Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying (31 page)

Schibors completely exaggerated the BV 222’s arsenal and payload capacity. He also substitutes its top speed for its cruising speed as a way of making his story more dramatic. But the plane obviously made a deep impression on him.

The warplane that elicited the greatest hopes was without doubt the
Me 262 jet fighter. It began cropping up in POWs’ conversations as of December 1942. At first, the information passed on was vague and third-hand.
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For instance, in April 1943,
Sergeant Rott from Bomber Wing 10 said he was convinced that big things were afoot at the
Luftwaffe since during a visit, the commodore of another nearby wing had hinted that a new fighter jet was being tested.
³⁷³
By late 1943, POWs were offering the first eyewitness reports on the miracle fighting machine.
³⁷⁴
Lieutenant Schürmann can scarcely conceal his enthusiasm when he recounts: “They have a tremendous speed, it is amazing. It can only be estimated. When you see a Focke-Wulf fighter you estimate it is doing about 450 kph, but I estimated that that was doing 700 to 800 kph at least.”
³⁷⁵
In spring 1944, speculation grew that the Me 262 would soon be actively deployed. A
Lieutenant Fritz recalled a visiting general saying in March 1944 that the Me 262 was about to replace the Ju 88: “He said too that the whole production of those aircraft has been somewhat restricted and preparations were already being made for producing jet-propelled aircraft; that suddenly
they would be used in onerous numbers and that we should thereby win back air superiority.”
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Similar rumors were circulated among the general German populace, which was increasingly feeling the hardships of the war. A
Private First Class Maletzki reported: “The general morale is not so bad in G
ERMANY
. I have heard people saying: ‘When the turbine-fighter comes, then all will be well.’ ”
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None of the POWs seems to have doubted the capabilities of the Me 262 in the slightest. In June 1944, nine days after being shot down, a
Ju 88 W/T operator predicted: “After that they’ll bring out the turbine-fighters. If they do manage to put large masses of them into operation the English can pack up with their four-
engined aircraft. The GAF is on the up-grade again, it will take a little time yet, perhaps six months.”
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A
Lieutenant Zink from Fighter Wing 3 entertained similar thoughts: “But the first group will be put into operations in a fortnight’s time. 1200 kph. They will suddenly appear over
E
NGLAND
. It rises up to 1200 m in two minutes’ time. It climbs at an angle of 44˚ and at a speed of 800 kph. There is nothing you can do against it. It has eight cannon and can shoot down anything. You could fly about quite comfortably over here, even if a hundred fighters were in the air.”
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Here Zink conflated the capabilities of the
Me 163 rocket interceptor and the Me 262 jet fighter, but even so, this excerpt shows the important role that innovations played in the
technological imagination and fantasies of the Luftwaffe POWs. The mass deployment of the aircraft was indeed to remain a
fantasy. As of August 1944, the first Me 262s were used in a trial formation, and although pilots were enthusiastic about this “fantastic” new plane,
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the aircraft had no impact on the outcome of the war. The Me 262 had too many technical bugs that needed ironing out, and the Allied air forces showed that the plane was by no means invulnerable. The approximately two hundred Me 262s deployed during the war shot down some enemy 150 planes, while suffering 100 losses of their own.
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When talking technology, the Luftwaffe POWs were right in their element. They were fascinated by the boost pressure of engines, speeds, onboard weaponry, and all the other innovations in new models of warplanes. They did not see these innovations in any sort of broader context. All they were primarily interested in was the next model and the next fantastic aerial battle. They did not ponder questions such as why Germany was no longer capable of producing 2,500-horsepower engines or why the Allies were much quicker to introduce
centimeter-wave
radar. But that was only to be expected. Just as engineers in car factories don’t usually consider global warming when designing automotive parts, and technicians in power plants don’t ruminate about the dominance of a few large companies in the energy sector, aerial warfare specialists did not relate their own equipment and expertise to a greater political, strategic, or moral context. Instrumental reason, fascinated by technology, is utterly indifferent to such contexts. This is part and parcel of the basic unsullied faith in technology and progress characteristic of the first half of the twentieth century. Utopian visions of what people could do dominated people’s thoughts. So it hardly appeared unlikely to them that a “
miracle weapon” would decide the outcome of World War II.

After the
German military’s defeat at Stalingrad, Nazi propaganda tried to encourage Germans’ hopes for ultimate victory in World War II with hints that
revenge would soon be at hand.
³⁸²
In early 1943, German POWs first began mentioning rumors about a whole new category of weapons. In March of that year, a U-boat W/T operator prophesied:

In such excerpts, Hitler played the role of Germany’s savior, who would produce a last-minute super-weapon as decisive as it was terrible. For the speaker in this case, it was no doubt comforting to believe his country had a secret weapon up its sleeve. The second in command of the blockade runner
MS
Regensburg
reported on April 11, 1943, that the official commentator for the supreme military command
(Oberkommando der Wehrmacht)
Otto Dietmar had said that “G
ERMANY
would introduce a
weapon against which even the strongest enemy troop concentrations would be useless.”
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The POW, navy First Lieutenant Wolf
Jeschonnek, didn’t know any specifics, but speculated that the weapon in question must be an explosive device or
bomb of extraordinary power. Once the bomb was detonated, the POW assured his listeners, everything would be “flattened.” Jeschonnek also expressed
confidence that when the “new apparatus” was used, “the war will be over.” The
miracle weapon he claimed had such a range that it would “smash everything up.”
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Major
Walter Burkhardt, a commander of a paratrooper battalion, offered up similar visions. If it were possible to deliver “enormous shells” over a distance of sixty to a hundred kilometers, he promised, “we could set it up in
C
ALAIS
and say to the English: Either you make peace tomorrow, or we shall destroy the whole of your E
NGLAND
. Those things have got a future.”
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Private Honnet of 26th Tank Division was equally confident of Germany’s ultimate victory: “If the reckoning comes like that, it will be terrible. They will be able to reduce the whole of E
NGLAND
to ruins within a few days, not one stone will be left standing.”
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Within the space of a few short months in 1943, a consensus emerged that the rumored secret weapon had to be a long-distance missile. POWs speculated that it weighed as much 120 tons and carried a 15-ton warhead—ten times the capability of the
V2, the missile Nazi Germany did in fact succeed in developing. Sergeant
Herbert Cleff promised that it could destroy everything within a ten-kilometer radius of
London.
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(For the British, Cleff proved to be an excellent source of details about the
V1 and V2
missiles more than a year before they were deployed.) In March 1944,
Hans Ewald, a U-boat W/T operator, said he believed that four such missiles could reduce London to rubble.
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Other POWs were more modest in their expectations, predicting a zone of destruction between one and ten square kilometers around the point of impact.
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But their belief in the effect and imminent deployment of a miracle weapon was so great that many POWs interned near London felt themselves to be at personal risk and hoped they would soon be transferred to a more remote camp—preferably in
Canada.
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The imprisoned soldiers were aware that the general German populace shared their high expectations. “I was in G
ERMANY
in March,” Major
Heinz Quittnat reported. “I can tell you the following:
the majority of the
German people placed their hope in the reprisal
weapon. They imagined that when the reprisal weapon was sent into action, the morale of the English people would quickly be broken, and E
NGLAND
would be ready to come to terms.”
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The soldiers did not ask themselves why Britain would suddenly capitulate, having weathered ten months of intense aerial
bombardment in 1940–41. Notwithstanding technical speculations about the size, payload, and range of the missile, the POWs did not analyze what specific effects such a weapon could have on the war. Instead, they merely voiced their hope that the secret missile would miraculously turn Germany’s fate around. An army private first class named
Clermont said: “Well, I certainly believe in our reprisals. The English mother-country will be wiped out.”
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Navy Lieutenant
Armin Weighardt agreed: “The new weapon is going to win the war! I believe in it!”
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Likewise, Luftwaffe Lieutenant
Hubert Schymczyk told a comrade in April 1944: “I believe absolutely in our reprisals. When it starts here, then it will be all up with poor old E
NGLAND
.”
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The belief in a
miracle weapon was rampant in all three main branches of the military, which says a lot about the illusions maintained by navy and Luftwaffe officers. Despite possessing technical expertise and despite having directly witnessed Britain’s extraordinary military and economic capacities, they never asked themselves how the decisive blow they imagined and hoped for could ever be achieved practically. It seems to have been unthinkable for such men that the war could be lost. For that reason, they
believed
in a utopian
technology that would make everything turn out all right. On this topic, as with the POWs’ belief in the Führer, the wishes and emotions that soldiers had invested in the National Socialist project and the war were so powerful that they could not be overridden by any countervailing experiences. On the contrary, belief in a miracle weapon grew stronger the more illusory the prospect of German victory and a rosy future became.

In June 1944, shortly after the
Allied landing at
Normandy, the miracle weapon got its premiere. During the night of June 12–13, the first
V1 missiles were hastily fired at London. The first time the weapon was used en masse was four days later, the same day that German propaganda began speaking of retribution. All told, 244 V1 missiles were fired as part of this action. Forty-five crashed immediately, and only 112 reached London.
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On June 16, 1944, the Wehrmacht announced: “During the night
and this morning, southern England and the London metropolitan area were hit by new explosives of the highest caliber. These areas have been under bombardment, with little interruption, since midnight. Heavy destruction is to be expected.”
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These few dry words seemed to announce the arrival of what tens of thousands
of Germans had long been hoping for. The V1—the first of Germany’s
miracle
weapons—was finally being deployed. The newspaper
Das Reich
dubbed the occasion “the day that 80 million Germans have been passionately waiting for.” A report from the Security Service in
Frankfurt read: “It was moving to hear how simple workers expressed their joy that their unshakable
faith in the Führer had been rewarded. One older laborer remarked that the weapon of retribution would now bring victory.”
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It is interesting to note the tight connection between faith in the Führer and belief in a miracle weapon
.
They are two sides of one coin and manifest both the expectations for salvation Germans projected onto Hitler and the increasing distance of their perceptions from
reality. In this case, though, there was no truth to the cliché that faith could move mountains.

By June 29, the Wehrmacht had fired the thousandth V1, causing not inconsiderable damage. The warhead unleashed a wave of pressure upon impact that could level parts of whole streets. And within the month of June, 1,700 British had been killed, and 10,700 wounded. The presence of the weapon of retribution also forced the
RAF to maintain a defensive belt, consisting of antiaircraft gunners, barrage balloons, and fighters, south of London. But all of that was of little use to Germany, as the Allies kept bombing German cities, causing a far greater level of destruction and killing far more people. The actual military effect of the miracle weapon was much less than anyone would have thought possible.

The only real value the
V weapons had was psychological. While they did not succeed in particularly frightening the enemy, their existence did boost the morale of the German populace and German soldiers. While bad news continued to rain in from the front lines, Nazi propaganda was able to maintain morale at home with euphoric reports about their weapon of retribution. The missile had been consciously named the V1 to encourage hopes that a
V2 was on its way. Nonetheless the leadership elite in the Third Reich began to have doubts about the wisdom of stirring up expectations that would prove difficult to meet. In a letter to Hitler, the German armament minister
Albert Speer wrote: “Ever since the populace has begun waiting for
miracles from new weapons, doubts have arisen as to whether we realize we’re in a few-minutes-before-midnight situation and whether we are irresponsibly stockpiling and holding back such weapons. The question thus emerges as to whether this sort of propaganda serves its end.”
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Indeed, as people realized that the V1 was not having the desired effect, disappointment quickly followed.