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The V-2 rocket, featured in Nazi Mega Weapons, was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile, developed by Germany as a "vengeance weapon" (Vergeltungswaffe) to hit Allied cities. It was technically advanced, reaching 5x the speed of sound and the edge of space, yet it was ultimately a costly, inaccurate, and strategically insignificant weapon of terror......
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00:11Hidden in forests and under mountains across Europe
00:14are the remains of a top-secret Nazi weapons program.
00:18That's an incredible structure.
00:21A vast network of research labs, launch pads, and missile silos.
00:26And a terrifying weapon unlike anything the world had ever seen before.
00:33It could break the sound barrier.
00:36The world's first ballistic missile.
00:39This changes the face of warfare. This changes the history of the modern age.
00:43I'm a total devastation. Complete devastation.
00:48This is the story of a Nazi genius who built cutting-edge bases
00:53to create a revolutionary space-age weapon.
00:56And the technology that ultimately put men on the moon.
01:01The V-2 rocket program.
01:07Nazi mega-weapons is made possible in part by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
01:16The biggest construction projects of World War II.
01:20Ordered by Hitler to secure world domination.
01:25Now they survive as dark reminders of the Fuhrer's fanatical military ambitions.
01:31These are the secrets of the Nazi mega-weapons.
01:46Saturday, October 3rd, 1942.
01:51A team of Nazi scientists arrive at Germany's most secret military installation
01:57to launch a completely new kind of weapon.
02:01Leading them is Wernher von Braun.
02:04At the age of just 30, he is the world's top rocket scientist.
02:09Steuering clear, clear.
02:12Leading them is clear.
02:14Leading them is clear.
02:14Leading them is clear.
02:15Leading them is clear.
02:15Von Braun's goal is to create the world's first long-range guided missile.
02:20A weapon that the Nazis hope will decide the outcome of World War II.
02:26Great atmosphere!
02:27The main atmosphere!
02:28Great atmosphere!
02:30The main atmosphere!
02:36The main atmosphere!
02:37It's broken the sound barrier!
02:46Years ago, this looked completely different.
02:50Rocket scientist and V2 expert, Dr. Olaf Zabilski, is standing on the very spot where this launch happened more than
02:5870 years ago.
03:00You have to imagine that the trees weren't here. It was all level, partially paved.
03:07This is Pinamunde, a vast Nazi laboratory built to win World War II.
03:18In 1942, the Nazis dominate Europe, but the war is turning against them.
03:25America, Britain and Russia are fighting back, and Hitler has pinned his hopes on rockets to pound Britain into submission,
03:32as military historian Christian Gustafsson explains.
03:36In Hitler's mind, this is terror. It's about scaring the population.
03:40He feels that he can frighten Britain with this weapon sufficiently to drive them out of the war.
03:46It was a weapon that had its beginnings over ten years earlier.
03:54In the 1920s, teenage genius von Braun was part of an amateur rocket craze sweeping Germany.
04:04This history has fascinated Martin Teymour, head of rocketry at Dresden University, all his life.
04:11Rockets became very popular. You had societies forming here in Germany. Young people got together trying to build little rockets.
04:20They were fueled by gunpowder.
04:25But they were unguided, unpredictable, and only able to travel a few hundred yards.
04:32As a weapon, the greatest danger they posed was to the people launching them.
04:37In this early development, rockets were loud. They were certainly colorful and bright, and potentially scary for things like cavalry,
04:43but they were in no way a significant battlefield weapon.
04:47In the early 1930s, von Braun starts working with a new technology, liquid-fueled rockets.
04:55A powerful weapon with the potential to travel huge distances.
05:02His work catches the attention of the German army. They ask von Braun to demonstrate his latest prototype.
05:26Mr. von Braun, a moment please.
05:30The launch is a failure. But surprisingly, the military offer him the funding he needs.
05:37What is your ambition?
05:39I want to get on the moon, to build the rocket that will put the first man on the moon.
05:45It's possible. We can do it.
05:48And it's all due to Hitler.
05:53When he comes to power in the 1930s, he greenlights almost unlimited funding for military projects.
06:02Hitler is fascinated with scale. He wants big, bigger, biggest.
06:06He builds his stadium in Nürburgring for his rallies to be the biggest stadium on the Earth.
06:11He wants to build the biggest motorway system on Earth.
06:14He wants to build more tanks, more aircraft than anyone else in the world has.
06:19He is absolutely fascinated with scale.
06:25Hitler starts rearming Germany.
06:30And Wernher von Braun is asked to establish the world's first rocket base.
06:37A high-tech facility where he can build, test, and launch his most recent designs.
06:47It will be the Nazis' largest and most secret weapons lab.
06:53Von Braun's first task is to identify a remote location where the new complex can be hidden from other countries.
07:02He selects Pinamunda on the Baltic coast, a wilderness of dunes, marshes, and forests a hundred kilometers from the nearest
07:11major town.
07:16Christian Muldoffer-Wutt is the leading expert on what remains of the rocket base.
07:23We are entering the research center area and here was the first checkpoint.
07:32There were fences, there were dogs.
07:42Hidden in the forest are the remnants of one of the largest military complexes ever built.
07:53Wendermünde is a location where the modern science was invented, part of the history of mankind.
08:02It's the perfect place to test rockets for one reason.
08:06The flight had to be documented for the whole time.
08:12And so you need a straight coastline.
08:15The 200-kilometer-long coastline could be rigged with cameras to monitor rockets during flight.
08:23With the site chosen, work can begin on the missile base itself.
08:29In August 1936, over 10,000 workers descend on Pinamunda.
08:40Nobody has built a rocket base before, so they have to start from scratch.
08:46The first challenge? Moving men and materials.
08:50Here on the right side, this is a platform.
08:54The platform of the tram with a total length of 107 kilometers.
09:02The railway lines still criss-cross the site today.
09:12The second challenge is housing thousands of workers inside the top-secret base.
09:18A small town is built, complete with shops, schools and even a local club at the complex's southern boundary.
09:26This place had to be so big because the research center was so complex.
09:32Otherwise, it couldn't have worked.
09:36The base is the world's first industrial-scale military black site.
09:41Over 25 square kilometers, engineers construct labs for nearly 2,000 scientists, missile factories and launch pads.
09:50To keep it all top secret, they plan to design and build everything on site.
09:56But this will require a vast amount of electricity.
10:00So von Braun builds his own power station, as rocket physicist Professor Martin Tamar explains.
10:08Well, that's really terrific.
10:10It was one of the largest power plants that were built in the late 1930s just to supply a research
10:16center.
10:1730 megawatts of power, most of that was used to make a rocket propellant, liquid oxygen.
10:22That gives you unlimited possibilities.
10:3475% of the energy produced goes to a vast liquid oxygen plant that manufactures the vital rocket fuel.
10:43As big as a football field, the liquid oxygen factory produces 13,000 kilograms of fuel per day.
10:51Enough for three V-2 rockets.
10:56This place was definitely groundbreaking.
10:59So you had facilities, you invented facilities that didn't exist before.
11:03The rocket isn't the only scientific marvel.
11:06So is the technology required to design it.
11:10The site's wind tunnel is the first in the world that can simulate the missile's incredible speed.
11:16Just imagining a supersonic wind tunnel, Mach 4.4 speeds, you couldn't think about such kind of facilities before.
11:25The final cost of Pinamunda is a staggering $500 billion in today's money.
11:32By 1938, the facility is operational and full control is handed to Werner Von Braun.
11:47But away from the isolation of Pinamunda, events are about to give added urgency to Von Braun's work.
11:55Hitler is planning to plunge Europe into war.
11:59There are some key people in the German government who see Von Braun's rocket development as a potential key weapon
12:04in the war that will come.
12:07After investing billions, the army are impatient to get their hands on a working missile.
12:21But there's a problem. Von Braun's first prototype suffer a succession of failures.
12:28The engines are underpowered, and he can't control the rockets in flight.
12:34Von Braun was struggling with explosions on the launch pad, off the pad, and in the air.
12:42The timing couldn't be worse. Von Braun has just been ordered to demonstrate his latest engine to the Fuhrer himself.
12:52At stake is the future of the entire Nazi rocket program.
13:30My Fuhrer, we believe that a rocket could reach a speed of 5,000 km per hour in only 30
13:38seconds.
13:41The engine functions perfectly.
13:46But while Hitler continues funding the project, he refuses to prioritize the weapon.
13:52It may seem surprising that Hitler wasn't interested in something so obviously futuristic and cutting edge.
13:58But a strategic rocket force is well beyond what Hitler thinks he needs.
14:04In September 1939, Hitler's armies invade Poland.
14:10The second world war has begun.
14:15Within a year, most of Western Europe has been occupied.
14:20Hitler's faith in conventional weapons has been proved correct.
14:25When Hitler does invade Western Europe, he does it in a matter of weeks,
14:29and he does it with effectively a conventional army.
14:32Tanks, infantry, airplanes operating in cooperation.
14:35Why does he need any more strategic weapons?
14:38Why does he need rockets?
14:43Von Braun is determined to prove the Fuhrer wrong,
14:46and continues to push ahead with designing a functional flying missile.
14:53Every test is filmed by a camera crew,
14:56and with no computers to simulate launches,
14:58the only way to test a rocket is to do it for real.
15:14We're here in the Holy of Holies at Peenemünde.
15:18This is where they wanted to prove whether their rockets could fly.
15:24The launch site is surrounded by huge banks of earth and reinforced concrete to protect the scientists.
15:38The rockets are supposed to take off and fly along the coast.
15:43But launches often go dangerously wrong.
15:46Feel its name.
16:13The aim being shattered for person.
16:16or rather a hydrant for extinguishing the possible explosion.
16:22As well as risking lives,
16:24every rocket failure destroys thousands of valuable components.
16:28So the engineers spend weeks setting up each test.
16:32Before a rocket could be launched,
16:35in case thousands of scientists were blown up,
16:38it had to be prepared.
16:42The launch pad is in the center.
16:44Next to it is an engine test area with a flame pit,
16:48faced by a concrete observation bunker.
16:52A railway ferries the rockets to the launch pad from a preparation hangar
16:56as tall as a seven-story building.
17:04The rockets were hung in a test building.
17:07The electrics and electronics were checked.
17:11When they were okay, it was ferried on a rail-like runway
17:14into the testing area that we see over there.
17:24The testers sat in this bunker.
17:28They could only see through periscopes,
17:30but there were remote cameras running
17:32to show whether the functionality and the test runs were correct.
17:41That's the remains of the flame pit for the static tests.
17:52Here you can discern the slope for the trench where the gases were expelled.
17:59The water would be taken with it.
18:01It was ten meters deep here.
18:04And the same in the other direction.
18:20We find ourselves on the launch pad.
18:23If it all worked,
18:25and the scientists in the bunker,
18:27pushing the buttons and pulling their levers,
18:29were happy as children because their baby was successful.
18:33Then the rocket was set down here.
18:40The excitement reached its climax,
18:43just before the rocket was launched.
18:45When the relays were laid out,
18:48and one hoped that it would be successful.
19:15But success is proving elusive.
19:18In the summer of 1942,
19:20the first three test launches are failures.
19:23Many more would follow.
19:25It was a step-by-step and trial and error.
19:28It was a very difficult task.
19:34Examining all the remaining parts,
19:37so you check for every piece of evidence
19:39to identify the specific cause of the failure.
19:47Von Braun has two major technical problems to solve.
19:51The first is creating an engine
19:53that can power 13 tons of metal
19:56at three times the speed of sound,
19:58carrying enough fuel to travel a distance
20:00of over 200 kilometers.
20:01Well, it seems like the rocket goes up very steep,
20:05and everything seems to look okay.
20:08But it seems like probably
20:09there's a premature engine cut-off.
20:18Stephanie Cole, an astrophysicist
20:21at the European Space Agency,
20:23has studied Von Braun's rocket engine.
20:25So what we're looking at here
20:27is the nozzle and the combustion chamber
20:29of a V-2 rocket.
20:32There are two fuel tanks
20:34filled with liquid oxygen
20:36and an alcohol mixture.
20:38These two fuels are then forced together
20:41inside the combustion chamber.
20:45It's a little bit like a sprinkle.
20:47So it actually sprays all the fuel and the oxygen.
20:52The mixed fuel is ignited.
20:55But this creates enormous temperatures
20:58that threaten to melt the engine.
21:01To prevent this happening,
21:03Von Braun devises an ingenious cooling system.
21:07Von Braun had a very clever engineering solution.
21:11He used the fuel to cool the engine.
21:13The nozzle in the combustion chamber
21:15was actually double-skinned.
21:17So you can see that quite nicely here.
21:18So I can actually put my finger
21:20between the outer skin and the inner skin.
21:23Cold fuel flows inside the double skin,
21:26absorbing excess heat
21:27before entering the combustion chamber.
21:30So this is really innovative
21:32because you don't need an extra cooling system.
21:37Using fuel to cool the engines
21:39becomes the standard for rockets in the future,
21:42including the space shuttle's main engines.
21:47Von Braun's next problem
21:49is keeping the rocket stable and on course
21:52once in the air.
22:06The rocket has a pretty good chance.
22:08It is a rocket that takes off.
22:08It looks OK.
22:10But then immediately you see
22:11how it starts to roll and tumble.
22:13So it seems like there is a guidance
22:15and navigation problem.
22:18It goes off in the wrong direction.
22:23At the time, there is no way to steer a rocket from the ground.
22:33So to keep his rockets on course, von Braun has to invent a kind of automatic pilot.
22:41In order to hit the target, they couldn't control it remotely, but let the rocket fly
22:48itself.
22:54The system uses gyroscopic sensors, which detect the direction that the rocket is travelling
22:59in.
23:01These sensors then send electrical impulses to four rudders, which steer the rocket.
23:14To maintain the rocket in its flight path, these black rudders, these Strahlruder, influence
23:21the exhaust jet.
23:23Just think of a stream with a plate that applies pressure and by doing so creates a moment along
23:28the plane of the rocket, thus steering it in the right direction.
23:44After years of research, von Braun finally believes he has a rocket that will work.
23:49It's clear, it's clear.
23:55Saturday, October 3rd, 1942.
24:02Von Braun and his army paymasters await the launch of his latest prototype missile.
24:22It's exploded.
24:24No!
24:25It's broken the sound barrier.
24:33Very good.
24:35Yes, but will it reach the target?
24:50Do you realize what we've done?
24:52The spaceship is born.
24:55Yes, indeed.
24:57If you think our headaches are over, I'm telling you, they're just beginning.
25:11In complete secrecy and unknown to the Allies, Werner von Braun has created the first ballistic
25:17missile.
25:18He's launched a 13-ton rocket through the Earth's atmosphere and over a distance of 240 kilometers,
25:26eventually crashing into the Baltic Sea.
25:28And he's close to delivering Germany's military a much needed boost.
25:33By late 42, 43, the war is not going terribly well for Hitler.
25:37His shock invasion of Russia is starting to bog down and he is hemorrhaging troops and equipment
25:43and money into Russia.
25:44Worse, the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor and this has brought the Americans into the
25:49war against the Axis.
25:51An increasingly desperate and self-deluded Hitler starts talking mysteriously about these
25:55wonder weapons, which will somehow pull Germany out of its extremely dire situation.
26:02One of these wonder weapons is von Braun's rocket.
26:07In July 1943, von Braun and his army chief Dornberger are summoned to meet Hitler.
26:22I'm told you've made some useful progress, Dornberger, is that correct?
26:35What you can see here is the first projectile to be launched into outer space.
26:42Within 30 seconds, it is traveling at around 5000 kilometers per hour.
26:49It can strike London within three minutes.
26:53Its warhead contains one ton of high explosives.
26:58We need a bigger warhead.
27:01A bigger warhead may not be possible, my Führer.
27:05I'm on total devastation, complete devastation.
27:17Von Braun becomes a victim of his own success.
27:20He wants Hitler's attention and now he's got it.
27:23The Führer instantly demands thousands of these weapons.
27:26He demands V2s to be produced at a rate orders of magnitude greater than what von Braun is capable
27:31of producing.
27:35What the Führer doesn't realize is that he has seen the only successful launch of the
27:40rocket.
27:41Von Braun faces a race against time to perfect the technology.
27:45And his job is about to get even harder.
27:56In 1942, British intelligence receives numerous reports of mysterious flying objects in the
28:04Baltic.
28:06Their suspicions about a rocket program are confirmed in 1943, when high-ranking German prisoners
28:13are overheard speaking about rockets.
28:17Photoreconnaissance planes are immediately dispatched to the area and photograph Pinamunder.
28:25Now Allied bombers are closing in on the Nazis' top-secret base.
28:51Good evening, dear director.
28:53Good evening.
28:53Do you have a cigarette for me, please?
28:55Yes.
28:56Is that the artificial bomb?
28:58Everyone take cover!
29:04Pinamunda is under attack from over 500 British aircraft.
29:08The top-secret base is no longer secret.
29:23We've got to save the plans!
29:30Ten years of work by thousands of people is going up in smoke.
29:36The Allies hope that the raid will set back the rocket by months or even years.
29:41If project leader von Braun is killed and his work destroyed, the program will be stopped in its tracks.
29:54Over 1,800 tons of bombs rained down on Pinamunda.
30:00Here was the impact and this impact caused this hole here, this crater.
30:11The enormous size of Pinamunda makes it an easy target for Allied bombers.
30:18Once the British intelligence establishment works out what Pinamunda is, it's a sitting duck.
30:23It's all above ground and there's very little the Germans can do to protect it from the massive Allied air
30:29superiority.
30:30Von Braun survives, but Pinamunda is no longer safe.
30:35It's impossible to defend from aerial attack.
30:39His rocket research center will have to move out of reach of Allied bombs if it's going to achieve its
30:44aim of flattening London.
30:48Engineers immediately scout for new locations deep inside Germany.
30:54But where can they hide the giant rockets and all the equipment needed to manufacture them?
31:01The answer lies in an abandoned mine in central Germany called Mittelwerk.
31:10Jens Christian Wagner is the world's leading authority on the site.
31:14Right here in the middle of Germany, there was a huge underground tunnel system, which had been constructed since 1936.
31:22It was a gypsum quarry.
31:25Nazi officials decided to change this into an underground rocket factory.
31:35Pinamunda was this incredible center of science and technology.
31:39And now they're trying to do the same thing in Mittelwerk, which is a dark, wet cave.
31:48It's a massive undertaking.
31:50And the increasing success of Allied forces is draining German resources.
31:55To build a new factory, the Germans are going to need a large labor force.
31:59But at this point in the war, there is a huge labor shortage in Germany.
32:03There are simply not enough skilled workers to make the factory work.
32:10Von Braun's quest to build a new rocket now takes a dark and terrifying turn.
32:18From the beginning on, it was planned to send concentration camp inmates as force laborers to construct this underground factory.
32:30They arrived right here where we are now standing, and they entered the tunnel system.
32:41Fire!
32:43Fire!
32:457,000 slave laborers carve out two parallel tunnels over 6,200 feet long.
32:52One holds a road and double-track railway for supplies.
32:57The second contains machinery to build the rockets.
33:01Connecting them are 46 smaller tunnels, each 600 feet long.
33:05In all, there are 13 kilometers of tunnels
33:09with a floor space of 1 million square feet.
33:18This is part of the production assembly line of the V2.
33:27So from the perspective of the Nazis,
33:30this was very successful.
33:32This factory was finished in four months.
33:46But just as the factory finally begins to produce rockets,
33:50von Braun suddenly finds himself with a new master.
33:54As the war is going increasingly poorly for the Germans,
33:57the SS make power grabs throughout the military establishment.
34:00One of the objects of these power grabs
34:02is von Braun's V2 program.
34:12SS General Hans Kammler made his name
34:16by increasing the efficiency of the cremation ovens at Auschwitz.
34:22Hans Kammler was ruthless.
34:25He was an engineer of destruction.
34:29Now he takes control of the entire factory
34:32and its staff of slave laborers.
34:40Von Braun is ordered to focus on the design flaws
34:44and leave the manufacturing to Kammler.
34:48production increases from 50 rockets in January 1944
34:52to 437 in May.
34:56But these rockets are assembled in appalling conditions
34:59and most don't work.
35:03The first rockets that were thrown together there
35:06were bolted and screwed together
35:08by unskilled workers and prisoners.
35:14They were junk, utter junk.
35:21By 1944, the Nazis desperately need the rockets.
35:26The war has turned decisively against them.
35:31The Russians are advancing in the east.
35:35And allied aircraft are destroying German cities.
35:42Hitler demands 900 rockets per month from Mittelwerk.
35:47And Kammler uses brutal methods to increase production.
35:53Many prisoners died.
35:57Beaten.
36:00Murdered by SS and civilian overseers.
36:06Most of them died by exhaustion.
36:09Others by starvation.
36:12About 10,000 prisoners had to live
36:16and to die here underground.
36:26Kammler rushes V-2 rockets off the production line
36:30at Mittelwerk.
36:31But there is still a huge problem to overcome.
36:35Where to build the launch pads
36:37and how to protect them.
36:43The Germans can't launch the V-2 from Mittelwerk.
36:46It's too far away.
36:47They have to move the weapon closer to its principal target,
36:50which is Britain.
36:51And so they have to launch them
36:52from somewhere in northern France.
36:55Hitler ignores army requests
36:57for small, undetectable mobile sites
37:00and orders the construction
37:01of a massive rocket base
37:03called La Coupe.
37:04Hitler inevitably gets involved in the debate
37:07and, again, almost inevitably,
37:09chooses the big engineering solution to the problem.
37:11He goes for a big, static missile launching site.
37:18beneath a vast concrete dome,
37:21the rockets can be prepared
37:22and then launched at London.
37:27Wow.
37:29That's an incredible structure, really.
37:35Arthur van Beveren is a leading authority
37:37on German fortifications in northern Europe.
37:41It's a big piece of concrete.
37:45It's the, the only way up to the dome these days.
37:56It's really an amazing structure, 71 meters in diameter,
38:03five meters thick, 55,000 tons.
38:08They laid a huge amount of concrete over the mountain
38:12and dug out the chalk underneath it.
38:15Building this dome in the way they did
38:18allowed them to continue the work inside the mountain
38:22while being under constant air attacks.
38:33The dome's size and shape meant that even the largest bombs bounced off it.
38:42You can see a block of concrete over there,
38:44which is actually part of the wall
38:46where the V-2 rocket came out.
38:48And it would be driven towards that flat area over there.
38:52And that's the actual launching platform.
39:06This would be the place where the trains would go right into the mountains.
39:09The V-2 rockets will be on trains, horizontal,
39:12and drove right into this tunnel.
39:18In 1944, the Nazis are desperate for working rockets.
39:23They're being pushed back by the Allies in Italy
39:25and the Russians in Eastern Europe.
39:27They plan to stockpile V-2s in these tunnels until they're needed.
39:32We're now entering a part of the tunnel
39:35which is normally restricted
39:36because it's unfinished
39:38and it's kind of dangerous and unstable inside here.
39:47Train tracks from the outside would continue deep into the mountain.
39:51In total, there were about 7 kilometers of tunnels.
39:55And you would have trains here loaded off with V-2s,
39:59just 14-meter-long V-2s, horizontally here.
40:03You've got guys working, drilling on the sides here,
40:06through the chalk.
40:07The noise, the stench, the heat.
40:17We're now deep, hundreds of meters into the mountain.
40:21The V-2 rockets needed fuel, which was liquid oxygen.
40:25And the idea was that they built a liquid oxygen factory
40:29inside this mountain.
40:32And it would provide enough liquid oxygen
40:34to fire at least 15 V-2 rockets every day.
40:43The tunnels of this huge engineering project
40:46house hospitals, barracks,
40:48and every facility that the crews need
40:51to live entirely underground.
40:55You can actually see how they dig through these chalk walls.
41:00I can almost do it by hand here and here.
41:06Wow.
41:08If it's what I think it is,
41:11it really looks like one of the drills they would use in 1944.
41:17Let's see if it fits.
41:21I guess so.
41:23Yeah.
41:24It fits perfectly.
41:30Exact same size
41:31as the holes in the wall.
41:35That's really unbelievable.
41:37Cool.
41:39It's amazing to fly now after 70 years,
41:42still inside these tunnels.
41:46You can see one of those beams.
41:50Don't know if it's a safe plan to go underneath.
41:56It's totally rotten.
41:59Underneath the dome,
42:00a giant hall is constructed
42:02where the missiles can be prepared for launch.
42:05Now entering the octagonal room.
42:10It's a massive six-story hole,
42:15which is underneath the dome.
42:18It's 24 meters high in total.
42:20Inside a mountain,
42:21it's absolutely amazing.
42:27The V2 rockets will be brought in
42:30from the tunnels,
42:31put here,
42:32and it will be set vertical.
42:39And you can see,
42:40we've got one floor here,
42:42one there,
42:43and more floors.
42:45Every floor had its own crew,
42:47for example,
42:48fueling and a warhead.
42:49Once the V2 rocket was filled,
42:52it will be driven out,
42:55outside,
42:55to the launching emplacement,
42:57and it will be fired against London.
43:03The Nazis plan that La Coupole
43:05will launch up to 15 rockets a day
43:08to smash London.
43:09As soon as the missiles arrive from Germany,
43:12the British capital will face
43:13an unstoppable bombardment.
43:23But back at Mittelwerk,
43:24the missiles emerging from the underground facility
43:27are still plagued by a reliability problem.
43:31The biggest problem we have
43:33is the materials and manufacturing quality.
43:37And SS General Kamler
43:38is putting extreme pressure on von Braun
43:41to find a solution.
43:54In the first half of 1944,
43:56the Nazi ballistic missile
43:58is approaching completion.
44:00And Wernher von Braun's rockets
44:02are nearly ready to decimate Britain.
44:05They are given a name,
44:06V2,
44:08V for Vergeltungswaffe,
44:10or vengeance weapon.
44:12There is just one obstacle to overcome.
44:15In over 80% of the tests,
44:17the rockets launch perfectly.
44:19They climb high into the stratosphere.
44:22But then something goes badly wrong.
44:263,000 individual components
44:28have to work together,
44:29and if a bearing or a relay doesn't work,
44:32or a valve isn't properly sealed,
44:34the rocket won't fly.
44:37Von Braun didn't understand
44:39why the rocket's body was failing.
44:42One factor makes his job even harder.
44:45In 1944,
44:47there is no technology capable
44:48of capturing close-up images
44:50of the rocket at high altitude.
44:53With the Allies hammering Germany,
44:55he makes a desperate last-ditch gamble.
45:00He decides to get up close
45:02to a malfunctioning rocket
45:03as its wreckage falls to the ground.
45:21Von Braun narrowly escapes with his life,
45:23but finds the answer.
45:25The rocket's body has been deformed
45:28before it hits the ground.
45:30In order to not squeeze the rocket together,
45:35you had a thrust frame,
45:36which was a metal frame
45:38on top of the combustion chamber,
45:40and that frame was transmitting
45:41the force coming from the rocket engine
45:43into the rocket's structure.
45:47He discovers that the structural framework
45:49of the rocket and its outer skin
45:51are buckling under the extreme pressures
45:54of supersonic flight.
45:56Von Braun reinforces the fuselage,
45:59and the failure rate drops dramatically.
46:02Two years after the first flight,
46:03Von Braun had finally built a reliable rocket.
46:12V-2s begin to roll off the production line.
46:15London is only weeks away from bombardment.
46:19But in June 1944,
46:21the V-2 program suffers two huge body blows.
46:25The Allies receive intelligence
46:27that La Coupeau is a possible launching site.
46:30It is hit by a succession of massive British bombs.
46:36La Coupeau has one major design flaw.
46:39Its roof is impenetrable,
46:41very, very thick concrete,
46:43but the chalk around it is extremely soft.
46:45The bombing raids crush all the supporting
46:47and logistical tunnels around La Coupeau,
46:49effectively putting La Coupeau out of action
46:51before it even fires its first rocket.
46:56Then, the Allies storm the Normandy beaches on D-Day.
47:03Just as Von Braun is ready to unleash
47:05the V-2 campaign against Britain,
47:07the Allies attack and land in northern France.
47:10The sites that Von Braun needs
47:12to launch his weapon against Britain
47:14are threatened by the oncoming Allied army.
47:21Hitler has made a critical mistake.
47:23The big, static site he demanded
47:26was easy for the Allies to attack.
47:28In desperation, the Nazis rushed
47:30to mount the rockets on mobile launchers,
47:33as the army had originally requested.
47:37A mobile missile launcher
47:38can be moved anywhere you want it to.
47:40It can be hidden in forests
47:41or in built-up areas.
47:42It offers the advantage
47:43of being harder to find.
47:48After 14 years of development,
47:51SS General Hans Kammler
47:53commands the first missile attack
47:54on September 8, 1944.
47:58The target is London.
48:04Hitler's terror weapon is finally unleashed.
48:25What Hitler hopes to do
48:26with the V-2 campaign
48:27is to destroy London
48:28and other major cities.
48:30He hopes to drive
48:30the British out of the war.
48:35In six months,
48:37over 3,000 rockets are fired
48:39towards London,
48:40southern England,
48:41and Belgium.
48:47If you're a civilian on the ground,
48:49you've got this rocket
48:50moving supersonically,
48:51which you can't hear
48:52and which has been launched
48:53only a few minutes before.
48:54There's no possible way
48:55they can get you warning.
48:56There's nowhere for you to hide.
48:57It's an extremely frightening event.
49:13But the V-2 has arrived
49:15too late to turn the war.
49:17By 1945,
49:18the Allies are swarming into Germany,
49:21pushing the mobile launch sites
49:22out of range of Allied cities.
49:24The last V-2 to hit London
49:27explodes on March 27, 1945.
49:31If large numbers of V-2s
49:33had been available
49:34six months earlier,
49:36D-Day may never have happened.
49:46But the sheer size
49:47and cost of the project
49:49meant that it arrived
49:51too late to save Germany
49:53and may even have helped defeat it.
49:57In total,
49:58just over 3,000 rockets are fired,
50:01killing 6,000 people
50:02at a cost of $500 billion
50:05in today's money.
50:09Each V-2 on average
50:10kills something like
50:11two or three people.
50:12But each weapon also costs
50:14tens of millions of dollars
50:16to build.
50:17The money spent
50:18on the rocket program
50:20could have bought
50:20thousands of mass-produced bombers.
50:23It's a very cost-inefficient way
50:25to try and drive
50:26an enemy out of a war.
50:30On May 2, 1945,
50:32von Braun surrenders
50:33to American forces in Bavaria.
50:36The USA now had the brains
50:38of the rocket program
50:39in custody.
50:42Five days later,
50:43the war is over.
50:45But von Braun's career
50:47as a rocket scientist
50:48has just begun.
50:52He and 6,000 other
50:54German scientists
50:55and their families
50:56are shipped to America,
50:58along with 100 complete
51:00V-2 rockets.
51:04Under the Americans,
51:06he had the possibility
51:06to pursue his research
51:08in the direction
51:08he had always wanted to go,
51:09which was towards
51:10the direction of space travel.
51:11America sent a launch
51:12its first Earth satellite.
51:13In 1958,
51:15a rocket based on the V-2
51:17sent the first American satellite
51:18into orbit.
51:19Von Braun becomes a hero
51:21of the American space age.
51:23And the irony of this
51:24is von Braun's program
51:25kills tens of thousands
51:26of laborers
51:27and thousands upon thousands
51:29of allied men and women.
51:31His Nazi past
51:31is almost entirely glossed over.
51:33Von Braun was fated
51:35by President Kennedy,
51:36and he finally achieved
51:38his life's ambition
51:39when his Saturn V rocket
51:40put Neil Armstrong
51:42on the moon.
51:51In 1969,
51:53NASA gave him
51:54its highest award,
51:55the Distinguished Service Medal.
52:00President Ford
52:02awarded him
52:02the National Medal of Science
52:04in 1975.
52:06That's one small step
52:08for man,
52:10one giant leap
52:12for mankind.
52:13His V-2
52:14may not have won the war,
52:16but it ultimately
52:17conquered space
52:18and changed the course
52:20of human history.
52:25Next time
52:26on Nazi Mega Weapons.
52:29Hitler himself
52:30was fascinated
52:30with big tanks,
52:31and he was the driving force
52:32behind them
52:33getting bigger and bigger.
52:36It must be horrifying
52:38and terrifying
52:38to the enemy
52:39to face this.
52:41When this thing
52:43has been fired,
52:43you've got
52:44fighter power in need.
52:54Nazi Mega Weapons
52:55is made possible
52:56in part by contributions
52:57to your PBS station
52:59from viewers like you.
53:36To be continued...
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