On the way home, I pondered a riddle that tormented me. Why did the Germans not use atomic weapons? I did not believe in Hitler's humanism. Military expediency ... um, of course, leaves much to be desired, but the explosion of a nuclear charge in the enemy offensive zone would force him (offensive) to stop for a long time. In addition, having spent so much time and effort, it was a sin not to use an expensive toy for its intended purpose. The question is - how?

And really - how? Maybe there is a clue here? I recently heard a fresh anecdote. The director of the CIA comes to the American president and says: “I have two news. One is bad, the other is good." President: "Start with the bad." CIA Director: "Okay. The bad news is that Saddam has an atomic bomb. The good thing is that he can only throw it off a camel.”

In the spring of 1945, the Third Reich could well have found itself in the position of Saddam from a joke. There is a nuclear bomb - but there are no means of delivery, to put it scientifically. Is it true? Let's check.

The first thing that comes to mind is rockets. "V-1" and "V-2" are well known. Could they be carriers of a nuclear warhead?

"V-1" was considered extremely secret. Its development began in 1941 at a secret test center located on the island of Peenemünde in the Baltic Sea. This secluded island was perfect for this kind of project. Engineers and workers were gathered here, practically cut off from the outside world, so that absolutely no one suspected the existence of a secret research center for a long time. In German documents, the rocket was referred to as Fi-103. In addition, for secrecy purposes, in order to confuse enemy reconnaissance, sometimes the V-1 project was called "sighting device 76 for anti-aircraft guns."

The task of scientists, working under the control of army commanders, was to create a simple and cheap weapon, which, however, would prove to be very effective. The work moved briskly and quite successfully, the tests took place in 1943. The V-1 rocket was an extremely simple and cheap design. It looked like a small unmanned aircraft powered by a pulsed Argus jet engine. The wingspan was about 5 meters depending on the model.

The launch of the V-1 took place from a special ramp, on which the marching pulsating engine was turned on and the rocket was accelerated to the desired speed by the boosters. Immediately after leaving the ramp, the boosters were dropped. "V-1" could also be launched from a carrier aircraft or from a submarine. Typically, the rocket flight took place at an altitude of 600-900 m, the speed was about 600 kilometers per hour.

A serious problem was the guidance of the missile to the target. In principle, it was possible to create a complex and expensive system, but it was the cheapness of the project that was put at the forefront. As a result, the V-1 course was regulated by three simple gyroscopes and a compass. The range was controlled by a small propeller, which rotated in flight and thereby twisted the bolt attached to the propeller. When the bolt thread reached a certain point, the pulsating engine was turned off and the V-1 was transferred by the rudders into a steep dive. The fuse worked directly on impact with the ground.

The outright cheapness of the V-1 made it possible to produce it in huge quantities. Looking ahead, I will say that more than 32 thousand missiles were manufactured in total. Already in the winter of 1943-1944, preparations began for launch sites in France for shelling British territory. Moreover, the work was carried out on a very large scale - it seemed that the Germans specifically wanted to attract the attention of their opponents. Panic began in the British and American headquarters. Indeed, huge forces were concentrated on the south coast of England to invade France! If these troops come under rocket fire… Then the Allied officers were afraid to even fantasize. In their inflamed imagination, a swarm of tens of thousands of rockets immediately arose (in fact, the Germans at that time only had a couple of hundred in stock), which turn the troop concentration area into a lifeless desert.

In one book devoted to V-1 missiles, I read the following information about their combat use. Of course, all this cannot be taken seriously and can only be read as an illustration of popular misconceptions. So…

All the advantages of the V-1 were greatly spoiled by the primitive guidance device. Shoot "V-1" was possible only in large areas, such as a city or a huge port in Antwerp.

Germany had high hopes for the V-1. Having lost the Battle of Britain in the air, Hitler dreamed of bringing England to its knees with V-1 bombings. It is no coincidence that the letter V is an abbreviation of the word - Vergeltungswaffe, that is, a miracle weapon. V-1 rockets bombarded England and the port of Antwerp, which was of vital strategic importance in supplying the Allied forces. With the V-1 bombing, Germany hoped to convince the British that they were at war with a fraternal people and should, if not go over to the side of Germany, then at least get out of the war. The Germans literally expected a miracle from a miracle weapon, but a miracle did not happen - the explosions of these missiles only rallied the British more strongly and further strengthened their desire to put an end to their "obsessive brother" - Nazi Germany.

British air defense and air force artillery effectively resisted the V-1 attacks. For the new British fighters, especially those with jet engines such as the Gloster Meteor, V-1 rockets were easy targets. On the final section of the trajectory, before going into a dive, the main engine was turned off at the V-1, which allowed the enemy to prepare in advance. The British knew that as long as they saw a V-1 in the sky with a running engine, nothing threatened them. Later, the German designers eliminated this feature of the V-1. The interception and destruction of the V-1 was facilitated by a long, clearly visible trail in the sky, which left behind a pulsating engine.

The bombing with V-1 rockets lasted from June 13, 1944 to March 29, 1945. In total, 10 thousand V-1s were released to England. 2419 V-1s fell on London itself and its suburbs. Part of the missiles were sent to cities north of the British capital.

As it became known after the war, the guidance was corrected on the basis of reports from an agent who, while in London, worked under the control of British intelligence and gave false data, due to which most of the missiles that broke through the air defense went undershot and fell in the suburbs. Of the 8070 pieces fired in London, 7488 were detected by the surveillance service, and 2420 reached the target. 1847 units were shot down by British air defense fighters, 1878 by anti-aircraft artillery and 232 V-1 projectiles crashed against barrage balloons. Achieving the goal of "V-1" destroyed 24,791 residential buildings, 52,293 buildings became uninhabitable. In the process, 5,864 people died, 17,197 were seriously injured, and 23,174 were slightly injured.

A very typical look at the V-1. Like, the Germans created primitive weapons that the British intercepted effortlessly, and only due to an oversight of some anti-aircraft gunners and pilots did a few pieces still fall on London and other cities.

How was it really? In fact, the primitiveness of the V-1 is explained by its purely utilitarian purpose. Well, no one planned to bring Britain to its knees with the help of these missiles, it was just a garden scarecrow for opponents. And why does a garden scarecrow need a velvet camisole and an exact portrait resemblance to the owner of the garden? So the V-1 did not need an accurate guidance system and a powerful engine at all. It was made as cheap as possible, without any claims for outstanding flight performance or monstrous destructive power.

But for what purpose, you ask. Everything is very simple. When cruise missiles did begin to fall on Britain, the British began to hastily create a defense system. London was surrounded by air defense from several belts, in which fighter patrols alternated with the positions of anti-aircraft guns. In total, according to some reports (of which the British themselves are embarrassed today), about 2 thousand fighters and up to 5 thousand anti-aircraft artillery barrels were involved in measures to repel the missile threat. This is more anti-aircraft guns than were at the front at that time! In addition, several hundred fighters, including the latest and fastest, provided "long approaches" to London, and hundreds more attack aircraft and heavy bombers were exclusively engaged in destroying missile launch sites, which, however, most of all resembled catching fleas in a dark room. .

As a result, the Germans managed, with the help of their exaggerated missile threat, to keep about a third of the enemy aircraft that had so annoyed them, including all the latest fighter models, away from the battlefield. Well thought out, right? The ingenious hoax succeeded. The British and Americans still believe that they managed to cope with the "terrible threat." Or, at least, they pretend not to understand how they were fooled. Hitler's rocket program had nothing to do with the V-1 and was subordinated not to the army, but to the SS. The head of this program was the brilliant young scientist Wernher von Braun. It was he who managed to create samples of invincible weapons that could have brought success to the Nazis if they had been created a little earlier. We are talking about the V-2 rocket, also known as the A4.

In reference books, A4 is described as follows.

In shape, it resembled a huge artillery shell, equipped with four mutually perpendicular stabilizers. Its total length was 14,300 mm, the maximum hull diameter was 1650 mm, and the launch weight reached 12.7 tons and was made up of the weight of the combat charge (980 kilograms), fuel (8760 kilograms) and the structure along with power plants (3060 kilograms). The rocket consisted of more than 30 thousand parts, and the length of the electrical equipment wires exceeded 35 kilometers. The range of the rocket was from 290 to 305 kilometers, although some prototypes were able to cover a distance of 355 kilometers. The flight path was a parabola with an elevation of about a quarter of the range. The total flight time was approximately 5 minutes, while the flight speed in some sections of the trajectory exceeded 1500 meters per second. To launch the rocket, it was planned to use the so-called protected launch positions and field-type launch positions.

Let's stop for a second. The characteristics indicated for the A4 are very good even for our days, this ballistic missile would not be so easy to intercept even with modern weapons. At the end of the 30s, in no other country in the world there was anything like it, even remotely approaching the A4 in terms of its characteristics. Something similar appeared only in the second half of the 40s, and then only because the A4 samples fell into the hands of Germany's opponents. In the first post-war years, copies of the "German miracle" were made and put into service in many countries of the world, and also served as a model for the further development of rocket technology. It is difficult to say at what stage the creation of modern rockets would be if it were not for von Braun and his A4. This rocket was ahead of its time by at least 15–20 years.

So, by 1944, the A4 rocket, called the V-2 (Vengeance Weapon - 2), was quite ready for combat use. In Germany, underground factories belonging to the SS began mass production of these missiles. Protected starting positions were built on the outskirts of the French cities of Watton, Vizerne and Sottevast. They were made in accordance with all the rules of fortification science and were a bunker covered with a concrete dome. The rocket on the railway platform entered the bunker from one exit, was refueled and serviced, installed on the launch cart and through the other exit was fed to the launch pad, which was a quadrangular concrete platform with a cone in the middle (the diameter of the cone is about 5 meters). Inside the bunker were barracks for personnel, as well as a kitchen and a first-aid post. The equipment of this position made it possible to produce up to 54 V-2 launches per day. As a field-type position, in principle, any flat area on which the launch pad was installed could be used. All equipment of the launch complex was placed on cars and tractors. Modified armored personnel carriers were used as launch control vehicles. The mobile launch complex was distinguished by high tactical mobility. Due to the fact that the starting positions were constantly changing, they were practically invulnerable to air raids. For half a year of hostilities, despite the 30-fold superiority of the Allies in the air and intense bombing, not a single V-2 was destroyed at the start.

The reference book on the combat use of the V-2 says the following.

At the end of August 1944, Operation Penguin began. V-2 missile units, numbering up to 6 thousand soldiers and officers and up to 1.6 thousand different vehicles, moved out of their permanent bases in the areas of combat launches. Already on the evening of September 8, the London district of Chiswick shuddered from the impact of the first V-2 that reached the British Isles. The missile offensive lasted from September 8, 1944 to March 23, 1945, when the 902nd Rocket Artillery Regiment delivered the last missile attack on Antwerp. During this period, 1269 V-2s were launched in England (1225 in London, 43 in Norwig and 1 in Ipswich) and 1739 in targets on the continent (1593 of them in Antwerp and 27 in Luttich). According to official British data, 1,054 V-2s reached their targets in England, resulting in 9,277 casualties (2,754 killed and 6,523 seriously wounded). In the Antwerp area, 1265 rockets exploded, which, along with the V-1, caused the death of 6448 people. The number of wounded and missing was 23,368.

Thus, the effectiveness of the "V-2" was very high. It is no coincidence that at the end of 1944, Hitler told Himmler, who took the A4 project under his personal control:

All we need today is as much A4 as possible. It is a weapon against which the enemy has no antidote, it alone can bring him to his knees. All that is required of our valiant soldiers is to hold off the enemies until the A4 turns the enemy rear into smoking ruins. According to the latest data, the population hastily evacuated from London and other German cities. If we push just a little bit, Britain will be in chaos. No one wants to risk their lives living in large cities, working in factories, unloading ships in ports. The economic machine will freeze, and the Anglo-American armies will fall apart after it. We kick them out of France like we did in 1940, and then turn our backs to the east and deal with the Russians. A4 is the weapon that can bring us victory.

Indeed, Hitler's dreams could come true. The outflow of population from large English cities in late 1944 - early 1945 is not the delirium of a crazy dictator, but a harsh reality. Several thousand people left London every day, heading for the countryside or the north of the country. In this regard, a rather tangible economic decline began.

Now, if a nuclear warhead were put on this rocket ... Unfortunately for the Nazis and fortunately for the rest of the world, this was technically impossible. "V-2" carried a warhead weighing no more than a ton. An atomic bomb is several times heavier. I'm not talking about the V-1 projectile, the capabilities of which were even less.

So I'm right, and Hitler simply did not have a suitable carrier? Let's not jump to conclusions...

Yes, that's right, dear reader. I was not mistaken at all, and I am not writing about the second half of the twentieth century, but about the time of the Third Reich. After all, it was in Nazi Germany that the first intercontinental ballistic missile was created.

Little is usually written about the A9 / 10 rocket project. In one of the directories, I managed to find the following description of this development.

The Nazi leadership considered that it would be nice to inflict a similar strike on the United States, but for this the capabilities of the V-2 (flight range of about 350 kilometers) were clearly not enough. However, since 1941 (that is, before the official declaration of war with the United States), German engineers have been developing a two-stage A9 / 10 intercontinental ballistic missile. As the second stage, it was supposed to use the same successful V-2 rocket (weight - about 13 tons, diameter - 1651 millimeters, mass of the warhead - 1000 kilograms), and the detachable first stage had to accelerate it to the speed necessary for intercontinental flight weighing 87 tons, of which 62 tons were fuel. The engine of this stage was designed for a thrust of 1962 kilonewtons, which it could develop for 50 seconds. After the second stage was launched into orbit, the massive first stage would separate and parachute down to earth, allowing it to be reused. The flight range of the entire complex was supposed to be about 4500 kilometers - quite enough to shell the United States.

In fact, the scientific study of the project of an intercontinental ballistic missile began in 1939. At first, the rocket was going to be made single-stage and they suffered for a long time, designing a clumsy giant. Then came the idea that lethal weapons could be made composite. The concept of a multi-stage rocket had many advantages; now the giant fuel tanks needed to accelerate the rocket on the most difficult launch site could not be dragged with you all the way, but to get rid of them immediately after they were empty. Subsequently, all heavy ballistic missiles in the world will be built according to this scheme. In the meantime, German engineers moved forward by trial and error.

In 1941, the first stage of the most complex development was completed. It is known that one of the main problems that the development team had to face was the problem of precise guidance. Work on the A4, which was to become part-time the second stage of the new intercontinental monster, moved forward difficult. As combat experience later showed, even when firing at relatively close London from a distance of 70-100 kilometers, less than half of the missiles fired hit the target. If so, what will happen when shooting across the ocean? This is the question the engineers asked themselves. At the same time, it was obvious that the A9 / 10 would cost much more than the A4, and no one wanted to lose a lot of missiles on elementary misses. In the absence of a decent electronic guidance system, the Germans had two options: either direct the missile at the target by radio, or make it manned. Therefore, the second (combat) part of the rocket was developed in two versions: with radio guidance and with a cockpit for a suicide pilot.

At first, the designers chose the first path. Since a combat missile could not be ready until the end of 1944, it was obvious that it would not be possible to carry out many launches. Therefore, one had to rely not so much on a direct military effect as on a propaganda effect. In view of the foregoing, the intercontinental missile was supposed to fall not just anywhere within New York, but to hit some remarkable target, the destruction of which could produce a shock impression. It is known that the Empire State Building, the largest skyscraper of that time, was considered as such an object; the whole question was how to get into it. In September 1944, a special agent was sent to the United States by German military intelligence - the Abwehr, whose task was to study the possibilities of installing a radio beacon transmitter on the Empire State Building, on the signal of which A9 / 10 should have arrived. He was a very experienced agent, and his sending was very carefully prepared. The newest submarine brought him to the coast of the United States, the cover was organized at the highest level. Nevertheless, American intelligence somehow became aware of the operation being prepared by the Germans and its tasks, and the FBI informed its agents and, in general, the widest sections of citizens about the main signs and habits of a spy. This work has borne fruit. The German superspy had a habit of putting small change in the breast pocket of his jacket; this sign was indicated in the FBI orientation, and one of the small New York shopkeepers - something like an ice cream seller - noticing that his client poured change into the breast pocket of his jacket, he immediately "knocked" where it was necessary. A suspicious man was detained, and he really turned out to be the desired saboteur. As a result, the designers had to reluctantly turn to the second option.

By the beginning of the new year, which was destined to be the last for the Third Reich, the manned sample of the A9 / 10 rocket was ready. In the bow of the formidable weapon, a small cramped cabin was made with excellent visibility in all directions and the simplest controls. The suicide pilot who occupied this cockpit could aim his weapon, which at the same time became his grave, at the target with pinpoint accuracy. He did not have the slightest chance to escape, no one simply foresaw such an opportunity. I must say that A9 / 10 was the only truly suicidal weapon in the Third Reich.

The launch took place on February 14th. The target was the Empire State Building skyscraper - yes, in general, any building. The main thing is that the missile hit looks quite meaningful, and then propaganda can then declare anything as the goal. The psychological effect promised to be enormous: the precise strikes of the Japanese kamikaze terrified strong men - American sailors. What, then, should the civilian population experience? It didn't take long to guess. Therefore, the Nazi leadership clung to the launch of the A9 / 10 as a last hope. However, what did it not cling to at that time?

The signal sounded, and the pilot took his place in the cockpit. And then powerful engines roared, and the rocket first slowly rose above the surface of the launch pad, and then, rapidly picking up speed, rushed into the heavens.

What happened next is not exactly known. According to one version, the pilot's nerves could not stand it. The fact is that the rocket was equipped with a self-destruct mechanism in case there was a threat of it falling into the hands of the enemy. For example, if the engines failed while flying over England, and the A9 / 10 would fall on British soil. By pulling a special lever, the SS man sitting in the cockpit could undermine both the combat charge and the fuel tank, smashing the rocket into small fragments. This is what allegedly played a fatal role.

The fact is that at the time of launch, the A9 / 10 was not a reliable and comprehensively tested design. A significant part of the test launches carried out in the second half of 1944 ended unsuccessfully, and not all defects were eliminated. Therefore, there was no confidence in success this time either. So, according to some reports, the pilot panicked after the launch and blew up the rocket. On the launch pad, his last message was allegedly received: “It's going to explode! It will definitely explode! My Fuhrer, I'm dying!"

In fact, I very much doubt that the fanatical Nazi, who gladly agreed to carry out a suicide mission, chickened out at the last moment. Most likely, the rocket simply did not reach the target due to technical malfunctions. It seems to me that the most likely failure of the second stage reset mechanism is a very common occurrence. In this case, the Nazi superweapon found its death at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that the G-forces confused the mind of the suicide pilot and he detonated the rocket, but this option seems to me less likely.

Could such a missile carry a nuclear warhead? As paradoxical as it may seem, it is not. As I said, the head of the Nazi superweapon was the same A4 with its miserable load of one ton. And this was not enough, too little. Otherwise, the world's first nuclear missile, the forerunner of the Russian "Satan", would have set off on February 14.

It would be an interesting version if I didn't have photographs in my hands - photographs of a German intercontinental rocket on the launch pad. Nothing but the banal A4 as the head part, I could not see in this picture.

But, perhaps, the situation was corrected by strategic bombers?

The first attempts to create heavy bombers in the Third Reich occur in the mid-1930s. They are associated with the name of General Vefer. Walter Wefer was the first Chief of Staff of the German Air Force. Along with many undoubted advantages, Vefer had one manic passion: he was very fond of heavy bombers. A sort of huge four-engine colossus. What grandfather Freud would say about this and what complexes tormented poor Walter, I'm even afraid to guess. But it is known for certain that under his leadership in the early 30s, prototypes of the four-engine Dornier bombers - Do-19 and Junkers - Yu-89 were created. These machines, according to the terms of reference, had to have a flight range of at least 6,000 kilometers, a bomb load of 2 tons and a speed of 500 kilometers per hour. The project was called the "Ural bomber" - in the view of the authors, these machines should have been able to bomb industrial facilities in the Urals. Nothing was said about America, but it was, so to speak, implicitly implied.

The "exhaust" of the project turned out to be extremely insignificant. Both presented samples, as one would expect, did not meet the task in almost all respects: for example, the Junkers-89, having 4 engines of 960 horsepower, had a maximum speed of 386 kilometers per hour, a bomb load of 1600 kilograms and a flight range of 2980 kilometers . For those who are not in the subject: this is very, very mediocre. An ordinary medium bomber, much cheaper and with only two engines, could easily reach and even block these parameters. Even if we take into account that in the future more powerful engines would probably be installed on the aircraft, we see a very mediocre car in front of us. Therefore, it is not surprising that after the death of Vefer in a plane crash, all work on long-range bombers was curtailed, and the Luftwaffe command relied on medium and dive bombers.

But in 1939, the Fuhrer sets the task: like it or not, you need to build an armada of bombers! What was left? Just click your heels, take it under your visor and say: “Yavol, mein Fuhrer!” The designers got down to business very slowly. Only after the Fuhrer's repeated shouting did they manage to create several rather promising machines. Heinkel's four-engine He-274 and He-277 bombers had a maximum speed of 570–585 kilometers per hour, a range of 4–6 thousand kilometers, and a bomb load of 4–4.5 tons. This significantly exceeds the performance of the American machines "B-17" and "B-24", not to mention the British, which made their raids on Germany only at night, because during the day they were only suitable for the role of a laughingstock for German fighter aircraft.

The designers of the Messerschmitt firm did not hit their faces in the dirt. The four-engine "Messerschmitt" "Me-264" had a phenomenal flight range, which made it possible to strike at the East Coast of the United States. But this car turned out to be rather slow-moving and poorly protected - everything was sacrificed for flight range. The Focke-Wulf firm worked best. She managed to create a real miracle of the then technology - the six-engine Focke-Wulf Ta-400 bomber. The Americans were able to create something similar only a few years after the end of the war, other states did not even design anything like this. The swift, streamlined lines of the giant resembled modern jet machines. The huge flight altitude, high speed (about 550 kilometers per hour) made it a very problematic task to intercept it by fighters, and powerful defensive weapons of 9 cannons and 4 machine guns made it possible to successfully fight those impudent people who would dare to approach this flying fortress. The bomb load was also impressive - 10 tons. The Americans and the British could only turn pale with envy.

The Junkers company also behaved with dignity. We are talking about the Junkers-390 transport aircraft, which could also be used as a bomber. This six-engine machine had a monstrous range: from the territory of Germany, the Junkers with bombs on board reached the shores of the United States, and another copy was able, flying over the territory of the entire USSR and China, to deliver the German delegation to Japan. All historians vied with each other that the Junkers-390 was built in two prototypes. In fact, there were at least thirty of these machines, used primarily for flights to Antarctica.

Summarize. Yes, Germany did not have a large fleet of strategic bombers. But for the release of atomic bombs, the number of which was calculated in units, he was not needed. Much more important was the quality of the carrier aircraft, and the German projects had it at the highest level. In order to organize several spectacular explosions, prototypes of heavy machines were enough. However, none of them ever took off with an atomic bomb on board. Why?

In the spring of 1945, the Fuhrer's power was no longer as limitless as before. Many local officials and even ministers of the Reich considered the military collapse of the Nazis inevitable. Accordingly, they began to think about life in post-war Germany. Not about the life of the German people, of course not. The German people could die, but their own skin had to be saved.

Saved in different ways. Some, such as Himmler and Goering, tried to establish contact with the Western allies and negotiate a separate peace. It did not work out - the British and Americans were afraid that in this case their peoples would simply sweep away their governments, and an enraged Russia would help them in this. Someone secretly traded Jews, saving them from death in exchange for guarantees of safety. Someone, like Speer, simply sabotaged the orders of the Führer, for example, to destroy strategically important enterprises. Speer, by the way, did not lose - thanks to the intercession of the industrialists, after the Nuremberg trials, he was imprisoned for a very short time and released relatively quickly.

In general, in the last months of the existence of the Reich, the entire top of the country was saturated with the smell of betrayal - small and large. Why not assume that the atomic project was not drawn into the behind-the-scenes bargaining with the British and Americans?

Indeed, sane people in the Nazi leadership understood that one or even ten atomic bombs would not change the course of the war. Unless they delay the inevitable end, and besides, they make the retribution even more terrible. So it doesn't make sense to use them. On the other hand, atomic bombs are an excellent object for bargaining - by pledging to sabotage their use, you can bargain for life and freedom not only for yourself, but for your entire family up to the tenth generation. Maybe one of the SS did just that?

I immediately remembered some details in Adolf Oike's story, which initially escaped my attention. The fact is that even after the release of the first serial atomic bombs, they remained under the jurisdiction of the Anenerbe Institute. For the combat use of the new weapons, a special battalion 244 was formed, headed by the father of my interlocutor. The battalion was personally subordinate to Himmler.

It is quite obvious that without the knowledge of Oyle Sr., it was impossible to sabotage the project. So, if the betrayal really took place, then he was aware and, of course, in the share. And then I remembered what I was told in Berlin - in the 1970s, the old SS man returned to Bavaria with his wife and calmly lived out his life, moreover, under his own, and not a fictitious name. Yes, they simply had to grab him at the airport! But they didn't. Why? Why such blindness of German justice?

It seems that the old man Oile had very serious and powerful patrons, under whose wing he could not be afraid of anything or anyone. That is, apparently, the Americans. Why such mercy? What great service did the Führer's soldier render to his star-striped adversaries? The answer suggests itself.

The only question is whether Oile acted at his own risk or with the knowledge and approval of Himmler. I have no exact information on this score, but it seems to me doubtful that the Obersturmbannführer would go against his boss. Ultimately, he was just a cog, a small fry that the almighty Reichsfuehrer could pulverize at any second. And he had no access to foreign intelligence services. So, atomic blackmail was an integral part of Himmler's negotiations with Western leaders? Maybe. Or maybe not. Perhaps the Reichsfuehrer SS preferred to remain in the background, directing the actions of his subordinate from behind the scenes so as not to compromise himself with the Fuhrer.

So what could the history of German atomic weapons look like in the spring of 1945?

At the beginning of 1945, the first atomic bombs began to arrive at the disposal of the special 244th battalion. The dynamics of their production is known to me in sufficient detail - thanks to the stories of Oile and some indirect evidence. In December 1944, the first bomb was made; in January - two more, two in February, already four in March and only one in April, when the Reich was in its death throes. Total - 10 nuclear charges.

I do not know what arguments Himmler and Oile used in conversations with the Fuhrer, refusing to use these ammunition. Perhaps they talked about the fact that some shortcomings were found in serial samples, perhaps they deliberately delayed them on the way, or maybe they simply forged documents about the timing of the readiness of this or that bomb - in the last months of his life, Hitler could no longer check everything coming from SS information.

The bombs were located in the Ruhr, where special battalion 244 was stationed. That is why the Americans were so eager to capture it at the beginning of 1945, fell into such a panic during the German Ardennes offensive and breathed a sigh of relief in March-April, surrounding and capturing German troops in this area. After that, German atomic bombs fell into their hands ...

Stop stop, it's a mess. The Germans made ten charges, the Yankees got three, where did the other seven go? Some weird math.

It took me only a short time to construct a plausible hypothesis about the path of the disappearance of the seven atomic bombs. Most likely, they were evacuated to a Nazi base in Antarctica. I already wrote about this top-secret project in a separate book. Here I will talk about it very briefly.

The reason for the special attention of the Nazis to Antarctica was the books of Gott and Weber, who suggested that the ancestral home of mankind is located on the ice continent, and perhaps the highly developed civilization of Antarctica still exists in underground cities. The Fuhrer liked these ideas very much, and especially his deputy Rudolf Hess. And in 1938, a large polar expedition was organized to the shores of Antarctica under the leadership of Captain Ritscher.

The preparation of the expedition to the ice continent began in 1934. It was then that a special interdepartmental group A was created, which included representatives of the Ahnenerbe, the German Navy and several well-known polar scientists. Group A was led by Rudolf Hess himself, his deputies were Gott and Ritscher from the Navy. The fleet, which at that time was commanded by Admiral Raeder, specially appointed a representative not of his most titled to the group, so as not to jeopardize the secret in which the expedition was being prepared.

On June 16, 1938, four ships formed a special squadron A. It was not part of the navy, but was directly subordinate to Hess. Captain Ritscher was appointed head of the expedition, with him was an observer from the NSDAP. The name of this observer, perhaps, is known to all. His name was Martin Bormann. On board the ships were, in addition to sailors, polar explorers, as well as volunteers from the SS, Luftwaffe and assault squads. All of them signed a non-disclosure agreement.

On June 29, four ships, having weighed anchor, entered the Atlantic Ocean in the strictest secrecy. At the end of July, squadron A reached the shores of Antarctica. The first stop was made off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. The Horst Wessel base was founded here, which the German polar explorers called among themselves the Martin Bormann station. The fact is that during the entire expedition Bormann, instead of enjoying peace in comfortable cabins, was on the ice coast of Antarctica, which earned the respect of the rest of the expedition members.

The Germans discovered and explored an abandoned ancient city in a mountain valley. They say that a few decades later, the Russians saw this city. In addition, the Nazis found a whole system of warm karst caves, quite suitable for habitation. It was possible to get into them only under water - or using a complex system of tunnels. In April 1939, Ritscher returned home with three of his four ships. In New Swabia, he left an aircraft carrier that explored the coast, five submarines and two polar stations. The captain intended to return to the ice continent in the very near future. His plans were not destined to come true - the Second World War broke out in Europe.

Nevertheless, Hitler planned to continue the colonization of the ice continent, counting, first of all, on meeting with its indigenous inhabitants. The Fuhrer understood perfectly: the one who first gets access to the secrets of an unknown civilization will become the owner of the most powerful trump card in the struggle for dominance over the world. Hitler did not even think about the fact that the Antarctic could start playing not according to his rules: such a formulation of the question was unusual for him.

The Antarctic bases were not evacuated, but rather actively developed. The number of personnel who were on them from several hundred people in the spring of 1939 grew to two thousand in the spring of 1941. Several fishing boats were sent to the coast of Antarctica, which helped to supply food to the "population" of New Swabia. Several more similar ships were captured by German raiders operating in those waters. Obviously, caves with fertile soil were also used. At least, several miniature hydroelectric power plants were quickly installed there, which provided the entire system of caves and the polar station located above them with electricity. The equipment was manufactured in 1940 at the Siemens company - this is evidenced by the company's documentation; the order was extra urgent and paid double.

In 1941, Hess was sent to Antarctica (his previously zombified double flew to England at the same time). Since 1941, Valhalla - as the Nazis called their ice colony - has become increasingly important for Germany. Hitler counted on a "blitzkrieg", but life overturned all his calculations. The country was drawn into a long European slaughter, for which it was not ready. And Antarctica, with its rare earth metals, which were found by Nazi geologists, was most welcome here.

There is also some evidence indicating that as early as 1941 the most perspicacious members of the Reich's elite understood that the war could end in a severe catastrophe. In this case, it was necessary to prepare a bridgehead for retreat. What could be better in this situation than unknown karst caves on the ice continent!

And Antarctica began to gradually turn into a refuge in case Germany still loses the war. Martin Bormann was the first to see her in this capacity. A smart and cynical pragmatist, long before the final collapse, he felt its approach. It seems to him that the Antarctic base owes the fact that it survived the collapse of the Third Reich. Specialists, equipment, entire small factories were sent south by submarines and giant transport aircraft. Bormann's task was to make the base completely autonomous, independent of external supplies. He managed to largely succeed in this.

Continued exploration of the continent. In 1941, in the depths of the continent, about 100 kilometers from the coast, a huge oasis was discovered, completely free of ice, with non-freezing freshwater lakes. There were also many hot springs here. The area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe oasis, called the "Garden of Eden", exceeded 5 thousand square kilometers. What is most important, instead of rocks, the discoverers of the oasis found under their feet a layer of soil, albeit thin, but still sufficient for agricultural work. From the end of 1941, New Swabia was completely self-sufficient in food. Important steps have been taken towards autonomy.

At the beginning of 1945, through the efforts of Martin Bormann, secret preparations were made for the evacuation of all the most valuable to Valhalla. The selection of crews and personnel for evacuation overseas began in April. Dönitz personally knew this. By May 1, when the Fuhrer was already dead, and the fate of the Reich was not in doubt, all problems were resolved. In total, about 150 boats were prepared for the great exodus, including submarines from the secret squadron A. A third of them were transport boats with a fairly large capacity. In total, more than 10 thousand people could be accommodated on board the submarine fleet. In addition, relics and valuable technologies were sent overseas.

From May 1 to May 5, the submarines set off - 30 boats a day. The excellent organization of the transition led to the fact that the losses were surprisingly small. Almost all submarines safely reached the ice continent.

As a matter of fact, calling the May convoys "evacuation" is not entirely correct. This was the last, albeit the most significant, part of the exodus. Through the efforts of Bormann, much has already been transported to Antarctica. This, for example, applied to the latest models of aircraft, including jets, which had just begun to enter service with the Luftwaffe. Of course, the Reichsleiter did not stutter about the need to preserve the best examples of technology - God forbid, for such defeatism, he would have been instantly sent to a concentration camp! It was about modernizing the air group of the German aircraft carrier Richthofen, which was in Antarctic waters, and about exploring the interior of Antarctica, nothing more. True, for these purposes, almost three hundred aircraft were sent to the south - this would be enough to equip the Richthofen with an air group five times.

What did the submarines of the dying empire take with them?

First, a very valuable staff. It is no secret that after the defeat in the war, Germany lost many famous scientists. Basically, these were those who strongly associated themselves with the Nazi regime and did not expect anything good from the victors. Among those who emigrated were biologists, specialists in rocket technology, nuclear physics, and aircraft construction. Among these people were many fanatical Nazis. They were accompanied by skilled workers who were to expand production in New Swabia.

In addition, many Nazi functionaries, including Ahnenerbe specialists, went to the new shores. These latter brought with them many mystical relics collected over the years of the Third Reich. I have already talked about some of them in my first book. Among them was, for example, the Spear of Destiny, which, according to legend, pierced the heart of Jesus Christ, crucified on the cross. This ancient artifact is considered one of the most powerful. There was also the Holy Grail - a monument of an even more ancient era, about which very little is known. We only know that the idea that has developed in the Christian tradition of the Grail as a cup does not correspond to reality. Hitler considered the Grail to be the sacred stone of the ancient Germans, on which the wisdom of the ages was carved in runes. However, I will not repeat myself. Much more practical than all these museum exhibits were the latest technologies owned by the Nazis.

It is far from a secret that science in the Third Reich developed very rapidly, far ahead of the science of other developed countries. Many historians believe that if the Second World War had dragged on a little longer, the Germans would have been able to fully realize their technical superiority and wrest victory from the hands of their opponents. At least on the eve of the defeat in Germany, atomic bombs were created (a fact that is still carefully hushed up). It makes no sense to talk about all the technical miracles - I will devote a separate book to them. I want to note only one thing: in the spring of 1945, Antarctica became a real pantry of advanced technical thought.

Everything connected with the rocket project was evacuated there, too. All the latest developments, all cutting-edge technologies - everything sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to the land of eternal ice. A significant part of the engineers who took part in these works were also sent to Antarctica.

The same applies to the nuclear project. Obviously, Bormann was going to evacuate to the south all the bombs and the main figures associated with the development of a nuclear bomb. Why didn't he succeed?

The only suggestion worthy of attention is that someone interfered with him. Someone powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with the Reichsleiter himself. And yet - having sufficient motives to do it. And there could be only one such person - this is Himmler.

Indeed, the Reichsführer SS began to betray Hitler as early as 1943, having made the first contacts with the Americans. Since then, these contacts have been maintained and expanded. The closer the collapse of the Third Reich was, the more efforts Himmler made to negotiate with the Western allies. At the same time, he consoled himself with the hope that after the elimination of the Fuhrer, he himself would stand at the head of Germany.

Why did the British and Americans associate with this type stained with many crimes? They had their own reasons for this. First, Churchill and Roosevelt feared most of all communist domination in Europe. In conditions when the Russians were rapidly moving west, and the population of the countries occupied by the Germans ardently sympathized with them, such a threat was quite real. To prevent this, the Anglo-Saxons were ready to make a deal with the devil himself. Known secret plan "Unthinkable", developed under the leadership of Churchill in 1945. It envisaged a war with the Russians, while it was planned to use units of the German army already disarmed at that time. Obviously, Himmler was well aware of the fears of his negotiating partners and skillfully played on them.

Secondly, the Reichsfuehrer SS had something to bargain with. And it's not even about the Jews, whom he could save the life of - in the political elite of the West, Jews, frankly, were of little interest to anyone. Much more interesting were the developments that the Third Reich possessed, the scientific achievements of the Nazis. The atomic bomb was one of them.

I do not know what conditions Himmler negotiated in exchange for the transfer of nuclear weapons to the Americans. I know one thing: he could not allow Bormann to take everything to Antarctica. That is why three atomic bombs remained in Germany. What happened? Maybe Himmler and Bormann agreed among themselves? Unlikely. If the Reichsfuehrer had revealed his cards to the Reichsleiter, he would have destroyed him immediately. Most likely, there was a behind-the-scenes struggle, which is quite a lot in the Third Reich.

In this regard, it is worth recalling the fate of Field Marshal Model, who allegedly committed suicide after he was surrounded in the Ruhr pocket. To be honest, this act always surprised me - Model was an energetic, ruthless person, ready to do anything for the sake of victory and able to fight to the last. If he died, then, most likely, fighting off the Americans with a rifle in his hands, and not putting a bullet in his forehead. One researcher who studied the biography of Model and the circumstances of his death came to the conclusion that the field marshal could well have been killed. Just for what? Looks like I found the answer to this question. Apparently, Model interfered with the SS - helping Bormann or simply intending to use atomic weapons in hostilities. Both were absolutely unacceptable for Himmler.

Be that as it may, Bormann got seven atomic bombs, and he sent them to Antarctica, and Himmler calmly handed over three to the Americans. What happened then to the main characters of this drama?

As you know, Martin Bormann was last seen in Berlin in early May. Then he allegedly went to break through the Russian positions under the cover of several tanks and ... disappeared from sight. Official evidence of Bormann's death was not found.

In fact, until 1947, the Reichsleiter holed up in a monastery in northern Italy. It was dangerous to go out into the "outside world" - there was a hunt for Nazi criminals everywhere, and the duration of a free life outside the monastery could be measured for Bormann in days, if not hours. Moreover, they were looking for him - no one was completely sure of the death of the “gray eminence”. Even the Nuremberg International Tribunal decided to try Bormann in absentia. Reichsleiter was sentenced to death. After that, he had only one way: to Antarctica.

Two years after the defeat of Germany, an opportunity finally presented itself to get Bormann out of Europe. With the help of Skorzeny and his organization, the former Reichsleiter, equipped with forged documents and made up beyond recognition, boards a ship that goes ... no, no, not to South America - all such flights were carefully checked - but to East Africa through the Suez Canal. That is how, in a roundabout way, through India and Australia, Bormann got to New Swabia. Here he headed the base and, in fact, saved it from inevitable death, seizing the reins of power from the hands of Hess, who had fallen into apathy.

Things are more complicated with the fate of Heinrich Himmler. I have to admit - I have too little data to say anything for sure. It is known that at the end of the war, the Reichsfuehrer rushed to Dönitz in Flensburg to take a key post there in the new, last government of the Third Reich. Or maybe in order to have time to evacuate to Antarctica? In any case, he did not succeed in either. And then, according to official historians, Himmler in disguise mingled with a crowd of refugees, having previously made documents for himself in a false name, and tried to hide. He was detained by a vigilant sentry at a British checkpoint, and the Reichsführer, without waiting for the trial and investigation, took poison and thus ended his life. The body was quickly burned and forgotten.

Everything is too smooth, don't you think? It is possible that the deceased was not Himmler at all - otherwise why such a thorough destruction of his remains? Perhaps the Reichsfuehrer SS still received his reward from the winners and quietly lived out his life under a false name somewhere in distant countries.

Although, perhaps, official historians are right and Himmler did indeed commit suicide in the late spring of 1945. After all, what prevented the Americans, when they got everything they wanted, to simply get rid of an uncomfortable and compromising partner? We may never know the truth...

After finishing this book, a strange and curious story caught my eye. We are talking about the death of the convoy LW-143, sailing from the United States to the shores of Britain. It was one of hundreds of such convoys that crossed the Atlantic during the war years, and far from the largest. But you will not find mention of him on the pages of history books. Moreover, the officials of the fleet pretend that such a convoy never happened at all.

I came across it by accident while studying the activities of German submarines during the Second World War. In the spring of 1945, the German submarines seemed to have nothing to catch in the Atlantic. They were opposed by hundreds of anti-submarine ships and aircraft. Rarely did any of the Dönitz guys manage to chalk up a transport, let alone a warship.

And now, in the list of American escort aircraft carriers that died while escorting convoys, I stumble upon a previously unknown name. The light escort aircraft carrier Sequoia, commissioned into the fleet in November 1944, dies on March 18, 1945, as indicated in the reference book, "from the attack of a German submarine." The most interesting thing is that according to other publications, including the official reference books of the US Department of Defense, this ship is not visible at all. It's like it didn't exist at all!

So was the Sequoia or not? To answer this question, I had to dig through a bunch of sources and, in addition to everything, fly to the USA, although I do not particularly like this country. As a result, I can give a completely clear answer: yes, the Sequoia existed, but for some reason this fact is hushed up.

Which of the German captains drowned her? An even more difficult question, because from the German side the destruction of the aircraft carrier is not visible at all! And this is quite strange, because any submarine commander would gladly chalk up an aircraft carrier. The likelihood that someone was not confident in their success and was modest is negligible. Modesty was not among the virtues of German submariners.

Perhaps the aircraft carrier was sunk by a boat from the "Antarctic convoys"? Very unlikely. Submarines going to Antarctica had clear orders to avoid any combat encounter with the enemy. Even if the most powerful battleship of the US fleet with Roosevelt himself on board appeared in front of one of them, the commander had no right to shoot. Most of them were not even given torpedoes, so as not to be tempted. The secrecy of the Antarctic base was above all.

Maybe everything is completely banal - there was a mistake, and the Sequoia was sunk by its own submarine? It's hard to believe. However, perhaps, in the end, I would have settled on this version, if not for one curious circumstance. The fact is that I moved from the list of aircraft carriers to the lists of other ships and found that on March 18, 1945, the US Navy lost another light cruiser, seven destroyers and a good dozen anti-submarine ships of other classes! All of them were listed as sunk by submarines, although not a single German captain claimed responsibility for the death of these ships.

To be honest, such a massive loss of ships under the Stars and Stripes flag puzzled me. Especially considering the almost complete absence of losses before and after March 18. Also, there was something else that confused me about this list. Looking closer, I realized that: the list of sunken ships was actually a complete set of guards for a small convoy!

I picked up the list of American convoys faster than you read this line. Which convoy was en route on March 18? There were several of them, but they all arrived safely at the port of destination. And then I noticed the absence of number 143 in the list of convoys of the LW series. There is LW-142, LW-144 too, but for some reason the 143rd is not observed. I wonder why? The convoys left the States once every three days; The 142nd set off on March 9, the 144th on the 15th. Why was the 143rd cancelled? Or no one canceled it and he calmly went to sea on March 12? So he was on the voyage on the 18th?

The darker it got outside the window, the darker my suspicions became. Why is the truth about the 143rd convoy hidden? And most importantly, what is the truth?

Suppose the convoy was destroyed by one of the "wolf packs" - groups of German submarines. But why then the Germans are silent? They should have been shouting about such success on every corner! In addition, a thorough and impartial check shows that the Germans in March 1945 would not have been able to assemble a large enough group of submarines to defeat an entire convoy. After all, a dozen warships were supposed to accompany at least 20-30 transports. To melt such a bunch of vessels, it was necessary to assemble at least fifty submarines. And this was unrealistic for the Doenitz department, especially in conditions when the best submarines scurried between Germany and Antarctica.

The solution came suddenly. In one of the archives, I managed to stumble upon some miraculously surviving memories of an old American sailor. In them, he describes his battle path for quite a long time and boringly (this sea wolf served throughout the war on a heavy cruiser in the Atlantic Ocean, so he did not see the enemy in the eye). I have never seen a more boring reading material in my life, which is probably why no one bothered to read his memoirs to the end. And there, in the middle of a huge haystack, was hiding a real pearl.

At the end of March 1945, we were urgently sent to a rather remote area of ​​the Atlantic. It was the so-called "reserve route" - when a storm or large detachments of German submarines got in the way of the convoys, they followed this particular detour. We hurried as if on fire, went at maximum speed, regardless of fuel consumption. Everyone who was on board was wondering: what is it that awaits us ahead that makes us rush headlong? Two days later we received a response.

About two dozen ships drifted on the evening ocean. Or rather, no longer ships, but charred skeletons. One of them could be recognized as a destroyer, the other resembled a Liberty type transport. Most of them sent wisps of smoke into the air.

We stood on deck, mesmerized by the sight. None of us have ever seen anything like it! It was as if a huge fire had turned some kind of convoy into a host of "Flying Dutchmen", gloomy and lifeless. However, we did not have to argue for a long time: the commander of the unit gave the order to drown the horrific ruins. Our destroyers turned into battle formation and began firing torpedo after torpedo at the dead ships.

However, not so dead: from the deck of one of them, seemingly the least injured, a signal flare went up. Another showed a clumsy human figure, attempting to wave its hand. She looked somehow strange, so much so that no one even dared to examine her through binoculars. Nevertheless, our admiral gave the order to drown everything that was on the surface of the water. Three hours later it was all over. We tried not to think about what it was and whether there were living people there. Subsequently, we never received any explanation for these strange phenomena.

The explanation is easily found if we compare this story with the recollections of an eyewitness to the American nuclear tests conducted in 1948. Then the Yankees drove a bunch of old ships to the deserted atoll and banged one of their (really their) bombs. The picture after the explosion looked like this:

Abandoned ships were not particularly attractive even before the explosion, but after the tests they were simply terrible. Most of them were on fire, those closer to the epicenter looked like charred firebrands. It's strange that they floated at all. If there were people there, they would have no chance of escape.

This was the final touch, reinforcing my confidence in what I had long suspected: the Germans did use their atomic bomb. History most likely unfolded in this scenario.

Convoy LW-143 left American ports on 12 March. It consisted of approximately 30 transport and 15–20 escort warships. After a couple of days on the way, the convoy commander received a message about a storm raging in the center of the Atlantic (there really was a storm, by the way) and took a backup route. Here the convoy was spotted by German submarines and transmitted information to the base.

On the morning of March 18, one of the Junkers-390 heavy transporters took off from the German airfield. However, this time it is not the weight of equipment for the Antarctic base, but a much more terrible cargo. In his womb was one of the German atomic bombs. The pilot had direct radio contact with the submarine, which gave him the latest data on the location of the convoy, after which he received an order to wash off at maximum speed. After that, it was not difficult for an experienced pilot (perhaps one of the aces of the German bomber aviation was at the helm) to find the Americans.

In the meantime, the radars of the American ships recorded the rapid approach of a heavy aircraft. The convoy quickly gathered into a compact group to ensure the best density of anti-aircraft fire. This is what killed the sailors. The bomb dropped by the German pilot hit exactly in the center of the battle formation of the ships. What happened next is easy to imagine. A terrible explosion, an atomic mushroom over the Atlantic, burning convoy ships ...

The only thing that surprised me was why did the Germans drop the bomb on the convoy and not on some more attractive target? If they had bombed, for example, London, the human casualties of the enemy would have been much higher. Apparently, the death of the LW-143 convoy was just a move in Himmler's game, a demonstration of his own capabilities. The Reichsführer SS showed the Americans that he was not bluffing, that Germany really did have atomic weapons. It was in the interests of both sides to minimize the loss of life and avoid unnecessary publicity. In this case, a convoy sailing across the desert Atlantic was the optimal target.

Current page: 1 (the book has 11 pages in total)

Orlov A.S.
Secret weapon of the Third Reich

During the Second World War, long-range guided missile weapons appeared for the first time: V-2 ballistic missiles and V-1 cruise missiles. 1
Depending on the nature of the flight path and the aerodynamic layout of the rocket, it is customary to divide it into ballistic and cruise missiles. The latter, in their aerodynamic configuration and flight path, are approaching aircraft. Therefore, they are often called projectile aircraft.

Created in fascist Germany, they were intended for the destruction of cities and the destruction of the civilian population in the rear of the states that fought against Nazi Germany. For the first time, the new weapon was used in the summer of 1944 against England. The fascist leaders counted on rocket attacks on the densely populated areas of England, its political and industrial centers to break the will of the British people to victory, to intimidate them with new "irresistible" weapons and in this way to force England to abandon the continuation of the war against Nazi Germany. Subsequently (from the autumn of 1944) missile strikes were also launched against large cities on the European continent (Antwerp, Brussels, Liege, Paris).

However, the Nazis failed to achieve their goals. The use of V-1 and V-2 missiles did not have a significant impact on the overall course of hostilities.

Why did rockets, which in the post-war period become one of the most powerful types of weapons of modern armies, not play any serious role during the Second World War?

Why did a fundamentally new weapon, with which the command of the Wehrmacht hoped to create a decisive turning point in the war in the West in favor of Nazi Germany, not justify the hopes placed on it?

For what reasons did the long-prepared and widely publicized missile attack on England, which, according to the plan of the fascist leaders, should have brought this country to the brink of disaster, failed completely?

All these questions in the post-war period, when the rapid development of rocket weapons began, have attracted and continue to attract the attention of historians and military specialists. The experience of fascist Germany in the combat use of long-range missiles and the struggle of the American-British command against German missile weapons are widely reported in the NATO countries. In almost all official publications on the history of the Second World War published in the West, monographs and articles in scientific journals that deal with military operations in Western Europe in 1944-1945, in the works of many memoirists, these issues are given some attention. True, most works provide only brief information about the development of the V-1 and V-2 and the preparation of missile strikes against England, a concise overview of the combat use of German missiles, its results and measures to counter missile weapons.

Already in the second half of the 40s in the West, mainly in England and the USA, in the works on the history of the Second World War and memoirs, to one degree or another, events related to the appearance of Hitler's "secret weapon" and its use against England were covered. This is stated in the books of D. Eisenhower "The Crusade to Europe" (1949), B. Liddell Hart "Revolution in Military Affairs" (1946), in the memoirs of the former commander of anti-aircraft artillery of Great Britain F. Pyle "The defense of England from air raids in the years World War II, etc. At the same time, most authors pay the main attention to measures to disrupt a missile attack and repel English air defense V-1 strikes.

In the 1950s, with the development of rocket weapons, interest in the experience of the combat use of rockets and the fight against them during the Second World War increased sharply. The authors of historical works and memoirists began to devote chapters, and sometimes entire books (for example, V. Dornberger) to the history of the creation and use of German missiles, a description of the course of hostilities using V-1 and V-2, the results of missile strikes, and the actions of the British military command in the fight against missiles. In particular, these issues are covered in detail in the books of P. Lycapa “German weapons of the Second World War”, V. Dornberger “V-2. Shot at the Universe”, G. Feuchter “The history of the air war in its past, present and future”, B. Collier “Defense of the United Kingdom”, W. Churchill “World War II” and in a number of magazine articles.

Thus, R. Lusar and G. Feuchter show in their works the main tactical and technical characteristics of German missiles, outline the history of their creation, provide statistics on the number of missile strikes, assess the damage caused by British missiles, the losses of the parties. The book by V. Dornberger, the former head of the Nazi experimental rocket center, covers the history of the creation and adoption of the V-2 ballistic missile from 1930 to 1945. In the works of British historians and memoirists B. Collier, W. Churchill, F. Pyle British measures to combat German missiles are considered.

In the 1960s, this topic began to be covered much more widely in Western military history literature. In England, the monographs of D. Irving "Unjustified Hopes", B. Collier "The Battle Against the Fau Weapons" are published, and in the USA - the book of B. Ford "German Secret Weapons", entirely devoted to the history of the creation and use of rocket weapons by the Third Reich. There are new memories of direct participants in the events, for example, the former Nazi Reich Minister of Armaments and Ammunition A. Speer, the commander of the V-1 unit M. Wachtel, the former chief of staff of the British bomber aviation command R. Soundby, and others; the number of special journal articles and sections in general research on the Second World War is increasing. Of greatest interest among these works, from the point of view of the completeness of the factual material, are the monographs of D. Irving and B. Collier. They use documents from Nazi Germany stored in the archives of the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany, protocols of interrogations of persons who during the war years served in the rocket units of the Wehrmacht or were involved in the development and production of rocket weapons, British and American documents related to the organization and conduct of the fight against the V-1 and V-2 and other materials. Many interesting facts are reported in the memoirs of A. Speer and M. Wachtel.

In the bourgeois military-historical literature, there are two main concepts regarding the goals of Nazi Germany's missile attack on England. A number of authors (D. Eisenhower, R. Soundby) argue that the main goal of the Nazi command was to disrupt the landing in Normandy (Operation Overlord), which was being prepared by the Allies, by missile attacks on troop concentrations and ports of loading in southern England. This once again emphasizes the alleged complexity and danger of the situation in which the opening of the second front was being prepared.

Other historians (D. Irving, B. Collier) come to the conclusion that Hitler saw the main goal of rocket bombardments in inflicting maximum damage on English cities and their population as "retaliation" for British air raids on Germany, and, using new weapons created the most serious threat to England in the entire war. In this concept, there is a noticeable desire to emphasize the plight of England, which, after the opening of the second front, in addition to participating in hostilities on the European continent, had to fight against the serious danger that threatened the country.

There are also two points of view on the reasons for the failure of the German missile attack on England. Some authors (B. Liddell Hart, A. Speer, W. Dornberger) consider only Hitler to be guilty of this, who allegedly began to speed up the production of rocket weapons too late and was late with missile strikes. Others (G. Feuchter,

A. Harris) see the reasons for the failure of the missile attack in the fact that the British government and military leadership were able to take timely and effective countermeasures, which significantly reduced the scale and intensity of the strikes of the Nazi "weapon of retaliation".

Each of these concepts has separate correct provisions, but they are largely biased. Bourgeois historians reduce everything to the will of Hitler, turning a blind eye to the objective possibilities of fascist Germany in the production and use of rocket weapons, while they overestimate the results and effectiveness of the Allied measures to combat German missiles. They consider issues related to the combat use of missiles, in isolation from the general military-political situation, do not take into account the importance of the main thing for Germany - the Eastern Front and focus only on the operational-strategic side of the course and results of hostilities with the use of missile weapons.

In Soviet military-historical literature, in official historical publications, in the works of Soviet historians on the Second World War, on the basis of Marxist-Leninist methodology, fundamentally correct, objective assessments of the role and place of Nazi rocket weapons and events related to the rocket bombing of England in 1944 are given. –1945 2
History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945, vol. 4. M., 1962; Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. Short story. Ed. 2nd. M., 1970; V. Sekistov. War and politics. M., 1970; I. Anureev. Anti-space defense weapon. M., 1971; V. Kulish. History of the Second Front. M., 1971, etc.

Objective assessments and interesting data on the problem under study are contained in the works of historians of the socialist countries.

In the work offered to the reader, the author, without claiming to exhaustively disclose the topic, aims to consider on historical material the activities of the military-political leadership of fascist Germany associated with the creation of V-1 and V-2 missiles, the preparation and implementation of missile strikes on the cities of England, the actions of the government Great Britain and the Anglo-American military command in the fight against enemy missile weapons, to reveal the reasons for the failure of the Nazi missile attack on England.

When writing the work, documents, scientific papers and memoirs published in the Soviet Union and abroad, as well as German and English periodicals of the war years, were widely used. For ease of reading, quotations and figures in the text are given without footnotes. Sources and references are listed at the end of the book.

Chapter I
WEAPON OF TERROR

1

On an autumn day in 1933, the English journalist S. Delmer, who lived in Germany, was walking along the outskirts of Berlin at Reinickendorf and accidentally wandered into a wasteland where, near several dilapidated sheds, two people in oily dressing gowns were fussing about some long metal cone-shaped object. An inquisitive reporter became interested in what was happening.

The strangers introduced themselves as engineers Rudolf Nebel and Wernher von Braun from the German Amateur Rocket Society. Nebel told Delmer that they were building a super rocket. “One day,” he said, “rockets like this will push artillery and even bombers into the dustbin of history.”

The Englishman did not attach any importance to the words of the German engineer, he considered them an empty fantasy. Of course, at that time he could not have known that in some 10 years his compatriots - politicians and intelligence officers, scientists and the military - would struggle to unravel the mystery of German rocket weapons, and in another year hundreds of such cone-shaped cigars would fall on London. The English journalist also did not know that in the German armed forces for several years a large group of German scientists, designers, engineers had been working on the creation of rocket weapons for the German army.

This began in 1929, when the Minister of the Reichswehr gave a secret order to the head of the ballistics and ammunition department of the German army weapons department to begin experiments to study the possibility of using a rocket engine for military purposes. This order was one of the links in a long chain of various kinds of secret measures by the German militarists aimed at recreating powerful armed forces in Germany.

Already from the beginning of the 1920s, the Reichswehr command, acting in circumvention of the Treaty of Versailles, which limited the armament and size of the German army, began to persistently implement an extensive arms program. In nationalist revanchist organizations such as "Steel Helmet", "Werwolf", "Order of Young Germans", etc., officers were secretly trained for the future Wehrmacht. Much attention was paid to the economic preparation of the revanchist war, especially the production of weapons. “For mass armament,” wrote the Chief of the General Staff of the German Army, General von Seeckt, “there is only one way: the choice of the type of weapon and the simultaneous preparation for its mass production in case of need. The army, together with technical specialists, is able, through constant study at experimental bases and training grounds, to establish the best type of weapons.

In carrying out this program, the Reichswehr command acted in close contact with the monopoly bigwigs, for whom participation in secret rearmament, and especially in the design and production of new types of weapons, meant huge profits.

To circumvent the restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, German monopolists entered into various alliances with foreign firms or set up shell companies abroad. So, part of the combat aircraft was built at the Heinkel factories in Sweden and Denmark, the Dornier company produced aircraft in Italy, Switzerland, and Spain. By the end of 1929, there were 12 aircraft-building firms in Germany itself, 4 firms that built gliders, 6 aircraft engines, and 4 parachutes.

The central body of the Reichswehr in the field of equipping military equipment was the armaments department of the ground forces. Under his leadership, from the second half of the 1920s, the production of weapons and military equipment began on a large scale. Particular attention was paid to the development and production of such types of weapons, which, according to the views of the German military of that time, were to play a decisive role in a future war.

Among the highest German generals in those years, the theory of "total war", developed by German military theorists back in the 1920s, gained wide popularity. Its main provisions were outlined in the report of the military expert of the Nazi Party K. Hirl at the National Socialist Party Congress in 1929.

The most characteristic generalization of fascist views on a future war was Ludendorff's book "Total War", published in 1935. By "total war" fascist theorists understood a comprehensive war, in which all means and methods for defeating and destroying the enemy are acceptable. They demanded the advance and full mobilization of the economic, moral and military resources of the state. "Politics," wrote Ludendorff, "should serve the conduct of war."

The focus was on the problem of preparing the entire population of the country for active participation in the war and subordinating the entire economy to military goals.

An essential feature of the future war was its destructive nature, that is, the struggle not only against the armed forces of the enemy, but also against his people. The fascist military magazine Die Deutsche Volkskraft wrote in 1935: “The war of the future is total not only in terms of the exertion of all forces, but also in its consequences ... Total victory means the complete annihilation of the defeated people, their complete and final disappearance from the stage of history.”

To avoid a protracted war, disastrous for Germany, fascist theorists also put forward the theory of "lightning war", which was based on the idea of ​​Schlieffen. The German General Staff persistently sought ways to implement the idea of ​​rapid operations and campaigns based on the use of the latest means of armed struggle.

A great influence on the formation of the views of the German military was exerted by the theories widespread in the military-scientific circles of the imperialist states, which considered the suppression of the morale of the civilian population behind enemy lines by air strikes as a decisive factor in achieving victory. In 1926, the well-known apologist for the air war, the Italian General Douai, wrote in his book "Supremacy in the Air": "The coming war will be waged mainly against the unarmed population of cities and against large industrial centers." In a memorandum from the Chief of Staff of the RAF, Air Marshal Trenchard, presented to the high command and government in 1928, it was argued that the moral effect of strategic bombing was greater than the material one. The population of the country will not endure massive air raids, the author believed, and can force their government to surrender.

The fascist theorist of the “tank war” G. Guderian in 1935 painted the following picture of a future war: “One night, the doors of aircraft hangars and army fleets will open, engines will howl and units will rush forward. The first surprise air strike will destroy and capture important industrial and raw material areas, which will turn them off from military production. The government and military centers of the enemy will be paralyzed, and its transport system will be disrupted.

In accordance with these views, in order to achieve victory in a total war as soon as possible, such types of weapons were required that could affect the economy and population of the enemy’s country to the greatest possible depth, in order to decisively undermine the military-economic potential in the shortest possible time, disrupt the country’s governance and break the will of the people of that country to resist. Therefore, great importance was attached to the comprehensive development and improvement of long-range bomber aviation as a means capable of delivering massive strikes against large cities and densely populated areas deep behind enemy lines.

The air force was created in such a way as not only to interact with other branches of the armed forces, but also to conduct an independent air war. At the end of 1933, the Nazi government decided by October 1935 to increase the number of combat aircraft to 1610, half of which were to be bombers. This program was completed ahead of schedule. In July 1934, a new program for the construction of the Air Force was adopted, which provided for bringing the number of combat aircraft to 4021, while it was planned to supply 894 more bombers in addition to the existing ones.

The German military was also looking for new effective means of waging a total war. One of the directions was precisely the work on the creation of unmanned air attack weapons, primarily ballistic and cruise missiles. The objective prerequisites for the creation of rocket weapons were research in the field of rocket science conducted in Germany and other countries in the 20s, in particular, the work of German scientists and engineers G. Oberth, R. Nebel, V. Riedel, K. Riedel, who conducted experiments with rocket engines and developed projects for ballistic missiles.

Hermann Oberth, later a prominent scientist, back in 1917 created a project for a liquid-fuel combat missile (alcohol and liquid oxygen), which was supposed to carry a warhead at a distance of several hundred kilometers. In 1923 Oberth wrote his thesis "Rocket in interplanetary space".

Rudolf Nebel, who served during the First World War as an officer in the German aviation, worked on the creation of rockets that were launched from an aircraft at ground targets. Experiments with rocket engines were carried out by engineer V. Riedel, who worked at a factory near Berlin.

In the same years in Germany, under the auspices of the Ministry of Aviation, projects were developed for an unmanned, radio-controlled aircraft suitable for military use. 3
These projects were based on the idea of ​​the French engineer V. Loren, who, back in the years of the First World War, proposed to create an unmanned projectile stabilized by a gyroscope and controlled by radio from an accompanying manned aircraft to strike at distant targets (Berlin).

Research in this area was carried out by the aircraft manufacturing firms Argus Motorenwerke, Fieseler, and some others. In 1930, the German inventor P. Schmidt designed a jet engine designed to be installed on a "flying torpedo". In 1934, a group of engineer F. Glossau began work on the creation of an aircraft jet engine.

It must be said that German scientists and designers were not pioneers in the field of rocket technology research. In Russia, K. E. Tsiolkovsky, back in 1883, in his work “Free Space”, first suggested the possibility of using a jet engine to create interplanetary aircraft. In 1903, he wrote the work "Investigation of World Spaces with Reactive Instruments", in which for the first time in the world he outlined the fundamentals of the theory of rocket flight, described the principles of the design of a rocket and a liquid-fuel rocket engine. In this work, K. E. Tsiolkovsky indicated rational ways for the development of astronautics and rocket science. In later studies by K. E. Tsiolkovsky, published in 1911-1912, 1914 and 1926, his main ideas were further developed. In the 1920s, along with K. E. Tsiolkovsky, F. A. Zander, V. P. Vetchinkin, V. P. Glushko, and other scientists worked on the problems of rocket technology and jet flight in the USSR.

By the end of the 1920s, scientific and technological progress reached a level that made it possible to put rocket science on a practical basis. Light metals were discovered that made it possible to reduce the weight of rockets, heat-resistant alloys were obtained, and the production of liquid oxygen, one of the most important fuel components for liquid rocket engines, was mastered.

In the early 1930s, on the initiative of A. Einstein, a group of scientists called for the use of major technical achievements, including in the field of rocket science, only for peaceful purposes and to organize an international exchange of advanced technical projects. All this created the prerequisites for the successful resolution of the most important problems of rocket science, and brought humanity closer to the exploration of outer space. However, the reactionary German military saw in rockets only a new weapon for a future war.

According to the German generals, long-range ballistic missiles were to be used mainly as carriers of poisonous substances in the event of a war with the use of chemical weapons, as well as for strikes against large strategic targets of the enemy’s operational and strategic rear in cooperation with bomber aircraft.

The development of a new weapon - a long-range ballistic missile - was entrusted to the department of ballistics and ammunition of the weapons department, headed by Becker. Terry militarist Becker, even before the First World War, dealt with the problems of artillery technology, during the war years he commanded a battery of heavy artillery (420-mm guns), served as an assistant to the Berlin Artillery Test Commission. In the late 1920s, Becker, who received his Ph.D., was considered an authority on external ballistics. To conduct experimental work in the department of ballistics, a group for the study of liquid rocket engines was created under the leadership of Captain Dornberger.

Walter Dornberger was born in 1895, participated in the First World War. In 1930 he graduated from the Higher Technical School in Berlin and was sent as an assistant referent to the ballistics department of the army weapons department. In 1931, he became the head of the rocket group, and a year later, not far from Berlin, in Kümmersdorf, under his leadership, the development of liquid-fuel jet engines for ballistic missiles began in a specially organized experimental laboratory.

In October 1932, a 20-year-old student at the University of Berlin, Wernher von Braun, came to work in the experimental laboratory. Coming from an old Prussian noble family, associated with German militarism for centuries, Braun, who by that time had completed a course at the technological institutes of Zurich and Berlin and at the same time worked for Nebel, was enrolled as a referent in the ballistics department and soon became the lead designer in the experimental laboratory and Dornberger's closest aide.

In 1933, a group of engineers led by Dornberger and Brown designed the A-1 liquid-fuel ballistic missile (unit-1), which had a launch weight of 150 kg, a length of 1.4 m, a diameter of 0.3 m, and an engine thrust of 295 kg . It was fueled by 75% alcohol and liquid oxygen. However, the design of the rocket was unsuccessful. As experiments showed, the nose of the projectile was overloaded (the center of gravity was too far from the center of pressure). In December 1934, the Dornberger group conducted a test launch of A-2 missiles (an improved version of the A-1 projectile) from the island of Borkum (North Sea). The launches were successful, the rockets rose to a height of 2.2 km.

It should be noted that by this time the USSR had achieved significant success in the creation of rocket engines and rockets. Back in 1929, F. A. Zander built the first Soviet laboratory rocket engine, known under the index OR-1. The engine ran on compressed air and gasoline. In the early 1930s, at the Leningrad Gas Dynamics Laboratory, V.P. Glushko developed and tested a series of liquid rocket engines, of which the ORM-50 with a thrust of 150 kg and the ORM-52 with a thrust of up to 270 kg passed official bench tests in 1933.

In the Moscow group for the study of jet propulsion (GIRD), created in 1931 (since 1932 it was headed by S.P. Korolev), were also designed in 1933–1934. Soviet missiles "09", GIRD-X and "07" were tested. Rocket "09", the first launch of which took place in August 1933, had a length of 2.4 m, a diameter of 0.18 m, a launch weight of 19 kg, and 5 kg was fuel (liquid oxygen and "solid" gasoline). The highest launch altitude achieved is 1500 m. GIRD-X - the first Soviet liquid-fueled rocket (ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen) - had a length of 2.2 m, a diameter of 0.14 m, a launch weight of 29.5 kg, an engine thrust of 65 kg . Its first launch took place in November 1933. A year later, an experimental launch of the 07 rocket took place, which had the following flight performance characteristics: length 2.01 m, starting weight 35 kg, engine thrust 80–85 kg with an estimated flight range of 4 thousand m.

The birthplace of the great Lenin, the world's first socialist power, took confident steps towards the peaceful conquest of outer space. And at the same time, in the center of Europe, fascism, which had seized power in Germany, was preparing for a new world war, developing rocket weapons to destroy people and destroy cities.

With the establishment of the fascist dictatorship in Germany, preparations for war became the state policy of the Hitlerite clique.

The aggressive political goals of the imperialist circles of fascist Germany determined the nature of the military construction of the German armed forces.

An unbridled arms race began in the country. So, if in 1933, the year the fascists came to power, Germany's spending on armaments amounted to 1.9 billion marks, then already in the budget of the 1936/37 financial year 5.8 billion marks were allocated for military needs, and by 1938 direct military spending rose to 18.4 billion marks.

The command of the German armed forces closely followed the development of new types of weapons in order to ensure the further development of the most promising of them.

In March 1936, General Fritsch, Commander-in-Chief of the German Land Forces, visited the Kümmersdorf Experimental Rocket Laboratory. Having familiarized himself with the activities of the laboratory, he came to the conclusion that the weapons being created were promising, and promised, as V. Dornberger later wrote, "full support, provided that we use the money to make a usable weapon based on a rocket engine."

On his instructions, Dornberger and Brown began to develop a ballistic missile project with an estimated range of 275 km and a combat charge weighing 1 ton. At the same time, it was decided to build an experimental missile center on the island of Usedom (Baltic Sea), near the fishing village of Peenemünde. 20 million marks were allocated from the budget for the development of rocket weapons.

Shortly after Fritsch's visit, Richthofen, head of the Air Ministry's research department, arrived in Kümmersdorf. The leadership of the rocket laboratory suggested that he create a joint research center. Richthofen agreed and reported this proposal to General Kesselring, who was in charge of the German aircraft industry. In April 1936, after a conference involving Kesselring, Becker, Richthofen, Dornberger and Braun, it was decided to set up an "Army Experimental Station" at Peenemünde. The station was to become a joint Air Force and Army testing center under the overall command of the ground forces.

In June 1936, representatives of the ground forces and the German Air Force signed an agreement on the construction of a missile center in Peenemünde, where the Air Force test site ("Penemünde West") was created to develop and test new types of Air Force weapons, including unmanned aircraft, and an experimental rocket station of the ground forces ("Penemünde-Ost"), which was engaged in the development of ballistic missiles. V. Dornberger was appointed head of the center.

2

On a frosty December morning in 1937, the small island of Greifswalder-Oye, located 8 km from the island of Usedom, where the Peenemünde missile center was located, resembled a disturbed beehive. Airplanes with distinguished guests from Berlin landed on the clover field, boats scurried in the strait. There were final preparations for the test launch of the experimental rocket A-3. At the edge of the forest rose a quadrangular concrete platform - a launch pad, on which a vertically mounted 6-meter rocket gleamed with metal. The last commands have been given. Those present during the tests clung to the viewing slots of the dugout. There was a deafening roar. The rocket slowly separated from the launch pad, made a quarter turn around its longitudinal axis, tilted against the wind and froze for a moment at an altitude of several hundred meters. The rocket's engine stopped and it fell into the sea near the island's steep eastern shore. The launch of the second rocket was also unsuccessful.

The failure with the launches of the A-3 plunged the Nazi rocket scientists into despondency. Their latest model, the fruit of many years of work of hundreds of people, collapsed for unknown reasons, barely rising above the forest. Many questions that the designers hoped to receive during its testing remained unanswered. It was necessary to spend months again, and maybe even years, to find out the reasons for the failures, to again struggle with problems that seemed to be already close to being resolved. All this pushed back the deadlines for completing the main task - the creation of guided long-range missile weapons for the Nazi Wehrmacht, for which the Dornberger missile center in Peenemünde existed.

By this time, about 120 scientists and hundreds of workers, led by V. Braun and K. Riedel, were working on a project for a guided missile, later known as the V-2 (A-4).

The project provided for the creation of a rocket equipped with a liquid-propellant engine and having the following performance characteristics: weight 12 tons, length 14 m, diameter 1.6 m (tail diameter 3.5 m), engine thrust 25 tons, range of about 300 km, circular probable deviation within 0.002-0.003 of the given distance. The missile was supposed to carry a combat charge weighing up to 1 ton of explosive.

Orlov A.S.

Secret weapon of the Third Reich

During the Second World War, long-range guided missile weapons appeared for the first time: V-2 ballistic missiles and V-1 cruise missiles. Created in fascist Germany, they were intended for the destruction of cities and the destruction of the civilian population in the rear of the states that fought against Nazi Germany. For the first time, the new weapon was used in the summer of 1944 against England. The fascist leaders counted on rocket attacks on the densely populated areas of England, its political and industrial centers to break the will of the British people to victory, to intimidate them with new "irresistible" weapons and in this way to force England to abandon the continuation of the war against Nazi Germany. Subsequently (from the autumn of 1944) missile strikes were also launched against large cities on the European continent (Antwerp, Brussels, Liege, Paris).

However, the Nazis failed to achieve their goals. The use of V-1 and V-2 missiles did not have a significant impact on the overall course of hostilities.

Why did rockets, which in the post-war period become one of the most powerful types of weapons of modern armies, not play any serious role during the Second World War?

Why did a fundamentally new weapon, with which the command of the Wehrmacht hoped to create a decisive turning point in the war in the West in favor of Nazi Germany, not justify the hopes placed on it?

For what reasons did the long-prepared and widely publicized missile attack on England, which, according to the plan of the fascist leaders, should have brought this country to the brink of disaster, failed completely?

All these questions in the post-war period, when the rapid development of rocket weapons began, have attracted and continue to attract the attention of historians and military specialists. The experience of fascist Germany in the combat use of long-range missiles and the struggle of the American-British command against German missile weapons are widely reported in the NATO countries. In almost all official publications on the history of the Second World War published in the West, monographs and articles in scientific journals that deal with military operations in Western Europe in 1944-1945, in the works of many memoirists, these issues are given some attention. True, most works provide only brief information about the development of the V-1 and V-2 and the preparation of missile strikes against England, a concise overview of the combat use of German missiles, its results and measures to counter missile weapons.

Already in the second half of the 40s in the West, mainly in England and the USA, in the works on the history of the Second World War and memoirs, to one degree or another, events related to the appearance of Hitler's "secret weapon" and its use against England were covered. This is stated in the books of D. Eisenhower "The Crusade to Europe" (1949), B. Liddell Hart "Revolution in Military Affairs" (1946), in the memoirs of the former commander of anti-aircraft artillery of Great Britain F. Pyle "The defense of England from air raids in the years World War II, etc. At the same time, most authors pay the main attention to measures to disrupt a missile attack and repel English air defense V-1 strikes.

In the 1950s, with the development of rocket weapons, interest in the experience of the combat use of rockets and the fight against them during the Second World War increased sharply. The authors of historical works and memoirists began to devote chapters, and sometimes entire books (for example, V. Dornberger) to the history of the creation and use of German missiles, a description of the course of hostilities using V-1 and V-2, the results of missile strikes, and the actions of the British military command in the fight against missiles. In particular, these issues are covered in detail in the books of P. Lycapa “German weapons of the Second World War”, V. Dornberger “V-2. Shot at the Universe”, G. Feuchter “The history of the air war in its past, present and future”, B. Collier “Defense of the United Kingdom”, W. Churchill “World War II” and in a number of magazine articles.

Thus, R. Lusar and G. Feuchter show in their works the main tactical and technical characteristics of German missiles, outline the history of their creation, provide statistics on the number of missile strikes, assess the damage caused by British missiles, the losses of the parties. The book by V. Dornberger, the former head of the Nazi experimental rocket center, covers the history of the creation and adoption of the V-2 ballistic missile from 1930 to 1945. In the works of British historians and memoirists B. Collier, W. Churchill, F. Pyle British measures to combat German missiles are considered.

In the 1960s, this topic began to be covered much more widely in Western military history literature. In England, the monographs of D. Irving "Unjustified Hopes", B. Collier "The Battle against the Fau Weapons" are published, and in the USA - the book of B. Ford "German Secret Weapons", entirely devoted to the history of the creation and use of rocket weapons by the Third Reich. There are new memories of direct participants in the events, for example, the former Nazi Reich Minister of Armaments and Ammunition A. Speer, the commander of the V-1 unit M. Wachtel, the former chief of staff of the British bomber aviation command R. Soundby, and others; the number of special journal articles and sections in general research on the Second World War is increasing. Of greatest interest among these works, from the point of view of the completeness of the factual material, are the monographs of D. Irving and B. Collier. They use documents from Nazi Germany stored in the archives of the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany, protocols of interrogations of persons who during the war years served in the rocket units of the Wehrmacht or were involved in the development and production of rocket weapons, British and American documents related to the organization and conduct of the fight against the V-1 and V-2 and other materials. Many interesting facts are reported in the memoirs of A. Speer and M. Wachtel.

In the bourgeois military-historical literature, there are two main concepts regarding the goals of Nazi Germany's missile attack on England. A number of authors (D. Eisenhower, R. Soundby) argue that the main goal of the Nazi command was to disrupt the landing in Normandy (Operation Overlord), which was being prepared by the Allies, by missile attacks on troop concentrations and ports of loading in southern England. This once again emphasizes the alleged complexity and danger of the situation in which the opening of the second front was being prepared.

Other historians (D. Irving, B. Collier) come to the conclusion that Hitler saw the main goal of rocket bombardments in inflicting maximum damage on English cities and their population as "retaliation" for British air raids on Germany, and, using new weapons created the most serious threat to England in the entire war. In this concept, there is a noticeable desire to emphasize the plight of England, which, after the opening of the second front, in addition to participating in hostilities on the European continent, had to fight against the serious danger that threatened the country.

There are also two points of view on the reasons for the failure of the German missile attack on England. Some authors (B. Liddell Hart, A. Speer, W. Dornberger) consider only Hitler to be guilty of this, who allegedly began to speed up the production of rocket weapons too late and was late with missile strikes. Others (G. Feuchter,

A. Harris) see the reasons for the failure of the missile attack in the fact that the British government and military leadership were able to take timely and effective countermeasures, which significantly reduced the scale and intensity of the strikes of the Nazi "weapon of retaliation".

Each of these concepts has separate correct provisions, but they are largely biased. Bourgeois historians reduce everything to the will of Hitler, turning a blind eye to the objective possibilities of fascist Germany in the production and use of rocket weapons, while they overestimate the results and effectiveness of the Allied measures to combat German missiles. They consider issues related to the combat use of missiles, in isolation from the general military-political situation, do not take into account the importance of the main thing for Germany - the Eastern Front, and focus only on the operational-strategic side of the course and results of hostilities with the use of missile weapons.

In Soviet military-historical literature, in official historical publications, in the works of Soviet historians on the Second World War, on the basis of Marxist-Leninist methodology, fundamentally correct, objective assessments of the role and place of Nazi rocket weapons and events related to the rocket bombing of England in 1944 are given. –1945 Objective assessments and interesting data on the problem under study are contained in the works of historians of the socialist countries.

Slavin Stanislav Nikolaevich.

Secret weapon of the Third Reich

Foreword

- You are a German from head to toe, armored infantry, a manufacturer of vehicles, you have nerves, I think, of a different composition. Listen, Wolf, fall into the hands of people like you, Garin's apparatus, whatever you do...

“Germany will never accept humiliation!

Alexey Tolstoy, "Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin"

“... The SS man peered at the documents for a long time and meticulously. Then he held them back and threw up his right hand, clicking his heels smartly. Goering grimaced in displeasure - that was already the third “filter” of the guards - but Himmler, who was sitting in front, was unperturbed: order is order.

The Horch, shining with the nickel of its radiator, drove through the open gates and drove almost silently along the concrete pavement of the huge airfield, wet from the recent rain. The first stars were shining in the sky.

Behind the neat rows of Messerschmitt-262s, the lights of a strange structure gleamed in the distance, resembling a huge inclined overpass, steeply going up. The beam of the searchlight snatched out the triangular bulk standing at its base, the tip of the nose directed into the darkening skies. The beam showed a swastika in a white circle on the black side of the engine.

The man in the back seat of the heavy Horch, glancing briefly at the frowning Goering, shivered shiveringly. No, not from the cold night freshness. It was just the hour that was decisive for him.

A kilometer away, at the launch site, a fuel tanker pulled away, and the technicians carefully washed their rubber-gloved hands under hard hoses.

A lean, wiry man in dark overalls, thumping with his soles on the steps of a steep ladder, disappeared into the cockpit of a short-winged apparatus, as if strapped on top of the fuselage of a triangular giant. There, in the lighted pilot's nest, he flipped the switches. The green control lights on the control panel light up. This meant that the black, sharp-sided bomb in the belly of the short-winged machine was in perfect order. It contained a heavy nickel-sheathed uranium ball and explosive lenses.

Nowotny's oberet shrugged his shoulders—the white rubberized spacesuit fit pretty well. "Remember, you must avenge the barbaric destruction of the ancient cities of the Fatherland!" - Himmler told him parting words. The assistants lowered a massive, Teutonic-like, barrel-shaped helmet with a transparent visor from above. The incoming oxygen hissed - life support had long been debugged like clockwork. Novotny knew the task by heart. The coordinates of the point of entry into the atmosphere ... Heading for the radio beacon ... Dropping the bomb - over New York and immediately - the afterburner of the engine to jump across the Pacific Ocean and Asia.

Agree, all this looks very intriguing. Yes, and the book "The Broken Sword of the Empire", where this quote is taken from, is made firmly. It is felt that the person who wrote it - for some reason he preferred to hide his name under the pseudonym Maxim Kalashnikov - professionally owns a pen. And he collected interesting facts. The question is, did he interpret them correctly?

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own point of view. And now, fortunately, everyone has the opportunity to express it publicly - the range of periodicals and publishers today is quite wide. And I'm not here to discuss the legitimacy of the concept of that book. My task is different - to tell you, if possible, the truth about the secret arsenals of the Third Reich, to show on the facts, documents, eyewitness accounts, how true those assumptions are, the essence of which can be reduced to such a judgment: “A little more and the Third Reich would really create a“ miraculous weapon" with which he could gain dominance over the entire planet.

Is it so?

The answer to the question asked is not as simple and unambiguous as it might seem at first. And the point is not only that history does not have a subjunctive mood, but, therefore, it is useless to fantasize about “what would happen if”. The main difficulty lies elsewhere: over the past half century, many events of the Second World War have acquired so many legends, speculations, and even outright hoaxes that it can be very difficult to distinguish truth from lies. Moreover, many witnesses of those events have already died, and the archives burned down in the flames of the world war or disappeared later under mysterious or simply obscure circumstances.

And yet, reality can be distinguished from fiction. Help in that ... the authors themselves of certain versions. Upon careful reading, it becomes obvious: many of them "pierce", are unable to make ends meet.

What inconsistencies can be seen in the above snippet? And at least those.

The author relates the events he describes to April 12, 1947 - there is a direct indication of this in the text. As follows from the context, Germany by that time had won the Second World War, having won dominance over the whole of Eurasia together with Japan. It remained to crush the last stronghold of the "free world" - America.

And for this, a historically proven recipe is offered - an atomic bomb should fall on the United States. And the country instantly capitulates - this is exactly what happened to Japan in reality.

However... In the cockpit of a missile super-bomber (by the way, in dark overalls or a white spacesuit?) A man with the surname Novotny could not sit. And Hitler himself and his inner circle with surnames starting with "G" - Himmler, Goering, Goebbels, etc. - carefully monitored the observance of the law on the purity of the race, and here, judging by the surname, Slavic roots are clearly traced - the pilot, probably, originally from Czechoslovakia. (True, he could have been an Austrian. Then Hitler, himself a native of this country, might have allowed the pilot to participate in a risky expedition.)

And finally, the flight, as far as I understand, was to take place on an apparatus designed by E. Zenger, who really developed his project in the 1940s together with the mathematician I. Bredt.

According to the plan, a hundred-ton hypersonic triangular jet aircraft, 28 meters long, was launched using a powerful booster. Gaining a speed of 6 kilometers per second (Gagarin entered orbit at a speed of 7.9 kilometers per second), the Zenger bomber jumped into space to a height of 160 kilometers and switched to non-motorized flight along a gentle trajectory. He "ricocheted" from the dense layers of the atmosphere, making giant leaps, like a stone "baking pancakes" on the surface of the water. Already on the fifth "jump" the device would be 12.3 thousand kilometers from the starting point, on the ninth - 15.8 thousand.

But where are these machines? Zenger lived until 1964, witnessed the well-known space flights, but there is no technical implementation to this day - the same “shuttles” are only a pale shadow of what the talented designer planned to do.

And yet the myths are very tenacious. They beckon with their mystery, understatement, the opportunity for everyone to continue them, offering more and more new versions of the development of certain events. And before starting a conversation about how and what really happened in Germany during the Third Reich, let me offer you a brief summary of the most interesting assumptions and hypotheses on this topic.

So, some researchers believe that Adolf Hitler was ... none other than a messenger from hell, intending to enslave humanity, so to speak, stake out territory until the second coming of Jesus Christ. It was for this that he was given a hint on how to make a "wonder weapon" - an atomic bomb.

To achieve his goal, Hitler used all sorts of means, including the technological assistance of certain forces, thanks to which in the Third Reich they were able to create the most modern ships, submarines, tanks, guns, radars, computers, hyperboloids, rocket launchers and even ... "flying saucers", one of which was sent directly to Mars (obviously for emergency help).

Moreover, according to one of the myths, these “saucers”, which, as you know, continue to fly to this day, were initially based in Antarctica, where the Nazis created a long-term base during the war. And when we and the Americans created the first spy satellites that scanned the entire surface of the Earth, the UFO-Nauts had no choice but to relocate to the far side of the Moon, where they are to this day. Moreover, it is quite possible that the lunar base itself was built by no longer unfinished Nazis. They took advantage of a ready-made building, which is a branch, an outpost of a certain civilization that lives on Mars or somewhere else far away, on the outskirts of the solar system.

And now the alien invaders have not abandoned their nightmarish plans. It is they who stand at the origins of the revival of the Nazi movement in many countries, including ours. And they, the Blackshirts, on occasion can rely on the arsenals of weapons created by the servants of the Third Reich and placed in advance, securely hidden in different parts of the world - in the Norwegian fjords, on the ranches of Argentina, on the islands of Southeast Asia and the Caribbean, on the coast of the North The Arctic Ocean and Antarctica, and even at the bottom of the Baltic ...