Missiles for the Third Reich Report from the Underworld (15 photos)
In 1944, the inevitability of the defeat of Nazi Germany was already obvious. The last hope of the Nazis was the Wunderwaffe - a “miracle weapon”, the latest military technology that was ahead of its time. The most impressive achievement of the Reich designers was the V-2 rocket (from German V-2 - Vergeltungswaffe-2, “weapon of retaliation”).
The first launch took place in March 1942, and the first combat launch was on September 8, 1944. In July 1944, Minister of Armaments Albert Speer sent photographer Walter Frentz, close to Hitler, to make a photo report at the underground military plant of the Dora concentration camp, where the assembly of the first batch was feverishly underway. rockets. The report was intended for the Fuhrer himself.
As stated here, these unique slides were found by Frentz's son in 1998 in the attic in his father's old suitcase.
Source: Journal/visualhistory
1. The tragic irony of history was that the world's first ballistic missiles were built by slaves. Of the 2,000 prisoners in Dora, about half did not live to see their release.
2. Despite the strict supervision of the SS guards, the prisoners managed to engage in sabotage. Perhaps it is for this reason that many rockets never reached London.
3. To hide from Allied bombing, German factories were buried deeper and deeper into the ground, in this case into rock.
4. This is Walter Frentz himself. By the way, in 1939 he took color photographs of Moscow (not yet posted on the Internet).
5. German engineers are debugging the rocket flight control unit.
6. Same thing
7. Assembling "electronics"
8. Housing assembly
9. Engine assembly workshop
10. Rocket engine
11. Installation of the tail unit
12. Looking at these shots, one involuntarily recalls Khrushchev’s words “we make rockets like sausages”
13. Assembly line
14. The assembled rocket is taken out for final testing.
15. Rocket launch
The number of combat missile launches was 3,225. It was used for the purpose of intimidation, affecting mainly civilians (about 2,700 people died, mainly the territory of England, especially London, was shelled). The military significance of the V-2 rocket turned out to be negligible.
After the surrender of Germany, all the equipment, finished missiles and a team of engineers led by Von Braun were taken away by the Americans. For them, it was a ready-made rocket industry, years of labor and billions of dollars saved.
But the USSR received only crumbs: some rocket components, minor designers. All this was also taken out and after a year of hard work we somehow managed to assemble the Soviet version of the V-2.
