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Rockets and People
preter charmed everyone. Her name was Lyalya. From that day on we declared her
our official interpreter-secretary, and we formalized her status with the military
authorities. Rosenplänter offered to familiarize us with V-2 technology, but he did
not know Mittelwerk and recommended another specialist from Peenemünde who
had often visited Mittelwerk to perform monitoring tasks. Rosenplänter denied that
they had anything to do with the atrocities that had taken place there.
Our first inspection of the legendary subterranean Mittelwerk missile factory
took almost two days. Literally translated, Mittelwerk means “middle factory” or
“factory located in the middle” (it was located in the middle of Germany). The
construction of the factory began in 1942 under the codename Mittelbau (middle
construction). This was before the successful launches of the V-2 (A-4) missile.
They didn’t need to go extremely deep into the ground.The construction workers
successfully used the natural terrain.The wooded hill that locals proudly called
Kohnstein Mountain rose up almost 150 meters above the surrounding terrain
four kilometers from Nordhausen.The limestone rock forming the interior of the
mountain yielded easily to mining work. Four opened galleries had been cut in
the mountain along the diameter of the base, each was a bit longer than three kilometers.
Forty-four transverse drifts connected the four galleries. Each gallery was
a separate assembly factory.
The two galleries on the left side of Mittelwerk were BMW-003 and JUMO-004
aircraft turbojet engine factories. These engines had already been made fit for
series production in 1942. And here the Germans had surpassed the Brits, the
Americans, and us. But (luckily for us, of course) as a result of somebody’s foolishness,
they did not use this advantage and did not release into large-scale
production the twin-engine jet Me 262 Messerschmitts, which were equipped
with these engines. It wasn’t until the end of the war that these aircraft appeared
on the fronts in small numbers. In postwar memoirs, German generals noted that
Hitler had been personally opposed to using these airplanes for a long time.This
demonstrates how a dictator’s stubbornness yields invaluable benefit to his
mortal enemies.
The third gallery at Mittelwerk was used for the production of the V-1 “winged
bombs,” which in modern terms would be called cruise missiles.The mass production
of V-1s began in 1943. Only the fourth gallery was dedicated to the assembly
and testing of A-4 missiles. Rolling stock bringing in materials could roll directly
into each gallery from the surface. Rail cars loaded with the finished product
exited at the other end.
The gallery for A-4 missile assembly was more than 15 meters wide, and its
height in individual bays reached 25 meters. In these bays they conducted the socalled
vertical Generaldurchhalteversuchsprüfung.We later translated this as “general
vertical tests” and used it as the official term for this type of test for a long time. 1
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1. The literal meaning of the term Generaldurchhalteversuchprufüng is “general endurance test.”