Hitler's Third Reich and World War II in the News is a daily edited review of WWII news, providing thought- provoking collection of hand-picked WW2 information.

Category: V-2 Rocket : von Braun  -- See latest WWII news here. See also 'Atomic Bombs', 'Military Models', 'German Aces'.

Germans shun rocket legacy - The Peenemuende testing site mostly ignored
The space race began on a remote island off the Baltic coast in 1942 when a team under Wernher von Braun set up the bases for sending man to the moon, as they were testing the first long-range ballistic missiles - one of the last century's most important technological breakthroughs. But Germans don't celebrate the location because of the moral ambiguity. The rockets ("Vengeance Weapon 2" or "V2s") were built to give Adolf Hitler a weapon that could ravage enemy cities without putting a crew in danger. V2s and V1s ("doodlebugs") killed 15,000 people and 20,000 slave laborers died building them.     [ sciam :: 2008-04-09 :: V-2 Rocket : von Braun ]

World War II German V-1 rocket draws watchers on I-5
It's not common that a V-1 rocket from Nazi Germany rolls down I-5 through Everett. Now it's happened as the World War II relic owned by Paul Allen was transported from a museum at the Arlington Airport to Paine Field. The disarmed V-1 was the first of 15 items in Allen's Flying Heritage Collection to be moved to a 51,000-square-foot former repair hangar at Paine Field. The rocket drew stares and pointing from drivers as it crawled along from Arlington to Everett. One couple who stopped next to the rocket could read the writing on the tail part of the camouflage-painted V-1 rocket.     [ heraldnet :: 2008-03-20 :: V-2 Rocket : von Braun ]

Museum that is home of Nazi's V rocket program is expanding
German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania hopes to prevent a museum in Peenemuende, dedicated to the history of the Nazis' rocket program, from going under by expanding the facility to attract more tourists. The state had lent the museum an unrevealed sum to keep it going until a new concept for its future can be shaped. The museum, in the former power station of the research complex where V-1 and V-2 rockets (the first ballistic rockets) were designed by Nazi scientists and built by forced laborers 1942-1945, has long been at the center of the village's attempts to rebuild itself.     [ pr-inside :: 2008-03-20 :: V-2 Rocket : von Braun ]

Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun's secret 1934 papers for sale
A once top-secret manuscript, a milestone in the development of modern rockets, is to go under the hammer. Wernher von Braun created the 166-page document for his PhD dissertation in 1934. It was was regarded so pivotal to the rocket development that it was seized by the German military and remained classified until 1960. Von Braun developed Nazi Germany's V2 combat rocket (the Vergeltungswaffen 2 or Vengeance Weapon 2). He surrendered to American troops at the end of WW2 and was merged into the American scientific community. Von Braun went on to become the director of Nasa's Marshall Space Flight Centre and the architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle for Apollo 8.     [ guardian :: 2007-12-04 :: V-2 Rocket : von Braun ]

June 13, 1944: V-1 Rocket Ushers in a New Kind of Warfare
1944: Third Reich launches the first V-1 rocket, one of Nazi Regime's wonder weapons, attacks against London. It is the first guided-missile strike against a city in the history of warfare. The V-1 was the world's first operational guided missile. Built of plywood and sheet metal and burning low-grade fuel, the V-1 was easily mass produced. But the rocket, known as the "buzz bomb" or the "doodlebug," was easily spotted and slow, making it vulnerable to antiaircraft fire and fighters. Of the 9,200 V-1s fired at London, less than 2,500 reached their targets. 6,000 Londoners were killed and 17,000 wounded in V-1 attacks.     [ wired :: 2007-06-14 :: V-2 Rocket : von Braun ]

Peenemuende Museum highlight German V2 rocket achievements
The site where German scientists developed the V2 rocket during World War II has become very popular tourist attraction. A quarter of a million people each year flock to the northern island of Usedom to visit the Historical Technical Information Centre in Peenemuende. Located in a former power station, the museum details the development of the rockets and scientists. The exhibition show original rocket parts, documentary films of launches and interviews with witnesses of the events. The achievements that led to the launch of the world's first rocket stand in contrast to the suffering caused by Hitler's "Vergeltung" or Vengeance weapon V2 and V1.     [ expatica :: 2007-04-14 :: V-2 Rocket : von Braun ]

Veteran recalls infamous Buzz Bombs :: V-1 rockets
"...I heard him in a dive; I heard the bomb whistle and it hit the ground. I could hear the shrapnel over the top of me...." Ralph Menke has a vivid memory of his World War II experiences. Most of them involve surviving bomb raids, including many which used the forerunner of today's cruise missile. Adolf Hitler's forces developed an unpiloted aircraft that was the first of its kind in history. The V-I flying bomb, known as the "Buzz Bomb," was a small pilotless aircraft with a large warhead. "...when I passed by it, I saw that it had been bombed. That was where the Germans ran their first Buzz Bomb attack."     [ delphosherald :: 2007-01-23 :: V-2 Rocket : von Braun ]

Captured Nazi scientists jump-start American space program
Both US and Soviet Union had built their postwar missile programs using the technology developed by German rocket scientists at Peenemunde, a Nazi submarine base. There, Dr. Wernher von Braun had led the development of the V-2 rocket - the first ballistic missile, invulnerable to Allied defenses. According to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, had the Germans developed rockets six months earlier, the course of the war would have been reversed. Von Braun made contact with American forces and arranged to surrender himself and 118 of leading rocket scientists. The Germans brought with them blueprints and enough parts to build more than 100 of missiles.     [ thevillagesdailysun :: 2006-06-19 :: Nazi scientists and Science ]

Space Race starts off from the Third Reich missile program
"Space Race" starts off in a small Baltic village in 1945 with a chilling account of the Nazi missile program, Adolf Hitler's last hope for saving the Third Reich. There, under von Braun 5,000 scientists were developing the V-2 rocket, Vengeance Weapon. The V-2s were manufactured at Mittelwerk, a giant underground factory. At the end of the war, von Braun escaped capture by Soviet troops and moved to the US, along with hundreds of other engineers. US turned a blind eye to von Braun's past in the Nazi Party and SS. The Soviets sent their own mission to Germany, bringing back equipment, missile parts and thousands of engineers. Korolyov, who took part in the mission, was put in charge of the V-2 design.     [ sptimes :: 2006-05-12 :: Nazi scientists and Science ]

Rocket man recalls von Braun pushing U.S. space program
Phil Fons was a young rocket propulsion specialist when he first met German physicist Wernher von Braun and his assistant Walter Riedel - two of the top rocket scientists in the world and the creators of the V2 rocket. Fons was working for Aviation's Rocketdyne division, overseeing the rocket engine tests of its Navaho missile program. It was von Braun who convinced John F. Kennedy to send a manned spacecraft to the moon. When U.S. troops swept over Germany in the final months of WWII, von Braun and his engineers surrendered to them - and Pentagon officials were quick to ship the entire V2 program to Fort Bliss and White Sands.     [ chieftain :: 2006-05-12 :: V-2 Rocket : von Braun ]

How V2 menace terrorised Whitehall
Top secret papers reveal that flawed intelligence led to fear of 100,000 deaths in London in first month of rockets. An emergency committee set up to predict the damage that V2 rockets could cause warned Winston Churchill that more than 100,000 Londoners would die in the first month of the bombardment, with the same number severely injured. Spies, led by MI6, discovered in early 1943 that V2 rockets, codenamed Big Ben, were being built by Germany and believed they could strike London at the rate of one an hour carrying 10-ton warheads. The committee considered recommending the complete evacuation of London as soon as the V2s began to fall.     [ telegraph :: 2005-02-28 :: V-2 Rocket : von Braun ]

V-2 rocket: Hitler's last weapon of terror
John Clarke was six years old when the first V-2 rocket to hit London landed outside his house. The V-2 took just five minutes to travel there from its launch site in the Netherlands. At 6.44pm, the tonne of high explosives detonated, gouging a crater 10m (30ft) across and 2.5m (8ft) deep. The blast killed 3 people, injured 22 and demolished six houses. The attack marked the beginning of a terror campaign that would claim at least 5,000 lives. The rocket's title was the A-4, but propaganda minister Josef Goebbels named it Vergeltungswaffe zwei (Vengeance Weapon 2), or V-2. The Nazis hoped the V-2 would rain down on their enemies causing destruction and psychological shock.     [ bbc :: 2004-09-07 :: V-2 Rocket : von Braun ]

Rockets, dearie? Can't say I've noticed
On Sept 7, 1944, the Home Secretary issued an statement: "the Battle of London has been won". The next day, the first supersonic weapon, the V-2 rocket, landed on the capital. That summer, London had been battered by the V-1 or "doodlebug", which had destroyed 18,000 houses and damaged 800,000. But by September Londoners had begun to relax. The intensity of the bombing had subsided. Of the two unmanned rockets, the V-2 was the more terrifying. Unlike the V-1, which could be heard before impact, the V-2 gave no warning. Official silence: It was not until Nov 10 that Churchill admitted that London was under attack from the V-2.     [ telegraph :: 2004-06-27 :: V-2 Rocket : von Braun ]

Hitler's A4 missile more commonly known as V-2
On October 3, 1942 there was the first successful launch of A4 missile, which was more commonly known as V-2. This missile was called Hitler's missile during WWII. V2 was another creation of the main Nazi missile designer - Wernher von Braun. The works on V2 missile started at the end of the 1930s. However, the tests started only in the summer of 1942. At first, it was not successful, but October 3 was marked with the first successful launch of V2 missile. Yet, it turned out later that the success was not a final one. Two more years were spent on the completion of the missile before Nazis started using it in their army purposes.     [ pravda :: 2002-10-03 :: V-2 Rocket : von Braun ]

Remembering Wernher von Braun's German Rocket
Walter Jacobi, one of the few remaining German technicians whose genius helped put American astronauts on the moon, is frail now. But his eyes sparkled when asked about the legacy of the team of 119 scientists, led by Wernher von Braun, who arrived in this north Alabama city a half-century ago and turned its cotton fields into a landmark of space exploration, including the first moon landing in 1969. But to some that legacy is marred by the group's initial work creating V-2 rockets for the German military with the help of thousands of concentration camp laborers under the Nazi boot.     [ space :: 2002-08-13 :: V-2 Rocket : von Braun ]

Martin Schilling, Developer of V-2 Missile at Peenemunde
Martin Schilling who worked with Wernher von Braun at Peenemunde, Germany, during World War II to develop the world's first large ballistic missile, the V-2, died on April 30. Although not a decisive weapon, the 47-foot-long V-2 (Vergeltungswaffe 2, or Vengeance Weapon 2) with its one-ton warhead, was one to inspire dread among Allied civilians and soldiers alike. About 1,000 V-2's were fired at London during the war, and some 4,000 were launched against Allied soldiers. Because the V-2 traveled at an altitude of 60 miles and a speed of one mile per second, faster than the speed of sound, there was no warning of its approach.     [ mishalov :: 2001-05-14 :: V-2 Rocket : von Braun ]

See also

'Atomic Bombs'

'Military Models'

'German Aces'.

Although the articles linked from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich 1933-1945 and World War II in the News are reviewed and specially selected, they do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, who is not responsible for the content of any external sites. This service is © Joni Nuutinen 2005-2008. All rights reserved.