue with his efforts to make the United States government aware of the danger the new nerve gases presented and managed to succeed in changing its policy regarding scientists who had worked in the German program. The United States Army Chemical Corps would later bring Schrader to the United States and put him to work. Schrader would be joined in the United States by General Herman Oshcner, the commander of German chemical troops, who would write a report for the United States Army Chemical Corps which would mainly consist of lies about his own involvement in Hitler's plans. Despite his lies the United States Army Chemical Crops would be happy with Oschner because they would learn from him what the Soviet Union had obtained from the Germans. After Blome was released from prison he would follow Schrader and Oschner to the United States, where he would go to work for the Army Chemical Corps and tell them about his work as the director of German biological warfare program. This would not only allow the United States to learn what biological weapons Stalin had seized from the Germans, but Blome would also reveal to them the results of his "scientific" murders of human beings with biological agents. Field Marshall Keitel had no scientific value. The Allies would try him as a war criminal, convict him, and execute him. In an effort to conceal their own use of the German scientists the governments of the United States, Britain, and France would all conceal their knowledge of the German scientists' war crimes. It would be decades before even a few historians would begin to piece together what had occurred, and most historians would simply accept the deceptive lies of the first British and American teams for many years to come: Hitler had an aversion to gas warfare. 1945, NUREMBERG. Hermann Goering would be tried and convicted of being a war criminal at the Nuremberg Trials, but like Himmler he would manage to commit suicide by taking poison before the Allies could hang him. Albert Speer would be captured, tried at Nuremberg, and sentenced to prison. Speer would write histories that would become part of the essential documentation of Hitler's rule. Rudolph Hess, who had been lured to Britain by the XX Twenty Committee on the pretense of peace negotiations, would also be tried at Nuremberg. He would be sentenced to life in prison, would never be released, and he would be the last Nazi prisoner remaining in the Allies' prison at Spandau. He would finally commit suicide. Auschwitz Commandant Fritzsche would be captured, tried at Nuremberg, and executed. Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Hoess would be captured, sent to testify at the Nuremberg Trials, sent to Warsaw, Poland, tried, and executed. While awaiting execution Hoess would write his memoirs, which would become an essential document for the history of the murder of the Jews of Europe. Hitler and the Nazis' nearly completely successful attempt at genocide would become known as the Holocaust. Adolf Eichmann, the man who had overseen the construction of the extermination center at Auschwitz, and his aid Walter Rauff, the man who had invented the death vans, would both manage to make a connection with Catholic Bishop Alois Hudal in Rome. Like many other war criminals, with aid from Hudal's Catholics and "The Spider", a network of Nazi sympathizers, they would manage to escape to South America. Ladislas Farago, the premier authority on United States intelligence during the Second World War, would later write a book in which he claimed that Martin Bormann had also managed to escape to South America. It should be noted that in 1945 the OSS operative James Jesus Angleton was in Rome assembling resources for espionage against the Soviet Union. As of this time it is not known what Angleton did in Rome, but it appears probable that he was involved with acquiring both German techniques for decoding Soviet messages as wells as the rings of agents that the Germans had used to penetrate the Soviet Union and the countries of eastern Europe. In 1961 Eichmann would be captured in Argentina by operatives of the Israeli intelligence service, sent to Israel, tried, convicted, and executed. Dr. Mengeles, who had tortured concentration camp inmates under the pretext of performing "medical experiments", would also use the "Spider" to escape the Allies, and many years later he would die peacefully in Chile. It appears that Allen Dulles used James Jesus Angleton to find refuge for those Nazis who had helped him. Many years later Rauff would be discovered living in the United States. When efforts were made to deport him so that he could be prosecuted for his war crimes, Rauff would claim that he had worked with American intelligence. The Central Intelligence Agency would then step in and stop the deportation proceedings against Rauff. It is widely believed that Bormann traded information on German intelligence in order to obtain his freedom, but a more intriguing possibility presents itself. Was Bormann working for Dulles when he had Goering removed from command? Had Bormann been trying to prevent a final gas offensive by Goering? After the war Dulles would retire to civilian life, but in 1949 he would return to a senior position in the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency, and he would later head the Central Intelligence Agency for many years. As the Soviets had generated great publicity about the German surrender in Italy which Dulles had negotiated, Dulles would write many articles and books about it. All of Dulles' books and articles would deny that the Final Redoubt had ever existed, and Dulles would claim that it had been a plot by the Soviets to divert American troops from occupying more of Germany. A review of the German documents from the time shows that this was not the case, that the redoubt did in fact exist, and that Hitler and the Nazis leaders had planned to make a last stand there using their nerve gases. Why Dulles lied about the most significant accomplishment of his life remains a mystery. Farago would claim that Bormann died peacefully in Chile many years after the war. 1945, LONDON. Now that the war was over the people of Britain would conduct new elections. Before the war the British people had been tired of the Conservatives dismal economic performance, and during the war the Labor Party had developed its own plans for the postwar economy. As Churchill campaigned the voters received him warmly, but only as a military victor. When the election results came in, the voters had turned Churchill out of office. Churchill was now not only politically crippled, but as the war had taken his other sources of income, he was also impoverished. Churchill's friends would have to get together to buy and Churchill's home for him. In an effort to raise more money Churchill returned to writing and public speaking. Churchill would return to his long held views and would begin to once again publicly speak against the socialists. As Stalin would place the governments of eastern Europe under the control of communists, and tightly control their peoples' relations with the west, in a speech in the United States Churchill would speak of Stalin's actions as the fall of an "Iron Curtain". SEPTEMBER, 1945. The United States Army was doubly delighted with von Braun's surrender to them. As a result of von Braun's actions in the evacuation of Peenemunde it would be 10 years before Stalin and the Soviet Union would develop the capability of launching a rocket attack against the United States. In addition, it would be 5 years until the Soviet Union would begin to develop rockets using visol and nitric acid, and the lack of information on the supersonic Assembly 4B Rocket would also delay the Soviet Union's development of jet aircraft. The United States' Army team would quickly bring von Braun and his scientists to the United States, before Britain could stop the United States from exporting its war trophies, and before the Soviets could kill or kidnap them. von Braun's first assignment in the United States would be to lecture the United States Army Chemical Warfare Service on the rocket, and this work would be kept secret for 50 years. 1945, BRITAIN. While von Braun escaped the grasp of the British after the war, Dornberger did not, and when the British captured him they put him in jail for two years for war crimes. Ironically, the crime for which the British would convict Dornberger would be for his role in the Central Works, a project which Dornberger had initially opposed. The record shows that Dornberger's guilt, such as it is, lies elsewhere. The record shows that while Dornberger was responsible for the initial development of the rocket as a weapon, when he started the project Hitler had not yet gained power. While it is true that Dornberger had continued to work on the weapon after Hitler took power, at the time there was no way he could foresee that Hitler would plunge Germany into war. The record also shows that Dornberger initially resisted the use of the rocket in the way in which Hitler and his commanders ultimately intended. Dornberger can also not be convicted of just following orders, for while he sometimes took the initiative in strictly military uses of the rocket, the record also shows that he often resisted orders when he thought that they were wrong. Dornberger's guilt, such as it is, lies in the fact that he did not continue his resistance, but indeed that he had begun to fully execute orders even when he clearly knew those orders were morally wrong. Many of his fellow officers gave up their lives in resisting Hitler. 1949, WEST GERMANY. After his surrender to the local Red Army command, Nebel had become involved in politics, but he fled to the west when his party was absorbed by the German Communist Party in 1947. Nebel had then been immediately debriefed by Western intelligence, who had found him a job moving a "chemical works" to England. After two years Nebel started a new career: writing and lecturing on spaceflight. It was a job he thoroughly enjoyed. 1950, SWITZERLAND. Hermann Oberth would not be among the scientists that the United States Army brought to the U.S. in 1945. Widely recognized as the founder of rocket science in Germany, after his release from detention no one would be willing to hire him. Oberth would finally leave for Switzerland. While living in Switzerland he would continue to write about manned space flight, but in 1950 he would return to weapons work when the Italian Navy offered him a job developing a solid rocket for them. 1950, WASHINGTON. After the war Eisenhower retired briefly and became the President of Columbia University in New York. When Truman became alarmed at the growing influence of the Soviet Union in Europe and felt that Europe was militarily threatened by the Soviet Union, he recalled Eisenhower to lead the military forces of the newly formed North Atlantic Treaty Organization. At the urging of Stalin North Korea attacked the zone of Korea which had remained under American control at the end of the war. As Truman feared becoming involved in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, he was unable to end this war. In 1950 Eisenhower decided to run for President of the United States and in November of 1951 he would be elected to that office, assuming power in 1952. 1951, REDSTONE ARSENAL, HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA. At first von Braun and his men would be kept separate from the United States scientists' efforts to develop rockets and they would be sent to the desert to test launch the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rockets which the Army had captured along with them. von Braun would spend part of his time there designing a reusable rocket that could be used not only to place a space station in orbit around the Earth but also to allow the construction of rockets for a manned flight to Mars. By 1950, in response to the growing Soviet threat from rockets equipped with gas warheads, the United States Army would hire von Braun and his men to develop its medium range rocket at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. Redstone Arsenal had been a center of US chemical weapons production during the war. This renewed military work caused von Braun to begin to question his strategy for obtaining manned space flight. von Braun would now also begin to work on several publicity campaigns to bring the possibility of manned space flight to the attention of the American public. As for Willy Ley, after the war he had continued as consultant to the government of the United States. He had cautiously re-established his relationship with von Braun, and he would now resume his role as a publicist for manned space flight, the same role he had performed he had performed years before as secretary of the Society for Space Travel. By 1952 Ley would be working as a technical advisor to Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, the first post war science fiction television show, and he would have his own radio show. 1951, LONDON. In 1951 the Conservatives would once again gain control of the British government and Churchill would again become Prime Minister. As Churchill had predicted many years before, Britain would no longer be the power that it once was. Despite their earlier alliance, the United States would have the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb and refuse to share their technology with Britain. While the Britain had already developed its own atomic bomb, Churchill would not see Britain powerless in the nuclear age, and in 1955 he would authorize the British development of a hydrogen bomb. 1954. The United States Air Force felt that the United States Army was attempting to take over its own role with their work in rocketry. After Dornberger was released from prison the United States Air Force invited him to come to the United States to go to work developing a manned reuseable rocket powered bomber. Dornberger would have trouble learning the English language. When pressed about his rocket bomber's accuracy during a design presentation, instead of saying that if they had landed more rockets on London, the Air Force reviewers would have fewer doubts about the rocket's accuracy, Dornberger would accidentally tell them that he wished they had landed more rockets on London. Dornberger's design would not be put into production. 1954, REDSTONE ARSENAL, HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA. In 1953 von Braun offered Hermann Oberth a job helping him to develop rockets for the United States Army. Oberth accepted, left Italy, and went to Huntsville, Alabama. A short time later Oberth once again left von Braun and returned to Germany. Perhaps Oberth's former apprentice had not changed as much as he had thought. 7 JUNE, 1954, CHESHIRE. In 1948 Alan Turing finally succeeded in building a general purpose computer, but he was not the first. Turing's effort had been delayed by his work on the German ciphers, then by Britain's poverty, by personality conflicts, and then by his colleagues' complete lack of understanding of the requirements of a code breaking computer. Turing's old boss at the Institute for Advanced Studies, John von Neumann, had become aware of the ENIAC, a project for the design of a decimal mathematics machine which used a vacuum tube processor. While working on ENIAC von Neumann had been the first person to set up the specifications for a complete binary stored program computer. With the resources of the United States government behind him, von Neumann had been the first to build a binary computer, which had been called the EDVAC. Turing had continued his work on computers and had used them in the development of the mathematics of fractals, at this time called morphogenesis. It is rumored that he also may have continued his work on codes and ciphers for the British government. What is certain is that the British government stopped that work when it discovered that Turing was homosexual. In an attempt to cure himself of homosexuality and regain his security clearance, Turing subjected himself to a series of hormone injections, became depressed, and committed suicide by eating an apple covered with cyanide which he had brewed up himself. 1955, LONDON. Late in 1955 Churchill would resign as Prime Minister on account of his age. He would continue to hold his seat in the House of Commons, but he would decline to be made a noble member of the House of Lords. 1956, WASHINGTON. Eisenhower ended the United States involvement in the war in Korea by threatening to use nuclear weapons, and he had won re-election to the Presidency in 1954. In 1956 Eisenhower would learn of Soviet scientist's intentions to develop a large booster. Eisenhower authorized von Braun to begin the development of a large rocket for the United States, a rocket large enough to enable a manned flight to the Moon. By the time John F. Kennedy would be elected President of the United States von Braun would already have his Saturn 1 Rocket in production. 1958. When the United States' civilian effort to launch a satellite failed in 1958, von Braun would be ready to launch a satellite using a variant of the medium range rocket he had developed for the Army. Because of his successful launch of the United States' first satellite, von Braun would continue to lead the United States' efforts to develop large rockets capable of landing a man on the moon, and his men would work at all the companies involved in the United States' space program. Eisenhower would transfer von Braun and his men from the Army to his newly created entirely civilian National Aeronautics and Space Administration. After the Air Force ended their project to develop a rocket powered re-usable manned bomber, Dornberger had begun to work on other weapons systems. Now that the race was on to put a man into space, Dornberger headed up the Air Force's effort to develop a manned space plane. 1962, HUNTSVILLE. von Braun initially focused his efforts for manned space flight on his Saturn 1 Rocket. For the trip by man to the moon von Braun had planned to use two Saturn 1 Rockets, which would be used to separately carry a return capsule and a lunar lander to Earth orbit. They would assemble in orbit the return capsule and lander, and then fly them to the moon. Separate from von Braun's effort in Huntsville, other United States aviation companies had been working on designs for a Nova Rocket. This rocket would be large enough to launch an expedition to the moon which would not require any docking in orbit between spacecraft components. As yet a third way of accomplishing a man flight to the moon, a NASA scientist finally had come up with a scheme to launch the return capsule along with a lander, but have the lander separate from the return capsule, land on the moon, and then rejoin the return capsule in lunar orbit. von Braun opposed these schemes because he feared that the program to land a man on the moon would be taken from him. But when von Braun satisfied himself that the new NASA program would still leave him in control, he gave it his approval and began work on the development of the Saturn 5 Rocket. von Braun would appoint Arthur Rudolph, the same man who had overseen the production of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket at the SS's factory in the Central Works, to oversee production of his Saturn 5 Rocket. After the Secretary of Defense would cancelled Dornberger's project to develop a manned space plane for the Air Force, in order to free up the resources needed for the manned flight to the moon, von Braun would hire Dornberger as well. 1964. von Braun had originally designed his large Saturn 1 Rocket to be re-usable. It had already been re-designed for single use, and with the start of work on the large Saturn 5 Rocket von Braun realized that the cost of using non re-usable rockets for space flight would be prohibitive. von Braun and his old friend from Peenemunde Heinz Herman Koelle now revived Dornberger's design for a manned re-usable rocket powered bomber. In his report Koelle renamed Dornberger's bomber the "shuttle". 1965. Churchill died in 1965, joining the warriors who had fought with him as well as those he had fought against. He died victorious. 1967. In 1967 Nebel sued the German government, claiming that they had infringed his patents as designer of the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket. As might be expected, the suit came to nothing, and Nebel would receive nothing. Upon reflection, one could conclude that perhaps Nebel made a mistake in suing the wrong government. Perhaps Nebel might have enjoyed more success if he had sued the government of the United States instead. JULY, 1969. In 1969 Hermann Oberth returned to the United States as von Braun's honored guest for the launch of Apollo 11, the first manned expedition to the moon. He was joined at the Kennedy Spaceflight Center by another of von Braun's guests, Rudolph Nebel. Willy Ley had died only a few weeks before, and he could not be there with them. In the end, due to the work of von Braun, Dornberger, Rudolph, and the other members of von Braun's team, the United States would be the first nation to land a man on the moon. MAY 1970, ESSEN, WEST GERMANY. After successfully landing a man on the moon, von Braun would attempt to convince the government of the United States that it should undertake a vigorous program of manned planetary exploration. But von Braun would find his efforts to put the United States on a new course was stopped cold when the Problem appeared. The Prosecutor in Essen, West Germany decided to convict two of the guards from the Central Works for war crimes, and he subpoenaed both von Braun and Dornberger to testify. This prosecutor would bring von Braun and Dornberger, together with Speer, to give testimony. The American soldiers who had captured von Braun in 1945 had been amazed by his absolute lack of guilt, as well as by his absolute lack of fear that he might be punished for his work. In the event, von Braun had had a much better understanding of his situation than his captors. Von Braun had known that most or the documents which could incriminate him had already been destroyed. With the documents destroyed and the witnesses silent, von Braun had known that he could always argue that he had simply been told that he was preparing nerve gas weapons to respond to the Allies if they used theirs. von Braun had also known that he was a key scientist and that he would only have value as a prize of war to his captors if they kept him alive. In the event, von Braun had been right. His captors had recognized his value and suppressed any evidence which would implicate him in any war crimes. von Braun's knowledge of what the Soviets had captured was sufficient by itself to insure that this would happen. von Braun had calculated that if knowledge of the execution of the slave laborers of Trassenheide would become public it would be dismissed as Soviet propaganda. Or if this did not happen, von Braun knew that he could always claim that he had had no choice and could blame their deaths on the SS. When von Braun had begun to head up the Army's operations at Huntsville he had finally spoken publicly about his work at Peenemunde. While von Braun had admitted that he had developed rockets for the bombardment of London, he had pointed out to his audiences that he had been bombed himself. Remarkably, von Braun had passed over the fine point of how developing weapons for Hitler could be equivalent to defending against Hitler’s attacks, and even more remarkably, for some reason his audiences let him pass this point by. Later in his life von Braun stated that he had been sickened by the bombardment of London and Antwerp, and offered the excuse that he had expected the war to be over before the Vengeance Weapon 2 Rocket was ready to be used. But the record shows that von Braun lied, and the reader may also note that von Braun got his idea for this lie, as he had so many other of his ideas, from Dr. Walter Thiel, who had attempted to use it as an excuse to resign from the rocket project in August, 1943. In response to any question about Peenemunde von Braun would always steer the conversation back to the present. von Braun knew that this present trial now would be about the guards' role, not his own. He testified that both Rudolph and himself were subject to the control of the SS and that they had protested the conditions at the Central Works to the SS until the SS had threatened their own lives. Von Braun never learned of the operations of the XX Twenty Committee. If the reader makes a close examination of von Braun's and Rudolph's accounts, he will note that they both claim that they were the one who made the protest. I have reconciled their accounts as well as I could earlier here, but in the final analysis who was lying and why are questions the readers will have to answer for themselves. Even though von Braun had escaped punishment, the Problem was there. Even though von Braun had succeeded in landing a man on the Moon, no President could make him director of the United States' space program. As von Braun had worked for Hitler, that would be politically unacceptable, and as von Braun's actions could result in his being tried at any time, that made him a liability now that the US had beaten the Soviet Union to the Moon. The Problem was not confined to von Braun. von Braun's men occupied key lower level positions in all of the United States' space companies, although because of their work for the Nazis they could not be moved into management positions. No native U.S. citizens had their experience, and the space program of the United States lost direction. In the light cast by the fires of urban riots at home and the napalm strikes of an unpopular wars abroad, the people of the United States rejected von Braun's dream as one simply too expensive to realize. 1972. As von Braun had foreseen the production of the Saturn 5 Rockets had been cancelled because they were too expensive. He began to work for the development of a "shuttle". The United States Air Force intervened. The Air Force still did not like anyone else having rockets outside of their own control, and they objected that the shuttle would not be able to carry their largest reconnaissance satellites into orbit. In order to meet their specifications, as well as to overcome their objections, NASA would redesign the shuttle as a partially re-usable vehicle, and the government of the United States would narrowly approve a program for its development. As an employee of the United States space agency NASA von Braun would continue to propose projects for manned planetary exploration, but his efforts would come to nothing. von Braun would have no political backing, and as a government employee he would be prevented from lobbying for manned space flight. Having succeeded in leading the United States' efforts to land a man on the Moon, von Braun would be reduced to aimlessly wandering the halls at NASA headquarters. In May, 1972, when NASA chose solid rocket boosters for their new rocket, von Braun left NASA and went to work with a private company. There he would then develop a new project, one that did not involve manned space flight. The rockets that had been developed for the space program had made it possible to launch satellites into orbits in which they would remain stationary over the surface of the Earth. Because the satellites were stationary, antennas could be aimed at them, and they could be used to relay communications. von Braun would conclude that these new channels of communication could be used to link computer terminals in the home with large computers at distant sites. These large computers could contain all sorts of valuable information and provide services to the home user over what von Braun called "the information highway". In other words, the internet. 1975, WASHINGTON. When the founders of the "National Space Society" first approached von Braun to help organize their lobbying group, von Braun dismissed them as "another talking society", in other words the spiritual heirs to Willy Ley's "Society for Spaceflight". von Braun would finally change his mind and decide to help them, but as he first suspected for many years the members of the National Space Society would spend most of their time talking to themselves and not be an effective lobbying group. NOVEMBER, 1975, MADRID. General Francisco Franco managed to keep control of the Spanish government until his death in November, 1975. Two years later an electoral process was once more established in Spain, and in 1983 the Socialists would once again gain control of the Spanish government through elections. 1977, WASHINGTON. Later in his life von Braun had thrown himself into his work,, but no matter what else von Braun did in his life he would never be able to restore his victims, and von Braun knew this. Along with his guilt, von Braun had constantly feared that his war crimes might be discovered; that he would be stripped of power, position, and respect; that he would be tried and convicted. However much he tried assure himself, guilt and fear would haunt von Braun until the day he died. In 1977 Wernher von Braun died and most likely went to hell, at least for a short visit: for he had sinned and sinned grievously in sacrificing the lives and the happiness of tens of thousands of the innocent residents of London and Antwerp on the ballistic altar of his idolatrous obsession with manned interplanetary space flight. von Braun most likely went to hell, but whether he stayed in hell or just visited is a matter for debate. When did von Braun learn of Hitler's decision to use the Assembly 4 Rocket to deliver warheads filled with the nerve gases? Talking with Speer in 1939? Or from Speer in 1942 or 1943? Or from Degenkolb, or Stegmaier, or Himmler, or Kammler? Or from Hitler himself? While a definite answer to this question may lay in the archives in Moscow, as of 1995 it had not yet been found, and as of this date it is a question that the reader must therefore answer for himself. And when von Braun learned of Hitler's plans, was he in any position to do anything about them? Few men have the courage of the saboteurs in the Central Works, but then few men do. It is certain that von Braun was not one of those courageous men. But before assigning guilt, the reader must ask himself what would he do if he found himself in a similar situation? Wernher von Braun was both lucky, and very very skilled at the politics of engineering. Those who met von Braun after the war would find a very different person from the shallow youth who had started work with Dornberger in 1934. They would generally agree that he was one of the most ethical men they had ever met. But most people who kill several thousand people while becoming ethical usually pay for that lesson with their own lives. Wernher von Braun was lucky. Later in his life von Braun had thrown himself into his work in an attempt to create some good to compensate for the evil, but no matter what else von Braun did in his life he would never be able to restore his victims, and von Braun had known this. Along with this guilt, von Braun had constantly feared that his war crimes might be discovered; that he would be stripped of power, position, and respect; that he would be tried and convicted. However much he tried assure himself, guilt and fear would haunt von Braun until the day he died. von Braun was lucky, as he died before knowledge of his war crimes became public. And even then most of them were dismissed as Soviet propaganda. 1978. In 1945 von Braun had correctly calculated that key scientists would only have value as prizes of war for their captors if they kept them alive and working. He had never anticipated what would happen to those scientists when their scientific value was at an end. In 1978 United States Congress woman Elizabeth Holzman of New York would become so completely fed up with the efforts of different government agencies to conceal their Nazi helpers’ pasts that she would manage to have established an independent group in the Justice Department to hunt for Nazi war criminals. Dornberger's contributions to the United States aerospace programs would be completed, and charges about his role in the Central Works would reappear. But Dornberger would also be lucky, and he would return to Germany and die before any action could be taken against him. The new organization would confront Arthur Rudolph with evidence of his role at the Central Works, and the lies which he had told in his efforts to conceal it. While they wanted Rudolph to confess, the investigators would also be nearly as embarrassed by Rudolph's role in the development of the Saturn 5 Rocket as Rudolph was about his role in the Central Works. They would offer him a deal. If Rudolph would agree to surrender his U.S. citizenship and return to Germany, he would not have to face trial in the United States and they would seal their evidence. They told Rudolph that as they would seal their evidence and not forward it to Germany, and as the statute of limitations had expired in Germany, it was not likely that he would not face any trial in Germany either. Rudolph took their offer. When Rudolph's surrender of his citizenship and return to Germany was announced, many demanded that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration strip Rudolph of the medal which they had given him for his role in the development of the Saturn 5 Rocket. But with President Reagan's blessing NASA would decline to do so, saying that they had awarded Rudolph the medal "for a specific service he performed while employed by NASA. To rescind the medal would serve no useful purpose since it has nothing in common with the allegation against him." Amazingly, NASA was now claiming that the skills Rudolph had acquired building von Braun's Assembly 4 Rocket had had nothing to do with his success in building the Saturn 5 Rocket. Rudolph would begin an effort to restore his honor, and his co-workers from von Braun's team would support him in this effort. Rudolph would publicly protest that he had done what he could to improve the living conditions of the slave laborers of the Central Works, but the evidence implicating him in the punishment of prisoners suspected of sabotage would be too great. Rudolph would spend the rest of his life attempting to get his citizenship and his honor restored, but every time he would be confronted by the evidence and his appeals would be denied. Rudolph would die unexonerated living in exile in Germany. As to Rudolph's guilt, the reader should note that while Rudolph had initially lied about his role in the Central Works, he had not lied when he had told people that he had done everything in his power to improve the living conditions of the slave laborers who had worked there. Rudolph had accurately stated that his power to do anything about the living conditions had been extremely limited. And the reader may also note that Rudolph had also not been able to do anything to prevent the slave laborers from sabotaging the rockets, nor had he had it in his power to prevent the SS from punishing them for their sabotage. Rudolph had not lied when he told people that he had just followed orders. He had followed von Braun's orders to go to the Central Works. And in turn these orders had not originated from von Braun, but from the SS, as they had ordered von Braun to provide them with aid necessary for them to manufacture the V2 rocket. Rudolph's guilt lay elsewhere. Rudolph, like von Braun, and Dornberger, and all the other members of von Braun's team, had agreed to develop rockets for Adolf Hitler. And once you have sold your soul to the devil, you can never get it back. 1995. Memory of the war faded, and in the 1990's scientists would be baffled on more than one occasion by the sudden complete disappearance of fish from some of the commercial fishing grounds in the North Sea. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETED ON THE 20TH DAY OF APRIL, YEAR 1994 OF THE COMMON ERA THE OCCASION OF THE 105TH REMEMBRANCE OF THE BIRTH OF ADOLF HITLER