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Rockets and People
For the first time in the history of rocket technology, a gyro-stabilized platform
was tested on a missile.All four A-3 flight tests proved unsuccessful due to failures in
the control system. But the tests did produce a fundamental milestone: the first vertical
guided launch of a freestanding missile on a launch platform. Dornberger and
von Braun understood that the experimental base in Kummersdorf was not suitable
for work on the scale that they had conceived, and they began to look for a new site
for the construction of a large scientific-research center combined with a test range.
In early 1936, Dornberger, now a colonel, was appointed director of missile
development for the German armed forces. Dornberger and von Braun proposed
to the senior army leadership that a missile with a range of more than 200 kilometers
be developed under the designation A-4. They would need to create a
powerful scientific-research and testing center to develop and test the missile.
In August 1936, the Germans decided to begin construction of the military
testing center on Usedom Island on the Baltic coast, next to the resort of
Zinnowitz and near the fishing village of Peenemünde. Dornberger was named
chief of the entire test range, which consisted of two parts: Peenemünde-Ost
(East), the unit under the command of the infantry forces; and Peenemünde-
Westen (West), which was transferred to the Luftwaffe (Air Force). Twenty-fouryear-old
von Braun was appointed to the high post of technical director for
Peenemünde-Ost.The rapid construction of the center began in the fall of 1936.
In 1937, the first ninety employees moved to Peenemünde to the infantry’s
research center. Development, research, and testing were conducted simultaneously
with the construction, which was more or less complete after three years. The
company that carried out the primary construction operations in Peenemünde
was headed by the future President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Heinrich
Lübke. 4 Even in 1945, after the brutal bombardments of the war, we had no reason
to complain about the quality of the construction.
In Europe, preparations for war were underway, but none of the Allied intelligence
services, including the celebrated British intelligence, had imagined the
objectives and scale of work being conducted at the Peenemünde center.
On 1 September 1939,World War II began. In November 1939, an unknown
anti-fascist dropped a detailed report concerning the scope, objectives, and tasks
of the Peenemünde center into the mailbox of the British Embassy in Oslo. By
that time, more than 3,000 individuals were working in Peenemünde, not including
the construction workers. It is astounding that it took four years for the
British to react!
In March 1940, the first firing tests began on chambers of the 25-metric-ton
thrust, liquid-propellant rocket engine intended for the A-4.This was the first time
the Germans used a turbopump feed to deliver alcohol and liquid oxygen into the
4. Lübke served as Bundespräsident (Federal President) of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany)
between 1959 and 1969.
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