Hitler’s Terror Weapons: The Price of Vengeance. Richard Overy

      Dornberger now tried another ploy, suggesting in a memorandum that the enemy, particularly the United States, might take the lead in the development of this decisive weapon.¹⁷ By March 1941 the development of the rocket was again at top priority, with production second. But Dornberger, finding difficulty getting machine tools on second priority had, in a memorandum for a meeting between von Brauchitsch and von Leeb, alluded to the accuracy of his terror weapon, against which no defence could avail.¹⁸ However, Fritz Todt, the armaments minister, in a letter to Fromm (Commander in Chief of the Reserve Army and Chief of Armament) had noted the lavish scale of the social, as well as research, amenities at Peenemunde. He cut 8.5 million reichsmarks from the budget.¹⁹ Dornberger, in a memorandum to Hitler, now mentioned the damage to morale that the rocket could inflict, even if air superiority had been lost.²⁰

      Hitler, the old soldier, had seen and felt the effects of a ruined morale in November 1918, and he was always alert to a mention of attacking the enemy’s will. With his air legions now deeply deployed in Russia, the dictator must have been considerably influenced by Dornberger’s timely comment, for he met him and von Braun on 29^th August, and now apparently believing the rocket to have revolutionised warfare, demanded ‘hundreds of thousands’.²¹ But he declined to order mass production until the missile had been properly developed – it must be remembered that, at this stage, not one had left the lauch pad.

      Hitler’s demand for hundreds of thousands was mistaken, but is perhaps not so ludicrous as it might appear. Certainly, this quantity could not be produced – at their eventual projected price of 50,000 reichsmarks each, just 200,000 rockets would cost 10 billion (10,000,000,000) reichsmarks, which, considering that the total military expenditure of the Reich in 1941 was 68.4 Bn RM,²² was plainly out of the question. If financial limitation, in a totalitarian state which could direct labour where needed, is felt to be an unreliable guide to industrial capacity, then another calculation could have been made: if it took 60 man months to make each rocket²³, then 200,000 would require the labour of 12 million man months, or one million man years. The total labour force available to the Third Reich, including prisoners, was some 36 million.²⁴

      In the insulting homily so assiduously recorded by field Marshal Keitel, it will be remembered that Hitler had stressed the folly of a too early introduction of a new weapon, which an enemy might copy and use before full advantage had been gained. Dornberger had already stressed the possibility of enemy development in his attempts to gain priority. Hitler’s request, therefore, was not one which should have surprised anybody; once its impossibility had been pointed out to him, a better appraisal of the possibilities of rocket warfare would have been available to the German leader. But it was not pointed out. Like the mice in the ancient story, the sober military leaders who were present at that meeting may all have felt it sensible to place a bell on the cat, but considerations of a more personal strategy made each disinclined to carry out the task himself. It was not what the Fuehrer desired to hear.

      But when the German Fuehrer was next found talking A4 rocket quantities, in early March 1942, it was a request for Speer to investigate the raw materials requirements for a quantity of 3000 per month.²⁵

      But in April 1942 came Dornberger’s suggestion for 5000 rockets per annum which, it will be remembered, would require all of Germany’s alcohol production and more than all of her current production of liquid oxygen. What effect did that have on Hitler? He had seen the rocket supply scaled down since August 1941 from ‘hundreds of thousands’ to 5000. How many rockets did he think were necessary to have a decisive effect?

      From one point of view, it really was necessary to deploy hundreds of thousands of rockets. London was the ideal ‘terror’ target. It was the capital of the people who had themselves launched terror raids on Germany, and the need for vengeance would be satisfied. The free people of the capital might decide to pressure their government if the bombardment became unbearable, for the democratic government could surely not ignore the suffering of the population. But the whole London conurbation occupied some 700 square miles; 57,000 tons of bombs (equating to 57,000 rockets) had already been expended on the British, mostly on London, without significant military effect. Had not Hitler promised, when Berlin was first raided, that he would ‘in one night drop 150, 230 or 400,000 kilograms?’ It has been seen in chapter one, that it was estimated by British scientists that 1250 tons of bombs per square mile were necessary to achieve a 50 per cent devastation. London’s 700 square miles, by this calculation, would need 875,000 rockets; to achieve 80% destruction would need 2900 tons per square mile, or 2,030,000 rockets. This would be, of course, if the aiming error were exactly as planned by Dornberger, ie 2 to 3 mils. (If a destruction of 80% of an area is thought excessive, this was just the fate eventually suffered by the 300 square miles of the Ruhr, as will be seen later). German mathematicians were presumably equally capable of making this calculation. Yet when Dornberger’s memorandum arrived in April 1942, with its call for 5000 rockets, i.e. 5000 tons of explosive, to be launched each year against ‘southern England’, there seems to have been no outburst from the Fuehrer, who was supposed to carry weapon specifications in his head (to the great discomfort of his generals). At Dornberger’s rate of fire, London would have been 80% destroyed by the twenty fourth century of the Christian era, presuming that rebuilding work were to cease for the interval. Could Hitler, whose whole mindset in war pivoted around morale,