The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem?nde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missle Era

The two most important techonological developments of the Second World War were the Atomic Bomb and the V-2 ballistic missile.The development of the V-2 by a group of German scientists, led by Wernher von Braun led directly to the space age and America'ssuccessful effort to beat the USSR to a landing on the Moon. This book describes the efforts of von Braun and his team to build and operate the V-2. 3200 of these rockets were fired in anger, mostly at London and Antwerp. Von Braun and many from his team in Germany became prominent personalities in the Unites States space program, some of the well-known to the public at large. What is less well known is that the people who actually produced the rockets for operational use were part of an army of slaves who were terrorized, brutalized and murdered under the watchful eye of the dreaded SS.It took nine years of development to get the V-2 to an operational status and the author describes the technological, administrative and political difficulties von Braun and his people faced. At one point, SS chief Heinrich Himmler tried to get control of the program as part of his "empire building". In order to accomplish this, he had Von Braun arrested for a short time. Von Braun's apologists in the US in later years pointed to this in order to whitewash his checkered background, claiming that he was really anti-Nazi. However, the author shows that his arrest had nothing to do with any "anti-Nazi" beliefs he may have had, but was simply part of Himmler's power play, made in order to pressure the heads of the program to agree to the SS's take-over attempt.The author describes the horrors in which the slave-labor team worked in building and operating the Mittelwerk plant where the operational rockets were produced and the connections between this and von Braun's team. Von Braun is shown to have not had any direct connection with these atrocities, although he did hold the rank of Captain in the SS, but others, who later played a prominent role in the US space program, such as Arthur Rudolph had direct responsibility, which towards the end of his life, led to his depotation from the United States.One of the most interesting points brought out in the book was the fact that the V-2 program ended up being a disaster for Nazi Germany. It was comparable in size and cost, relative to Germany's war economy, to the American Manhattan Project which successfully developed the A-bomb, yet the total weight of explosives sent by the V-2's was less than that delivered by a single large RAF bombing raid. The rocket program ate up scare resources that could have been better invested in other types of armaments. The major irony is that the ultimate benefit from this massive investment by the German taxpayer was not reaped by them, but by Germany's enemy, the United States and its successful space program.The book is written in a dry style, so for that reason I give it only 4 stars, but it is still a very important and int

The book covers both the political and technical matters of the V-2 (A-4) missile development. As the book is intended for a general audience the coverage of the technology is sufficient for the purpose of the book but not extremely detailed. This is also clear from the title of the book. The description of the political background and military situation is done in a very clear way. The list of references are extremely detailed and it is obviuos the the author has outstanding knowledge of the subject. The important persons are described in what I consider a very balanced way. I recommned this book to anyone wanting to learn about the inner workings of parts of the German WW2 military and political system as well as a the technology of these rockets. An excellent companion is the V-2 by Walter Dornberger which of course must be read with some caution due to the position of its author and time of publication.

If you want to know a lot of technical information about the German rocket program in World War II this is the place to start. Neufeld has a grasp of the technical side of the program like no other historian, however his writing style leaves much to be desired. A good plus of the book is that he includes diagrams of the missles as well as a couple sections of pictures that give the reader an idea what the things and places he writes about look like. I found being able to visualize certain things makes understanding it much easier. He also includes an appendix with a chronology of the German rocket program that readers will find helpful for quick short references to each successive rocket in the program. Overall this is an excellent book, I give it 4 stars instead of 5 only due to Neufeld's writing style which makes this book tough going in some sections that include lots of boring, and in my opinion, overkill, technical detail.