Walter
Dornberger was born in Giessen, Germany
on 6th September, 1895. He joined the German
Army in 1914 and during the First World War
was captured by the French Army and
was held as a prisoner-of-war until 1919.
Dornberger
remained in the army and in 1925 was sent to the Charlottenberg
Institute of Technology to study ballistics. While at Charlottenberg
he met a young student, Wernher von Braun,
and fellow member of the German Society for Space Travel.
In
1932 Dornberger was placed in charge of the solid-fuel rocket research
and development in the Ordnance Department of the German
Army. Dornberger recruited Wernher von
Braun and in 1934 they successfully built two rockets that rose
vertically for more the than 2.4 kilometres (1.5 miles).
In
1937 Dornberger was appointed military commander of rocket research
station at Peenemunde. Braun became technical director of the establishment
and he began to develop the long-range ballistic missile, the A4
(V2 Rocket) and the supersonic anti-aircraft
missile Wasserfall.
During
the Second World War Dornberger and Braun
began working on a new secret weapon, the V2
Rocket. This 45 feet long, liquid-fuelled rocket carried a one
ton warhead, and was capable of supersonic speed and could fly at
an altitude of over 50 miles. As a result it could not be effectively
stopped once launched.
The V2
Rocket was first used in September, 1944. Over 5,000 V-2s were
fired on Britain. However, only 1,100 reached their target. These
rockets killed 2,724 people and badly injured 6,000. After the D-Day
landings, Allied troops were on mainland Europe and they were able
to capture the launch sites and by March, 1945, the attacks came
to an end.
With
the Red Army advancing on the Peenemunde
Research Station, Wernher
von Braun
surrendered to the US Army. Braun and 40 other scientists working
on rocket technology were taken to the United
States where they worked on the development of nuclear missiles.
Dornberger
was arrested by Allied forces and spent two years in England as
a prisoner. He emigrated to the United States
in 1947 where he worked as an adviser on the development of guided
missiles. He later worked for the Bell Aircraft Corporation and
on the Air Force-NASA Dyna-Soar project. Walter
Dornberger
died in Baden-Wurttemburg, West Germany, on 27th June, 1980.
(1)
Walter Dornberger, speech to those working
at Peenemunde on the V-2 Rocket (3rd October, 1942)
This is the first of a new era in transportation, that of space
travel. So long as the war lasts, our most urgent task can only
be the rapid perfection of the rocket as a weapon. The development
of possibilities we cannot yet envisage will be a peacetime task.
(2)
Albert Speer, Germany's Minister of Armaments
in the Second World War, was a strong supporter
of the rocket programme headed by Walter Dornberger
and Wernher von Braun.
O n June 13, 1942, the armaments chiefs of the three branches of
the armed forces, Field Marshal Milch, Admiral Witzell and General
Fromm, flew to Peenemunde with me to witness the first firing of
a remote-controlled rocket.
Wisps
of vapour showed that the fuel tanks were being filled. At the predetermined
second, at first with a faltering motion but then with the roar
of an unleashed giant, the rocket rose slowly from its pad, seemed
to stand upon its jet of flame for the fraction of a second, then
vanished with a howl into the low clouds. Wernher von Braun was
beaming. For my part, I was thunderstruck at this technical miracle,
at its precision and at the way it seemed to abolish the laws of
gravity, so that thirteen tons could be hurtled into the air without
any mechanical guidance.
Approximately
twenty-five feet long, the Wasserfall rocket was capable of carrying
approximately six hundred and sixty pounds of explosives along a
directional beam up to an altitude of fifty thousand feet.
(3)
Albert Speer told Adolf
Hitler about the A-4 rocket, on 14h October, 1942. Hitler was
excited by the news as he was convinced that he now had a weapon
that would win the war.
The A-4 is a measure that can decide the war. And what encouragement
to the home front when we attack the English with it. This is the
decisive weapon of the war, and what is more it can be produced
with relatively small resources. Speer, you must push the A-4 as
hard as you can! Whatever labour and materials they need must be
supplied instantly. You know I was going to sign the decree for
the tank program. But my conclusion now is: Change it around and
phase it so that A-4 is put on a par with tank production. But in
this project we can use only Germans. God help us if the enemy finds
out about this business.
