Hitler’s Terror Weapons: The Price of Vengeance

Hitler’s Terror Weapons

The Price of Vengeance

Roy Irons

Dedication

This book is dedicated toErica Roe IronsandRebecca Ann Irons

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Foreword by Richard Overy

Preface

Part I. Development and Dreams

1. The Seeds of Vengeance

2. The Weapons of Vengeance

Part II. Raids and Revenge

3. The Renewal of War

4. Promise from Peenmuende

Part III. Fear and Intelligence

5. The Doom of London

6. Terror, Strategy and a Poison Cloud

Part IV. Impact and Reality

7. Countdown

8. The Robot Bombardment

9. Attack from Airless Space – The final Preparations

10. The Rocket’s Red Glare

11. Terror and Morale

12. Belgium the Brave

13. Shooting the Rocket Down

Part V. Evaluation and Hindsight

14. Hitler’s War and the Terror Weapons

15. Germany’s War and the Terror Weapons

16. Conclusion

Epilogue: ‘… but a whimper’

Appendices

1. The Paths of Vengeance

2. ‘The Hubertus Train, the live whip of the German Armament Industry’

3. Statistics

4. Four Allied Analyses of the flying Bomb

Selected Bibliography

Index

Copyright

About the Publisher

Foreword

On June 16 1944 Joseph Goebbel’s Propaganda Ministry sent out a directive to the German press announcing that the first attacks on London with weapons ‘of a new sort’ would take place that night. It was to be the ‘event of the day’ for the following morning’s front pages. Eight days later the press was told that the weapon would be called the ‘V 1’, the ‘V standing for Vergeltung or vengeance. Thus did the German public learn of what soon became the V-weapons campaign.

Ever since the onset of heavy bombing on German cities in 1942 Adolf Hitler had sought some form of terrible retaliation that would force the British and Americans to stop. In the winter of 1943–4 the German Air Force launched the so-called ‘Baby Blitz’ on London, but there were too few bomber aircraft to achieve anything of significance against well-organised air and passive defences. Instead Hitler threw his dictatorial weight behind the development of long-range missiles, first the V-1 flying bomb, then the V-2 rocket. Plans were developed to produce them in vast numbers using simple work methods and slave labour supplied by Heinrich Himmler’s concentration camps. Some evidence suggests that Himmler was planning to fill the warheads with radioactive waste, but this came to nothing. Instead each missile became an expensive way of transporting modest quantities of conventional high explosives.

The story of the German V-weapons has two sides to it. The British were aware that German scientists were pioneering weapons at the cutting edge of modern military technology. They imagined the worst, and prepared for a new apocalypse, just as they had done in the 1930s in anticipation of German conventional bombing. Until now little has been written about just what the British did to understand, anticipate and combat the new weapons. The account that follows explores not only the warped mindset that drove Hitler to gamble a large proportion of Germany’s overstretched war effort on untested technology, but it presents in fascinating detail the twists and turns of British policy in the full glare of the missile threat. Roy Irons gives us the first round in what became the principal feature of post-war superpower confrontation – missile threat and anti-missile defence.

It is tempting to suggest on the basis of this candid account – exaggerated fears on the one side and expectations on the other – that later missile wars might have been different from the terrifying scenarios of nuclear destruction that fuelled the arms race of the 1950s and 1960s. Without the German experiments of the wartime years the post-war missile race would have taken longer anyway. Poor though the strategic gains were for Germany from the V-weapons, the long-run technical gains for the wartime Allies were substantial. It is a peculiar irony that German scientists and engineers working for Hitler ended up supplying the West with the technical means to defend democracy against Communism.

Vengeance, as Roy Irons makes clear, was Hitler’s stock-in-trade. The thirst for vengeance in 1919 after German defeat was savagely assuaged in the extermination camps of the Second World War and the search for wonder-weapons of awesome destructive power. What follows is the history of two very different systems fighting very different wars. The V-weapons are in some sense an emblem of Hitler’s dictatorship; the British response was the product of a democratic system at war – long discussions in committee, many muddled arguments, but enough sensible judgement to get through. In Roy Irons’ sympathetic and original account the V-weapons campaign becomes not simply a test of technical ingenuity, but a revealing window on the way two very different adversaries made war.

Richard Overy

King’s College

London

Preface

My first acknowledgements of debt in writing this book are to my Mother and my Grandmother. The former woke my twin brother and me in the middle of the night to hear the newsflash “Hitler is dead”, and took us to see the ‘V weapons arrayed in Trafalgar Square in 1946. The latter, when a ‘doodlebug’ seemed to stop exactly overhead (as they always seemed to do) would quietly and contemptuously smile at Hitler’s foolish attempt to steal victory from her beloved England. What child could fail to be impressed by this calm assurance amid the giant clash of little understood arms over London, or by hearing ‘live’ news of the death of the dreaded tyrant, and seeing the captured weapons themselves, still sinister and impressive amid the triumph of their victims?

I have to thank my good friend Geoff Johnson, a keen and perceptive reader of history, for reading the manuscript; many ‘reader friendly’ amendments have been made as a result of his observant gaze, including the addition of a diary of events.

The mathematics of bombardment are formidable, and I could only appreciate the work of Dr. Brownowski of the wartime Ministry of Home Security ‘through a glass, darkly’. I am in debt, therefore, to John White, who not only spent much time in familiarising himself with the subject, but undertook the heavier task of explaining the implications of it to me, as well as checking the validity of my conclusions from some of the formulas relating to the Battle of the Atlantic; and to David Robinson, of the Royal School of Artillery at Larkhill.

It was my good fortune to begin, on my 55th birthday, a degree in War Studies and History at King’s College London. I was able to attend lectures by Andrew Lambert on naval affairs, Brian Holden Reed on the American Civil War, Michael Dockrill on Modern Warfare and Richard Overy on Germany 1914 to 1945. If the discerning reader should observe that I fall below the standard of these gifted academic authors, he or she will more correctly attribute this to my deficiency in absorbing, than to theirs in imparting, knowledge.

I must acknowledge a vast debt to Richard Overy in the writing of this book. Professor Overy has not only read the manuscript through, offering invaluable guidance and comments, and written the foreword, but had previously offered advice for researching the V2, which formed the dissertation for my degree.

The patience and kindness of Julie Ash and of all of the staff of the Public Record Office at Kew have added to the pleasure of research. To read the files is to be transported back to a brave and anxious age of war, whose uncertain issue was hanging on great events that were always, at the time of writing, in the future. To be able to descend on this age from your world of the future, and to attempt to analyze it, is to me, as exciting as if I had really travelled in a time machine; and the walk to Kew Gardens station afterwards, beneath the low thunder of computerised jet aircraft, is to be transported back to the present; to muse, perhaps as they did, on the uncertain future, when the fears and actions of our own age will be analyzed, with the value of hindsight, from the twenty second century and beyond.

I must also acknowledge the patience, kindness and expertise of the staff of the reading room and the photographic archive at the Imperial War Museum, from whom nearly all the photographs in this book have been obtained. The Museum has the most complete copy of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey outside the United States, and was the only place where I was able to locate a copy of Hoelsken’s excellent ‘V Missiles of the Third Reich’. This work, together with Michael Neufeld’s ‘The Rocket and the Reich’, Benjamin King and Timothy Kutta’s ‘Impact’, Richard Overy’s ‘The Air War’ and ‘Why The Allies Won’, John Toland’s ‘Hitler’, Ralph Manheim’s translation of ‘Mein Kampf’ and Herbert Molloy Mason’s ‘The Rise of the Luftwaffe’ (which contains a brief but gripping narrative of the events of 1918/19) all of which are detailed in the bibliography, were the most influential of the published sources.

At Harper Collins, I first put the idea of the book to Ian Drury, who took the crucial decision to proceed with publication (who could be more deserving of the thanks of a new author!) and gave useful advice thereafter; on Ian’s departure to Cassell I have to thank Ian Tandy and, most especially, the tireless and charming Samantha Ward, for their help and advice.

My sister Denna relieved me of my main worry by offering to retype the whole manuscript if the computer crashed. I have also to thank Victoria Mantell, Sophie Seymour and the late Ian Templeton for their encouragement. Victoria’s knowledge of philosophy (and sense of humour!) was of great assistance in discussing some of my ideas.

Lastly, thanks are due to my daughter Becky for her assistance and her knowledge of the publishing world; and to Erica, for being my wife.

PART I

Development and Dreams

‘… A lurid light, a trampling throng,

Sense of intolerable wrong,

And whom I scorned, those only strong!

Thirst of revenge, the powerless will

Still baffled, and yet burning still! …’

From Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Pains of Sleep

CHAPTER 1

The Seeds of Vengeance

Between August 1914 and November 1918, ranged in two vast and opposing groups, the greatest nations and empires of Europe, Asia and America, aided by all that science could devise or hatred could inspire, had sought to destroy and demoralise each other in the bloodiest war that mankind had yet seen. The central theme of the battle had been the virtual siege of Germany. The frontline soldiers were sustained amid their hardship and terror by close comradeship and a patriotic and disciplined pride. Ringed by hostile armies in France, Italy and Russia, together with her much weaker allies Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria, the great German army – disciplined, brave, patriotic, skilful, well led – had defied the world.

By the spring of 1918 that magnificent army had defeated Russia and crippled Italy, but its leaders had also added the United States to her long list of enemies. Her people, blockaded by the British fleet, were on the verge of starvation. Her industry was failing. War weariness had revealed itself in strikes and unrest at home. Risking all on a gambler’s throw of the dice, the German leaders sought, by a giant hammer blow in the west, to secure victory before the vast military potential of America could be brought to bear. The attacks were led by special-forces, the stormtroopers:1

‘small bodies of shock troops, specially trained in the offensive and distinguished from the mass of the infantry by youth, physical fitness, skill in close combat, brutality and ruthlessness. These shock troops considered themselves a thing apart and looked with contempt upon the common soldiers, especially those of the rearward services; their loyalty was to their commander rather than to the Kaiser; the tides of their units and their badges were novel departures from the existing system. These characteristics were indeed those of the later Freikorps [who will be encountered and viewed shortly], to which they contributed many recruits.’

The offensives were preceded by a short, but hurricane artillery bombardment; taking advantage of early mists, the stormtroopers punched huge holes in the allied lines. But although they gained tactical successes, and although they inflicted heavy casualties, the German assaults expended too much in both blood and morale. The German army lost 348,000 men. The quantity of goods and food looted from the allied lines contrasted starkly with the poverty of their own supplies, and laid bare the mendacity of their own propaganda.

General (later Marshal) Foch, the newly created allied generalissimo, now presided over a series of well timed, limited attacks, each broken off when they lost momentum. On August 8th, 1918, Australian and Canadian troops, aided by 456 tanks, stormed the German lines south of the Somme. The German Chief of Staff and effective commander, General Ludendorff, wrote ‘August 8th was the black day in the history of the German army in this war … It put the decline of our fighting troops beyond all doubt … the war must be ended.’2 On September 15th Franco-British-Serbian forces attacked the Bulgarians on the Salonika front, and after a series of defeats, Bulgaria crumbled, being granted an armistice on 29th September. Clearly, German forces were needed from the reserves. But on September 26th a further series of attacks began in the west, orchestrated by the allied generalissimo. Ludendorff, convinced that victory was no longer possible, arranged a meeting with Germany’s political leaders.

On September 29th came an attack on the Hindenburg line by the British army. Ludendorff fell on to the floor in a fit, and afterwards, his nerve temporarily broken, took the decision to appeal for an armistice at once. On October 1st this was conveyed to Germany’s political leaders. On October 3rd an appeal was made to President Wilson. But by October 17th, Ludendorff, reflecting in a calmer mood, became convinced that it was possible to resist.3

But now it was too late! The country, its will broken, was in the throes of revolution. Ludendorff was forced to resign by October 26th. Germany’s allies, utterly reliant on the staggering giant, collapsed, and revolution gripped Germany itself. The Kaiser fled, never to return. On November 9th a republic was proclaimed – but even this was a confused affair, the Spartacist Karl Liebneckt and the Socialist Philip Scheidemann making separate and hostile proclamations.4 The fleet, fearful of being ordered to wrest the command of the sea from the giant dreadnoughts of Great Britain and the United States, mutinied. Soldiers and sailors, led by revolutionary socialists, formed councils. The home front, and the army and navy at home, were falling apart.

The new German socialist government asked for an armistice, which was secured by the surrender of 2500 heavy and 2500 field guns, 25,000 machine guns, 3000 trench mortars, 1700 aircraft and by the establishment of an allied bridgehead over the Rhine. All allied prisoners were to be released.5 This meant that they would be powerless to renew the war, whatever the peace terms they might be offered. But both Foch and General Haig, the commander of the British Expeditionary force, felt that the German army could have fought on. ‘Germany is not broken in a military sense’, said Haig; ‘During the last weeks her armies have withdrawn fighting very bravely and in excellent order …’ Foch thought that ‘the Germans could undoubtedly take up a new position, and we could not prevent it.’ Many among the allies felt the same.6 But on November 11th the armistice came into effect. The German frontline soldiers marched home to recriminations, bitterness, revolution and civil war.

However some, at least, of the German soldiers at the front were still of high morale; it was recounted by the South African Brigade that, after a battle which raged for all of November 10th and up to just before the armistice, a German machine gunner ‘fired the longest burst anyone had ever heard, lasting two minutes, and ending dead at 11am. A German soldier then stood up, removed his helmet, bowed to his audience, and walked slowly away.’7 Hermann Goering, the commander of the Richthofen squadron, ordered his pilots into the sky and threatened to strafe members of a soldier’s council who had looted his comrade’s medals. They were returned.8 Goering gave the following valedictory address to his men:

‘Never forget that the glorious German flying Corps was not defeated in the air; it was stabbed in the back by Pacifists, Communists and Jews. But don’t abandon hope. There will come a day when we shall be in a position to avenge all the treachery and humiliation we are now suffering.’9

Later, an embittered soldier who had endured throughout the war, wrote:

‘And so it had all been in vain. In vain all the sacrifices and privations; in vain the hunger and thirst of months which were often endless; in vain the hours in which, with mortal fear clutching at our hearts, we nevertheless did our duty; and in vain the death of two millions … Would not the graves of all the hundreds of thousands open … and send the silent mud- and blood-covered heroes back as spirits of vengeance to the homeland which had cheated them … Did all this happen so that a gang of wretched criminals could lay hands on the fatherland … ?’

The resolve of this soldier was of more sinister import for the world than the opening of graves and release of vengeful spirits. ‘I, for my part’, he wrote, ‘decided to go into politics’. His name was Adolf Hitler.10

The Prussian war ministry declared (echoing the socialist chancellor Ebert) that ‘our field grey heroes return to the Heimat (homeland) undefeated.’… ‘But’, wrote Richard Bessel, ‘if the soldiers had returned home undefeated, then who was to blame for the tribulations of the post war years?’11 An answer was conveniently to hand, and the cult of vengeance entered German politics. Among the former soldiers of that once formidable army, and among their descendants, arose a belief in their betrayal, ‘stabbed in the back’ by the ‘November criminals’. This would have dire consequences for the future. By strange and tortuous paths it would contribute to a huge advance in the technology and science of space research and travel; and it would lead to a likeable and gifted young girl being escorted to her death from the Amsterdam flat where she had sought refuge from her tormentors.12 These seemingly disparate events were paralleled by a renewed and more dreadful global war.

War has often been compared to chess. But the great and fundamental difference is, that in war the pieces are independent of the player and of each other – they think and have a life of their own; they have different wishes and aspirations; some might move unasked, or might refuse to move, or might simply run away or surrender. The only connection the pieces have to each other on the board of war is that they are playing their commander’s game. The commander has to infuse each piece with discipline, and with his spirit and his will.

Hitler believed that at the core of the German defeat had been the failure of morale and will. He attributed this failure to propaganda – effective propaganda by the allies, who sought to divide the Prussians from the Bavarians, blaming the militarism of the former for the war – and defective by the German government, who allowed Jews and Marxists to spread revolutionary doctrines unopposed.

On being invalided to a military hospital in 1916, Hitler had noted that ‘shirkers’ abounded, who decried the war and derided those who fought in it. Indeed, by 1918 ‘over a million wounded, disabled and discontented soldiers … choked the hospitals and lines of communication spreading alarm and despondency in the rear.’13 However during the 1918 revolution ‘neurotic patients suddenly shed their symptoms and became revolutionary leaders.’14

‘There was general agreement among the doctors that four years of war had produced “mass hysteria”, which found an outlet in social upheaval. The shock of the episode left most German psychiatrists aligned with the political right long before Hitler came to power. Most importantly of all, however, German doctors vowed to pursue a much tougher and purely military policy towards war neurotics in any future war.’15

According to the German psychiatrists, when the German republic became unable to pay pensions to psychoneurotic war victims in 1926, ‘all the “Kriegzitterer” abruptly lost their symptoms and could function again’16.

Between 1914 and 1918 the German military authorities shot 71 soldiers for military offences; between 1939 and 1945 the number would be 15,000 – a whole division – for Hitler became obsessively determined that the collapse would not be repeated. A new Germany would consider the maintenance of will and morale by a pervasive and fanaticising propaganda to be a basic pillar of the state. The defeat of 1918 would be explained simply and boldly, the villains would be marked, and the lessons continually hammered home:

‘In general the art of all truly great natural leaders at all times consists among other things primarily in not dividing the attention of a people, but in concentrating it upon a single foe. The more unified the application of a people’s will to fight, the greater will be the magnetic attraction of a movement and the mightier will be the impetus of the thrust. It belongs to the genius of a great leader to make even adversaries far removed from one another seem to belong to a single category, because in weak and uncertain characters the knowledge of having different enemies can only too readily lead to the beginning of doubt in their own right.

Once the wavering mass sees itself in a struggle against too many enemies, objectivity will put in an appearance, throwing open the question whether all others are really wrong and only their own people or their own movement are in the right.

And this brings about the first paralysis of their own power. Hence a multiplicity of different adversaries must always be combined so that in the eyes of the masses of one’s own supporters the struggle is directed against only one enemy. This strengthens their faith in their own right and enhances their bitterness against those who attack it.’17

Morale, will and unity had failed in this war; in the next, it would not be Germany who cracked. The Jews would make a wonderfully convenient focus for the enhancement of bitterness, would easily become the ‘one enemy’ that even the ‘wavering masses’ could identify; that 12,000 Jews died for their country – Germany – between 1914 and 1918; that the German-Jewish community contained an intellectual elite that would be a source of strength to any nation, or that it would be a gift of great value to Germany’s enemies, Hitler ignored – the Jews would be the central enemy, the common thread which would run through his propaganda. They were too unifying a target to resist. Hitler’s hatred for the Jews was probably sincere, and this no doubt aided the process of demonisation.