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...attributed this ignorance to excessive secrecy, but the British knew about Peenemünde and bombed it heavily only a month later...
Brilliant Engineering. General Dornberger's book is rather confused but highly instructive. It tells in detail how the V-2s were developed. There is no doubt about the brilliance of the rocket engineers who worked at the great Pennemünde base. They started from scratch, feeling their way in an area where virtually nothing was known. Many rockets failed, or exploded disastrously. The engineers had to develop instruments to find out why; they had to develop test stands and guiding devices and elaborate firing routines. Many of the rocket techniques still used today were worked...
Money was not the problem; by 1936, says Dornberger, "high authority virtually suffered from an attack of acute generosity." But even while money, men and equipment poured into Pennemünde, the project had no secure status. Hitler saw a rocket motor fired on a test stand, but was not impressed. Shortly after the start of World War II, the project's priority was reduced so low that Dornberger had to persuade Field Marshal von Brauchitsch to list his staff as fighting troops, out of reach of civilian authorities...
...atomic bomb, it might very well have won the war. Why no one realized this is probably explained by the amazing lack of coordination among Nazi bigwigs. Dornberger discovered in 1943 that practically no one at Hitler's headquarters had ever heard of the enormous Peenemünde base...
...Little & Late. Hitler at last gave the V-2s the highest priority, but Dornberger's troubles were not over. Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo, kept sniffing around Peenemünde. His men arrested Von Braun and two colleagues because they had been heard to remark that they were still interested in space flight. Spies were everywhere; Nazi favorites were plotting. The V-2s were forced into production while they were no more than delicate laboratory models. Many of them failed disastrously. When the first V-2s reached England in September 1944, they were too late to have...