Degenkolb’s schedule bordered on the absurd; he had clearly failed to understand that a missile was much more complex than a locomotive. Although his energetic action, combined with the backing of the Armaments Ministry, had done much to accelerate the A-4 production program, the practical difficulties of the new schedule were insurmountable. Degenkolb apparently thought he could create a third factory by fiat, even though Rax would need test stands and a liquid-oxygen plant to supply the engine firings, as was the case in Peenemünde and Friedrichshafen. (In mid-1942 the Army had started building a new test-stand area for Zeppelin near the village of Oberraderach.) It was also unclear how the original two sites were to be ready in time, or where the program was going to find the parts manufacturers, alcohol supply, and liquid-oxygen capacity needed to assemble, test, and launch ten thousand missiles a year. Von Braun had to exert all his authority just to keep his people cooperative.17
The A-4 was also still far from ready for manufacturing in the spring of 1943. Only two or three of the eleven launch attempts from late October to the end of March were even partially successful. Crucial guidance equipment like the radio cutoff system was not available for launch testing until the spring, and the first rocket even to approach the designated range of 270 kilometers did not fly until April 3. Moreover, to the shock of the non-Peenemünde members of the A-4 Special Committee, many of the drawings of electrical components were still not ready in March, nor were subcontractors lined up for many components. In virtually all areas, the drawings and parts lists remained in a state of confusion, and excessively complicated development models had been forced into production for lack of time.18
The situation drove Walter Thiel, among others, to the brink of despair. Before going on a short rest cure in March, he wrote a letter to Wernher von Braun from Friedrichshafen, indicating that he was mentally and physically exhausted. He had not yet been able to make the “mixing nozzle” injector work as a replacement for the eighteen-pot motor, the turbopump–steam generator system was nightmarishly complicated and unreliable, and liquid oxygen was a poor propellant choice for a weapon. A combination of nitric acid and a hydrocarbon fuel, on the other hand, could be made to ignite on contact and would lack the handling problems of a supercold fluid. Stegmaier’s marginal comment said it alclass="underline" “The war is not going to wait for Dr. Thiel.” The order of the day was send weapons into production, whatever the drawbacks.19
In the end Thiel and his colleagues had no choice but to tolerate the myriad interventions of Degenkolb and his friends on the A-4 Special Committee. It was the price Peenemünde had to pay for the earlier excessive salesmanship of Dornberger and the Army. The leadership of the Third Reich had been repeatedly told that the A-4 was a weapon that could change the course of the war. Now that Hitler and many of his subordinates were coming to embrace that proposition, the rocket group had to produce results—or face the end of their program.
HIMMLER TAKES AN INTEREST
Besides Speer, one other top Nazi leader began to pay close attention to the Army rocket program: the Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler. He had been informed of the October 3 success and had shown some previous interest in rocketry. In addition to promoting the development of solid rockets for the Waffen-SS (the military wing of the SS, which was growing into a rival of the Army), he had promoted the career of Helmut von Zborowski, an enthusiastic SS officer who was pioneering nitric acid rocket technology at BMW Aircraft Engines in Berlin. But it was probably Hitler’s endorsement of the A-4 in late November 1942 that induced Himmler to take a look at the Army’s new weapon. Less than three weeks later, on December 11, he traveled to Peenemünde for his first visit to the complex. While there he witnessed the embarrassing failure of the A-4/V9, which blew up and crashed after only four seconds.20
Five days after the visit, one of Himmler’s chief deputies, Gottlob Berger, wrote the Reichsführer-SS at the request of an old friend from southwest Germany, Gerhard Stegmaier. Berger headed the SS Main Office, which was responsible, among other things, for recruiting. The letter reads:
The Peenemünde Army Establishment is deeply impressed with the visit of the Reichsführer-SS even today. Lt. Col. Stegmaier, who was happy as a small child about his special greeting from the Reichsführer-SS, asks to convey the following message:
The section chief, Col. Dornberger, wishes to make an official presentation to the Führer, together with the developer [of the missile], Dr. v. Braun, in order to hold discussions with the Führer and to hear his views and wishes, especially regarding the deployment possibilities of the device.
The decisions that the Führer would lay down would then give a clear direction to the already ongoing partial preparations for deployment.
I await further orders.21
What Dornberger hoped to accomplish through such a visit is not entirely clear, but perhaps he sought to express as diplomatically as possible his objections to the proposed bunker.
Himmler did not convey the request to Hitler until his visit to East Prussia on January 23. The Führer turned down the proposed audience. A few days later Stegmaier visited Berger, accompanied by Dornberger’s chief of staff, Thom. The head of the Development Works carried with him a letter he wrote conveying a new Dornberger request: that Himmler intervene with Hitler because of problems in the electronics industry.
It is urgently necessary that A-4 program be given a higher priority than the radar program through an order of the Führer. This can be justified with the argument that the A-4 has the character of an offensive weapon while radar is a part of the defense. [The preference for offense over defense was basic to Hitler’s strategic thought.] All previous attempts to achieve this status for the A-4 have either failed or been ineffective.
Dornberger was dissatisfied because Speer refused to follow through on a promise to favor the A-4 over radar; perhaps the Minister realized that the anti-aircraft defense of the Reich was in enough trouble already. In any case, Himmler told Berger to do what he could to support Dornberger’s request. On February 10, a week after the devastating news of the surrender of the encircled Sixth Army at Stalingrad, he asked the Führer again if the Peenemünders could have an audience. As before, he had no luck.22
Hitler’s attitude toward the rocket program in this period is opaque, to say the least. His approval of A-4 production and deployment hardly suggests that he was skeptical of the missile. Yet Dornberger’s memoirs make much of the Führer’s alleged dream in March 1943 that “no A-4 would ever reach England.” There is no evidence that the dream had any impact on the missile program, and the only evidence that it even happened is Dornberger’s recollection. The actions of Speer and Degenkolb clearly demonstrate that the A-4 had become one of the highest priorities of the Third Reich. Himmler also wrote to Milch on February 3 that the Führer was keenly interested in rocket development because it would be “a very decisive weapon for the future.”23