Hitler's Terror Weapons by Brooks, Geoffrey (life books to read .txt) 📗

the laboratory work at Jungfernstieg 19, Lichterfelde-Ost, that even Hitler’s personal SS-bodyguard could not be permitted to see anything of what went on there. Presumably when Hitler arrived he would be escorted inside by Ohnesorge and von Ardenne leaving the 3-axled Mercedes charabanc with Schaub and the SS-Führerbegleit in the driveway. After a conversation in the Baron’s pleasant reception room with its heavy curtains and suits of armour, Hitler would descend into the bunker to inform himself of how it was all coming along. Here he would be welcomed by Professor Houtermans and probably Dr Siegfried Flügge, who was with von Ardenne at material times and who refused to sign the Farm Hall declaration.

Henry Picker copied into his notebook the very words spoken by Hitler. The target of the Uraniumbomben was to be the civilian population of the United States. The means of delivery was to be the A9/10 intercontinental rocket. According to Hitler’s personal ADC Julius Schaub, who had been told about the Uraniumbombe by SS-colleagues at the place where it was assembled, it was in der Grösse eines kleinen Kürbis, “the size of a small gourd”. Hitler was confident that the arrival of the first few Uraniumbomben on New York would swiftly render the American President “ready for peace” - (friedensbereit zu schiessen).

Rumours of a Miracle Weapon Begin to Circulate

The hope inspired by the development of Heisenberg’s V-2 bomb can be seen from the growth of rumours about a miracle weapon beginning in the late summer of 1943. Coinciding with the termination of von Ardenne’s involvement in the project, the breeding of the radioactive material, the month of July 1943 was marked by the first verbal salvoes opening the V-weapons campaign, and SS-originated rumours soon began to circulate about new bombs “built on the atomic principle” of which twelve would suffice to destroy one million inhabitants of a city. In visits to the Ruhr and Rhineland, Goebbels is alleged to have said a good deal more on the subject of ‘atomic type’ weapons than he ever allowed to appear in print. On 23 February 1944, at a confidential meeting of all Gauleiters, Reichsminister Goebbels promised,

“Retribution is at hand. It will take a form hitherto unknown in warfare, a form the enemy, we hope, will find impossible to bear.”

The use of monstrous explosives spraying radioactivity far and wide was previously unknown in warfare, whereas the use of rockets and bombs was not. Goebbels’ dark references were echoed by Hitler himself in a speech to troops reported in the RMfVP (Reich Propaganda Ministry) circular Tdtigkeitsbericht of 25 September 1944 when he said,

“God forgive me if I have to turn to that terrible weapon to end the conflict.”

He could not have meant the V-1 and V-2, since by then both had been used against Britain, and the V-3 High Pressure Pump was not only still undergoing research but was also out of range. Therefore he must have meant the V-4.

From Lichterfelde-Ost the material for V-4 was passed to the SS scientists with instructions for manufacture. Schaub told Picker that the Uraniumbomben were being produced in a “subterranean SS factory in the South Harz mountains with a force of 30,000 workers” (werden in einem unterirdischen SS-Werk im Südharz mit einer Produktionskapazitdt von 30,000 Arbeitskrdften hergestellt.) Professor Seuffert’s SS laboratory was located in an underground section of the Ohrdruf complex in the southern Harz and one presumes this was where Schaub must have meant.

Although the V-2 was conceived as a long-range weapon for use from mobile launch sites, in the summer of 1943 a huge assembly and storage bunker with a concrete roof seven metres thick was begun at Watten south-west of Dunkirk. On 27 August and 8 September 1943 it was hit by 484 heavy bombs and destroyed. A massive new bunker complex extending over five hectares at Wizernes near St Omer survived all efforts to destroy it and was operational until Allied forces overran the area in 1944.

The British rocket scientist Philip Henshall stated that these monumental bunkers were capable of launching not only the V-2 but all projected developments including the gigantic A9/10 two-stage intercontinental rocket which was 26 metres in length and nine metres wide across the tail assembly.

Measurements proved that the working heights inside each silo could accommodate the projected A9/10 rocket minus its warhead. He considered that Watten was completely self-contained and impregnable from the exterior by virtue of its massive armoured doors, while at both locations the 23-feet-thick lid forming the dome to the structures could not be penetrated by any known bomb even hitting directly. Since the greater part of the concrete constructions were bunkers and silos, none of which were necessary for launching V-2 rockets, the actual purpose must have been to store nuclear materials and house the A9/10 “New Yorker”.

In November 1944, according to Otto Skorzeny, all the talk was of

“a dreadful weapon based on artificially bred radioactivity”. 80

Such talk stemmed from among his own SS colleagues. But it was just talk. The budgetary restrictions, the diversification and experimentation into other interesting rockets and guided missiles, the invasion of Normandy and the time required to mass-produce a huge stock of the V-4 atomic explosives ensured that nothing would come of the weapon for America on which Hitler was pinning all his hopes. By the time they were finally ready even London was out of range.

Covering Over the Traces

On 1 August 1943, according to his autobiography, von Ardenne at last obtained vacant possession of the underground bunker complex and proceeded to remove most of his laboratory into it, thus terminating his association with the ‘atomic’ project.

Von Ardenne does not state how Professor Houtermans occupied his time at the laboratory between August 1941 and August 1944. Whilst von Ardenne and his co-workers produced a total of forty scientific papers in that period, Houtermans published only his August 1941 report, amended in 1944, and a brief work on separation in ultracentrifuges in February 1942.

Houtermans told the Swiss scientific author Robert Jungk 81