A move had of course long been planned, although the destination was not the one expected. Throughout 1944 the prisoner-dug Zement tunnels in the Austrian Alps had remained the intended location for the new development works. But as the date for the move stretched into 1945, Speer and Hitler became impatient. In early July 1944 the Führer accepted his Minister’s suggestion that part of the complex be given over to tank drive-train production. That measure never went into effect, because American attacks on German oil production provoked a sudden decision by Saur to use the nearly complete “A” tunnels at Zement for a refinery. The oil refinery began to set up its equipment in early August. After a period of confusion, Electromechanical Industries received confirmation that it would move to Zement’s smaller and much less complete “B” tunnels, when they were ready. In the fall studies were made of testing locations in Austria; one suggestion was to fire the A-4b from sites near Vienna at targets in the sparsely populated Tyrolean Alps. The steady deterioration of the military situation also provoked studies of an emergency evacuation to other locations, but until early December von Braun and the Peenemünde leadership took for granted a move into Zement—and in the relatively near future. Then Saur handed over the remaining tunnels to aircraft engine production on December 8, terminating a year of planning.37
Storch, von Braun, and other Peenemünders must have had an inkling that the only place left to go was the Mittelwerk area, which had become an SS-dominated region devoted to underground production and secret weapons. On January 26 Dornberger wired von Braun that his BzbV Heer organization was evacuating to Bad Sachsa, a town near the subterranean plant. Movement of related firms and research institutes to the same area would be discussed in Berlin the following day at the first meeting of “Working Staff Dornberger.”38
That committee had been appointed by Speer on January 13 in a last attempt to consolidate authority over anti-aircraft missiles and other advanced weapons. Speer gave Dornberger special powers within the Armaments Ministry to make emergency decisions, but neither man anticipated how easily Kammler could counter the move. The SS general went to Göring on the January 26 and had himself appointed V-1 commander and commissioner for the “Breaking of the Air Terror.” Ten days later, after receiving further backing from Himmler, Kammler canceled Enzian, Rheintochter, and a number of other projects and subordinated Working Staff Dornberger to his command. Speer’s influence over missile development was at an end, while Kammler’s meteoric rise continued. More and more, however, he was becoming the ruler over a shadow empire of skeleton organizations, false hopes, and self-delusion.39
Back at Peenemünde, rumors about the evacuation were flying. On January 30 and 31, Gen. Rossmann issued orders telling everyone to stay calm, remain in place, and await developments. Northern Experimental Command soldiers were to take training in antitank weapons. But later on January 31, “a cold and cloudy Wednesday,” according to Huzel, Kammler’s order finally arrived. Von Braun immediately called an emergency meeting of all available department heads to plan the transport to the Mittelraum (Central Region) of what could be salvaged of the facility. First priority was assigned to A-4 and Taifun personnel, followed by A-4b and Wasserfall people. The launch crews were to remain in place until further notice. The meeting unleashed feverish activity, because all departments had to choose whom to move first, how much equipment to take with them, and what form of transportation to use. Allotted to Electromechanical Industries were a few trains, a number of barges that could be mobilized to move heavier material, and vehicles from the Peenemünde motor pool and other organizations. Storch had already ordered in September that a central archive be assembled and prepared for shipment.40
Reflecting the complexity and ambiguity of the command structure over the rocket program, the company sought confirmation of Kammler’s order from the chief of Army Ordnance. General Leeb gave his approval the next day, February 1, but there was little chance that he would have defied the SS and an even smaller chance that he would have done so successfully. That course of events demolishes the postwar myth that the rocket group had a choice as to whether to stay or go. Von Braun joked decades later that “I had ten orders on my desk. Five promised death by firing squad if we moved, and five said I’d be shot if we didn’t move.” He therefore decided to go along with Kammler, he claimed, because it suited the group’s desire to head for the Americans. While it is almost certainly true that orders must have existed to stand and fight, probably from the Gauleiter of Pomerania as commander of the Volkssturm, von Braun had no power to make such a decision. Even within Peenemünde, Storch and Rossmann stood above him, and above them came Dornberger, Leeb, and Kammler. Moreover, there is little doubt that, if push came to shove, Himmler’s protégé could have overruled the Gauleiter.41
Similarly, the realities of the evacuation order destroy the myth that the rocket group steered itself in the path of the American forces. It is certainly true that von Braun had conversations with close associates about the postwar situation and how to salvage Peenemünde’s unique expertise, especially in view of his self-appointed historical mission to develop rocketry for spaceflight. The outcome of those discussions, which National Socialist fanatics would have seen as defeatism and high treason, was unanimous agreement to surrender to the United States, if possible. As one unnamed engineer put it immediately after the war: “We despise the French; we are mortally afraid of the Soviets; we do not believe the British can afford us, so that leaves the Americans.” But neither von Braun nor his subordinates had the power to choose their destination. Although Kammler may already have been thinking of the group as a bargaining chip for separate peace negotiations with the West, the move to Thuringia made perfect sense on its own: It concentrated part of the Reich’s remaining technical expertise near underground facilities in an SS-controlled region relatively far from the front lines.42
Not long after the evacuation order, von Braun traveled south to survey locations for the various divisions of the company, while in Peenemünde preparations went ahead day and night for the departure. The transportation coordinator, Erich Nimwegen, an entrepreurial character who operated on the thin edge of the law, proved his worth in mobilizing much needed material and transport. He also allegedly thought up a way to exploit a mixup in some newly printed forms: BzbV Heer had been garbled as VzbV, which he turned into a top-secret agency under the SS. Soon, Huzel says, those initials “began to appear in letters several feet high on boxes, trucks, and cars.” For movements by road in the chaotic conditions of the last months of the war, any SS credential proved useful to get through the many roadblocks set up to catch deserters and to stop unauthorized travel. Von Braun himself admitted to the American authorities in 1947 that he had put his rank of SS-Sturmbannführer (Major) on transportation orders, although he claimed that it was “the only time” he had ever exploited the title.43