LAST NAZI SECRET ON THE GROUND IN PENEMUNDE SPECIAL. EP 5

i have studied world war ii history tactics battles fortifications all of my life i was in the army i lectured on german and russian tactics and i thought i knew everything in all of the important parts of that war a war that permanently changed the world so much new world-changing technology was created then and much of it in secret german facilities hiding underground and run by the ss in this show i'm researching the special and secret german weapons programs that happened during world war ii all under the command of ss general hans kamla he eventually took command of one of the largest german programs that of the rocket program now in order to determine what other programs under his command could possibly be and what they could entail we need to go to pina mundo and take a look at the german rocket program look at the facilities look at what's on the ground left there today also we're going to visit a very special local historian who runs a private museum full of real german rocket parts [Music] after world war one the line for humshif fought or society for space travel association of german enthusiasts are formed in 1927 they carried out important development work on liquid-fueled rockets the society was led by great pioneers such as hermann oberth claus riddell johannes winkle max valiant and willie lay the first tests began at the abandoned german ammunition dump a reichenixdorf nicknamed racquet flugplatz in september 1930 before hitler came to power the vfr requested funding from the german army rockets were one of the few types of military development not restricted by the vessai treaty for three years the vfr launched increasingly powerful rockets of their own design from this location however in 1932 german police began objecting to rocket tests being done within built-in city limits chakra the german army allowed them to launch a repulsor type rocket at the army proving grounds at komasdorf the vfr was forced to disband in the winter of 1933 because the organization could not meet their financial obligations vanna van braun went to work for the german army at komosdorf here the hales wafest amt army ordnance research and development department established the vessel de la comas dolph west as a static testing site for ballistic missile weapons under the direction of captain walter dornberger an artillery officer the kumastov team was quickly able to design and build the a1 rocket powered by a combination of liquid oxygen and alcohol the a1 was followed by the a2 which employed separate alcohol and liquid oxygen tanks the a2 gyroscope was located near the center of the rocket between the two fuel tanks in december 1934 two a-2 rockets were launched from the north sea island of bocom each reach an altitude of about 6500 feet by now hitler had taken some interest in rockets parallel developments with the german luftwaffe and army was taking place at this time and soon they outgrew kumasdorf and a new location was sought on april 2nd 1936 the aviation ministry paid 750 000 reichsmarks for the town of volgas in april 1937 the rocket group of then now 90 men moved to a much larger secret research facility built at the relative remote site of pinamunda on the island of uzdam of the baltic coast of pomerania besides v2s many other missiles were developed here the a4 development took place at the peniment east and the luftwaffe took over penam in the west where they developed the v1 it's an important note to make that the army and the air force were both doing parallel but separate developments of missiles and rockets and on pina mundo they were also separated here that would later on lead to infighting and quite frankly some abuse and misuse of funding that could have been put better use if they had worked together the estimated cost of establishing phenomena under earth alone was 300 million ice marks now by 1938 adolf hitler had begun to recognize the need for an effective ballistic missile weapon and the german ordnance department requested that the peniment team can develop a ballistic weapon that had a range of 150 to 200 miles and could carry a one ton explosive warhead the size of the weapon would need to be compatible with existing railways in terms of tunnels and bends so it would need to be transportable in the field by truck these criterias led directly to the development of the a4 rocket the interim test vehicle was the a3 and the a4 was named a5 a5 testing was conducted from the fall of 1938 through 39 the rockets were launched both horizontally vertically and were often recovered by parachutes and launched again in 1941 hammond o'beth was recruited by walter dornberger and vanna von braun at pinamenda but later left the v2 rocket project and concentrated on developing solid propellant anti-aircraft rocket eventually an area over 25 square kilometers and up to 12 000 people worked at the same time on guided weapons here one of the remaining buildings is an enormous power plant constructed in 1939 by siemens and sugat the power plant fueled by silesian coal was designed to provide 33 megawatts in 1938 a further expansion of the army research facility took place including the mass production of rockets also the production of liquid oxygen the second rocket fuel component for the a4 the other being alcohol diluted with water it was now necessary to produce these on-site in an industrial scale around four tons of each component was needed for each rocket launch and the existing oxygen facility in development plant was no longer big enough from july 1942 a second oxygen plant was built where 13 000 kilos of liquid oxygen was created each day three crews working around the clock the air was broken down into its components and oxygen cooled to minus 183 degrees celsius and thus turned into liquid the liquid oxygen was transported in a tank wagon to the test site the energy requirements for the oxygen plant alone was very very high of the 30 megawatt power output produced by the power plant the oxygen plant alone consumed 22 megawatts one more thing that's still left here pinaminda in the actual opinion of the city is where they produce the fuel for the rockets another building that is still here and it is a fascinating building it's very large structure that is obviously fenced off because well maybe close to its less legs but it certainly would be something that would be very high up on my bombing list if i was one of the allies despite being damaged in air raids by the allies in 1944 oxygen production continued without any major problems by 1942 the personnel at the penimenta east had grown to a workforce of over 5 000 including engineers technicians scientists and all other personnel in addition there were thousands of construction workers building the new a4 production plant south of the test center in 1943 this number included 3 000 mostly eastern european forced laborers working construction in addition in the summer 1943 1300 ss concentration camp workers were to become core of the production line workforce here walter dornberger was eventually promoted to major general and put in charge of the entire paint emitter facility vanna von braun was the technical director but of course the ss which saw a rise in nazi germany wanted to get his claws in the rocket program hannah himmler was eyeing it with interest and after the bombing of pina mundo by the allies he finally had a chance to suggest that the ss should take over the program run it and provide better security and of course labor which they eventually did and of course himmler's man was ss general hunt scumler who would soon be in charge of all germany's special weapons programs now run by the ss yet after the damaging royal air force bombing of the facility during the night of 1718 august 1943 a4 manufacturing was shifted to the underground plant of middlevec at nordhausen smaller scale improvements and developments were still carried out here at pinum under tests of other various rockets and development took place here although about 250 development a4 rockets were built here at pinumbinder important low number telling the majority of the v2 rockets were built in other places after the raid albert speer called the meeting with hans kamla dornberger degenkolb and karl odosawa to negotiate the move of the a4 main production to underground factories in the hearts mountains in early september penimendo machinery personnel for production of 10 engineers were moved to the middlevec which also received machinery and personnel from the two other planned a4 assembly sites after the war the technical facility was demolished by the order of the soviet military administration but part of it was used again in puts of an important note in the suggested deal that kamala must have made with the americans was the supersonic wind tunnel that was here at pinamenda it had nozzle speeds that could record up to mark 4.4 and was the most advanced in the world after the war the americans brought it back to the u.s and used it for decades von braun actually got it back back then now if kamala had not made a deal with the americans and agreed to move everything out of pina mundo to the west where it was handed over to the americans 1945 how else would such technology fall in the hands of the americans and not the advancing russians or just simply have been destroyed on october 3rd 1942 the first successful a4 was launched the rocket attained an altitude of 60 miles and a range of 125 miles in 296 seconds flight coming within 2.5 miles of its target and reaching a top speed of 3 300 miles per hour on november 22nd 1942 hitler ordered the mass production of the missile and exactly one month later armaments minister spear founded the special committee of a4 to accelerate the process so the production might begin in summer 1943. the production required a large number of drawings to be prepared and lots of special tools designed and built of course all the buildings left behind here now are from the former east german army or some from the russians because all the original buildings were torn down that green building was the original test site for the v1 rocket engine the pulse jet i cannot believe it's still here this is the original building where they tested the v-1 engines and the russians did not tear it down or steal it or carry it off to moscow which is really something else [Music] it does look like they try to destroy it hasn't rebar sticking out so besides what's left out there in the forest in the woods of the original german rocket program this green building is the last thing standing [Music] here is the platform that some five thousand workers came to every morning and left every evening to go to their housing it is not exactly like the platform we saw at wilshangsto which is interesting there was a huge rail network around here [Music] but one of the things i really look forward to is seeing what is actually left of the old facility as we're driving into test stand seven we see the old garages the russians blew up the pillars for the garages and what you're seeing left back here on the ground is the roof that's basically just collapsed there's a lot of ruins and leftovers in these forests and also some 30 tons of unexploded munitions well possibly at least that's what i was told and as a good reason to not go in there which i may or may not have done anyway initially only the very simplest of airaid shelters splinter shelter was built such as one of these that we will visit later out on the way to test seven and don't worry before we realize that he actually speaks better english then i speak german i will translate we're having a conversation that at the time they were planning for a hundred thousand ton thrust rocket that's the thrust you would need in order to make it from europe to america they were planning ahead and all the buildings including those who test stand seven as we see around were built and constructed with that in mind that the next generation rockets would fit here and here we are look at the big building this is what is left of it as i walk the grounds of the buildings of test stand seven here's the test site number seven i was destroyed by the russians and you wanted to know what is left here we come this way through tested number one and now we stay on this edge yes and uh you you walk there and there and now we stay here on this point and you see this channel and in the channel uh drive on the plat and platform and i say many more and this is a test send seven an over dimension like a soccer stadium 90 meter 150 meters inside 10 meter high wall and when you see this in cape canaveral is the same but the dimension is very bigger you see this this part is for pick up one of the test towers go in this workshop a big big gate in front of the workshop uh in the workshop come one rocket in this test tower and deliver it with this platform from here to this point and then the test ourselves propellant and go over the fire ditch today we see flame deflectors yeah i don't know if you guys quite understand how important technologically this place was for history for the space program both the russian and the american space program it all started here with van nuff and brown and there are pieces of this place left strewn all over the place but this time we are at the foundation of a building and we know what it was i mean it's nice that we for a change and go out here and look at rubble and we know what it was this is testing site seven this is the workshop or what's left of the workshop from testing type seven it was demolished by the russians after the war and this is the biggest piece of the pina binder test site that's really left and you always hear me talk about how much i hate when historical places are destroyed not preserved this really hurts because the space program is something that we're still enjoying the benefits of today and you imagine the the sound and the roar and the rockets and the mosquitoes just got mosquitoes but damn look at this guys you wanted to know what was left at pinuminda of the rocket program of the walls this is the workshop cables and the mosquitoes look at these here you get a cables bit of insulation and these buildings were absolutely enormous but remember they were not designed for the v2 they were designed and built for the next generation a10 and this is not something you're going to see walking through the pina minda area unless you take a tour with this really really really cool dude and he really is but and we actually have an underground we actually have an underground here we have a tunnel underneath i don't know if that was drainage or what that was got cabling running through there rubble as far as the eye can see they really they really blew it up good as we have come to know that expression it's blown up well and this is blown up well but you know what of all the things part of one of the doors i believe i thought we had writing on there i will say anything with writing here will be really really cool now of course before the russians blew this place up they took everything that was of use to their space program or rocket program back to russia but still pipes the cabling the wires all of this was all part of the german rocket program and the missing pieces became part of the american russian rocket program but this is a really heavy bite 110 and dw geez look at how big this was and this was just a workshop this is enormous how was that part of that's a radiator it is literally literally an old radiator that has been exploded this is like a graveyard this is like a cemetery to technology it's different it's different than when you see just a i see a battlefield you see this is more this is this is a little sad yes because the battlefield isn't sad i'm not sure where i'm going with this now i did say i was going to shy away from the official peniment museum and i really did however my friend here have set up shop in the old stables a building in an old farm that still existed and survived the russian occupation as it was just a farm here he and his friends have amassed an impressive array of the old world war ii weaponry the test beds the weapons parts rocket parts entire rockets and a whole lot of electronics that was related to the program it's really impressive to see what have literally washed up on shore or unfortunately as in this case been shot down british bombers and parts of those that went on the bombing raids here in pinamunda and was shot down there's a lot of interesting and original parts that i want to show you the v1 was made in quite a few different configurations one piloted and honestly of the two rocket programs and i will lay out this case later this was probably the more successful one now this is the late war 1000 liter v1 fuel tank originally the v1 had a 690 liter fuel tank but after the allied invasion of normandy the firing ramps were pushed further and further back and they needed to increase the ranges of the v-1 so they increased the fuel tank this is original and washed up on shore literally out here in pinamunda and not far from the location where we just were they rebuilt the cockpit on this one to a one to one size and you may notice it is a very very small and tight squeeze for those few test pilots that dared fly it hannah comes to mind and remembering after her test flight and broken a jaw she said you would never do that again does it the igniter for v2 yeah ignited from h5 v2 and obviously he has the original nose cone of the v2 rocket where the detonator was remember the v2 would ideally impact nose first so the detonator was in the nose and here's one in the box and interestingly enough just like with any other artillery shell you screw on the detonator on top of the missile that little fly and land an impact with the speed of sound and of course you rescued one of the original or part of one of the original test stands that was made to measure the rocket thrust with the instrument still in place and here's something you will never ever ever see did you know the 88 flak needs 28 seconds to reach 10 000 feet which is approximately where the allied bombs were meters meters 28 000 meters 10 500 meters in 28 28 seconds that's way too long so the last project phenomena he did was working on was this because that would make that altitude in six seconds and where are you gonna see one ever other than here the typhoon was developed by a small team here at pinamenda it was about two meters long spin stabilized with four small fins at the base the rockets were fired from either 30 or 50 barrel launchers that was mounted on an adapted 88 millimeter launcher it was an anti-aircraft unguided rocket system where waves of small cheap typhoon flak rockets would be launched at masses of allied bombers the typhoon was further developed by the u.s and pretty much identical to what we see working today the project was headed by klaus schufen and it was built by the electro-mechanical vehicle here in carls hagen the rocket was driven by a liquid-fueled engine the liquid propellant used was a hypergolic mixture consisting of an oxidizer and a fuel they were both fed into the combustion chamber under pressure the pressure was provided by a small cordite charge fired into the fuel tanks in the process bursting a pair of thin diaphragms that allowed the fuel and oxidizer to flow into the combustion chamber propelling the rocket also a solid propellant version of the typhoon was on the design table when the war ended the typhoon's nose was fitted with a contact fuse one of two contact fuse designs developed by mind radio of dresden one used to condenser charge with an ionization of the exhaust gas stream discharged through a tube in the rocket's nose the other developed by reinmetal borsig used a conventional impact fuse design a time self-destruct fuse was also fitted near the rear of the typhoon to destroy the rocket if it failed to hit the target the fritz x was a guided armor-piercing high explosive bomb it was a penetrating weapon intended to be used against armored targets such as heavy cruisers and battleships and it was it had an aerodynamic nose four stop wings and a box-shaped tail unit consisting of roughly 12-sided annual sets of fixed surfaces and a cruciform tail with a thick surface within the angelus which contained the fritz x radio controls and a tubular air brake without which the bomb would drop way too fast and simply penetrate and pass through the target flitzex was steered by the bombardier of the launching aircraft over a radio link between the aircraft's keel transmitter and the weapons trash board receiver the bombardier had to be able to see the target at all times and the fritz x had a flare in the tail so it could be seen from the controlling aircraft it was accurate to within 15 meters dropped from 7 000 feet 1400 was built and it was deployed successfully in combat from 1943. it weighed about three thousand pounds and would drop at a speed of 767 miles an hour the only luftwaffe unit to deploy the fritz x was corporate rai of campground 100 viking the flitzex was guided by a kiel strasbourg control set which sent signals to the movable spoilers in the thick vertical and horizontal tail fin surfaces within the annular tail fin structure this control system was also used for the unarmored rocket boosted henchel hs 293 anti-ship ordnance bomb which we'll see in a minute the flitz x was first deployed on 21st july 1943 and the raid on the augusta harbor in sicily a number of additional attacks around sicily and messina followed and on 9 september the luftwaffe achieved their greatest success with this weapon after the italian armistice with the allies had been announced the germans knew that the italian fleet was going to steam out of port and head for tunis to surrender to the allies to prevent the ships from falling into their hands six dorniers took off from the third cuba they were each carrying a single fritz x and the italian battleship roma the flagship of the italian fleet received two hits and one near miss and it sank after her magazines exploded thirteen hundred men went down including the admiral kaola big dummy he died as well her sistership the italia was also seriously damaged later on the american light cruiser uss savannah was hit by flitz x on 11 september and it was forced to retire to the united states for eight months just worth of repairs one single fritz x has passed the roof of the sea turret and damaged the control party when it exploded in the lower ammunition handling room the blast tore a large hole in the ship's bottom opened up a seam on her side and blew out all the fires in a boiler room the r4m unguided rocket was the latest evolution of the air-to-air rockets it was developed to be used against allied bombers and it was found by the german air force that rockets were generally lighter than the cannons that were mounted in the nose of the bf-109 or bf-110 the rockets were developed and they were used against ground targets as well such as during the last defense of prague where they were mounted of me262s here's an r4m with the remnants of its actual pods the anti-aircraft version of the rocket was using a warhead of 55 millimeters with 520 grams of percent hexagon explosive charge it was guaranteeing with one hit it would be one kill each rocket weighed 3.2 kilos and it was provided with enough fuel to fly a good thousand meters just outside the effective range of most bombers defensive guns the main body of the rocket consists of a simple steel tube with an eight-based hinge flip-out fins out of the tail for stabilization they deploy immediately after launch a battery typically consists of a two groups of 12 rockets and when all 24 were salvoed in an attack they would fill an area of about 15 by 30 meters at a thousand meter distance a density that made almost certain that the target would be hit the r4m was usually fired in four salvos of six missiles with intervals of 70 milliseconds for a range of 600 meters the r4m typically had a flight speed of roughly one thousand eight hundred and ninety kilometers an hour it's a thousand one hundred seventy miles an hour two warheads were available for the r4m the common pb3 with a 0.4 charge for anti-aircraft use a larger shaped charge similar construction to the panzer strike panzer blitz for anti-tank use the almost exact design is still in use by the u.s air force today the rochester ru-344 or x-4 was one of the first wire-guided air-to-air missiles it was designed and developed from june 1943 by the idea was to build a missile with enough range to allow it to be fired from outside of the effective range of most bombers guns also called standoff weapon it had a bmw 109 448 rocket motor that will accelerate the missile to over a thousand one hundred and fifty kilometers an hour the missile was spin stabilized at about 60 rpm on one rotation a second so to avoid radio jamming it was wire guided and controlled by a joystick just like the modern tow missile if we see them today and i fired one they're fun the rocket burned the hypocritic mix of s-stuff and r stuff there was no room for a fuel pump so the fuel was forced into the motor by pistons inside the long tubes the tubes being coiled similar to the coil spring just to fit inside the airframes and the germans were planning to replace the motor with solid fuel design as soon as possible the warhead itself consisted of a 20 kilogram fragmentation device that had a lethal radius of about 8 meters given how hard it was for the pilot to accurately determine where the missile was at a thousand meters away it was also mounted with a proximity fuse the henschel hs-293 was world war ii german's anti-ship weapon radio controlled glide bomb well the rocket engine slung underneath it like the one we just saw it was designed by herbert a wagner the 293 project started the 1940 based on the gustav schwerer propeller vector a pure glide bomb that was designed already 1939 the schwarz design did not have a guidance system instead it used an autopilot to maintain a straight course it was intended to be launched from a bomber at sufficient distance to keep the aircraft out of range of the anti-aircraft fire a henshill team under dr wagner developed it the following year by adding a walter hwk 109 507 rocket engine underneath it providing 590 kilograms of thrust for 10 seconds this allowed the bomb to be used at a lower altitude and at an increased range the weapon consisted of a modified standard 500 kilogram bomb with an added cup flying on the nose for maritime use to help ensure the relatively perpendicular axis of impact with a thin metal shell and a high explosive charge inside equipped with a rocket engine beneath the bomb a pair of aileron fitted wings and the received fug230 component of the kale strafbook mclos guidance and control system one it's shared with the fritz x we just saw the elevator was operated by electric powered jack screw and the only proportional control while the ailerons were operated with the solenoids remote flight controls were provided through the kl staff board link while the hs293s control setup having no movable rudder and no virtual tail fin the hs293 had a range of about 12 kilometers 7.5 miles it was intended to destroy unarmored ships unlike the unpowered armor piercing fritz x which used the same guidance system five colored flares were attached to the rear of the weapon to make it visible at a distance to the operator during night operations flashing lights instead of flares were used after the missile was launched the bomber had to fly in a straight and level path at a set altitude and speed parallel to the target so as to be able to maintain slant line of sight and could not maneuver to evade attacking fighters which sometimes would cause the boarding of the attack the hs293 also served as the basis for a number of developments one designed specifically to penetrate the water and strike a ship below the water line with a long conical shaped four body like the one we're seeing over in the corner and a pair of hs293as standard walther hwk 109 507 booster engines at the wing roots as well now the henschel 293d was a television guided bomb where the camera was placed in the nose cone of the henshall and it was the first camera guided bomb that was ever developed and deployed in combat just because we have cool stuff in the u.s military it sometimes came from somewhere else and this is the world's very first camera guided bomb and you remember those videos you saw when we dropped guided bombs over iraq and so on so forth this was the first screen that was a pilot ever looked at while dropping a bomb with a camera in the nose this is here you go and that is what the pilot looked at you see little ship down there see where the ship goes it looks familiar doesn't it and then it goes well and that was on that screen and the fact that it's sitting here is cool beyond a measure i cannot explain this is almost cooler than harley davidson the vasa file rocket for some reason have always been one of my favorites there's original parts here and here we see one of their original engines it was half as big as that of the v2 and there's only very few parts left of any of the vasophile there's only one intact in america and one in england it was eight and a half meters long and almost a meter in diameter it was vanna von braun's last real serious project and 45 rockets of these had been fired here waterfall remote controlled aaa rocket it was a guided supersonic surface-to-air missile development was not quite complete by the end of the war and it was not used operational it was based on many of the technologies developed for the v2 program including the rocket itself which was essentially a much scaled down version of a v2 airframe the rocket engine used a new fuel as it was expected to be stored in ready-to-fire form for several months and the guidance system used external fins to control instead of relying entirely on the steerable rocket motor exhaust like with the v2 among development programs control of the high-speed rocket was significant concern leading to the development of a new radio control system where the operator sat in a reclining chair so they could see the target as it passed overhead another significant problem was the lack of the suitable proximity fuse which was required as there was no way for an operator to visually determine when the rocket was close enough to a target and directed above it and set off the charge a radar-guided system was still in development when the war ended and yet it is one of my favorite world war ii rockets the ncn was a surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile that was the very first to use a radio control guidance system development was plagued by different problems and also organizational problems and it was cancelled in january 17 1945 and the luftwaffe shifted focus on more promising programs the ncn was built in wood to save on weight and this model is likewise built of wood the actual booster rockets can be seen lined here down beside it the wings were wood and it had four booster rockets on each side and it would rotate as it flew the henschel hs-117 metaling it was a radio guided german surface-to-air missile it was also developed as an air-to-air version the operator would use a telescopic sight and a joystick to guide the missile by radio control which was detonated by acoustic or photoelectric proximity fuses at 10 to 20 meters in may 1944 59 missiles were tested some from beneath in heinkel 111 half of them failed but mass production was still ordered in december 44 with deployment to start in march 1945. operational missiles were to be launched from a 37 millimeter gun carriage in january 1945 a prototype for mass production was complete and production of 3 000 missiles a month was anticipated but in february hans kamla canceled the project these are the carriers for a large naval baffle rocket system they were used throughout the war there were unguided rockets they were extremely potent and successful however here at pinamenda they did a very special test with these they mounted them to a submarine and fired them successfully submerged already in 1942 and what makes that interesting besides the fact that they're actually fired exactly like we fire missiles from submarines today is that they were also tested with a cold dust bomb that would make them fired in a series an extremely powerful area destructive weapon an air fuel bomb in his series they could cover and destroy everything within several square miles what is interesting to me is that they were successful in their trials and testing and then the idea was abandoned yet i suspect that the coal dust version was tested and used against the russians on the eastern front and they were always almost deployed at the allied after the invasion of normandy i think more research needed to put into exactly what the naval of alpha did with a cold dust warhead after the assassination attempt july 20 of an adult hitler everything the next day was transferred to ss control under heineken including everything here at pinamenda so dornberger the next day started the company registered it in berlin and hired all the staff from here to work for that company so they would not technically come under this control but that did not last very long the efforts don't hit it 80 american airports hit since 1944 one year later i think i know why the german plant uh for 100 but they built this big enough for the hundreds yeah that's right from this point to reel uh this rest of the of the channel and to see the test towers stay on his parking positions behind behind the concrete and you see here the platform and one test hour ago on the platform and this picture is also from 44 after after american airport destroyed this so this is a german taking picture yeah from from this place so this is a little bit from the shape from the wall from us we stay here and inside left goes a channel to the bunker or cables and inside the inside of the wall yeah and then go the channel in the ground oh and there's the ditch around there this is the cable ditch yes and this is the fire ditch that's where all the mosquitoes come from so you see this edge yes and this is the original edge from the fire ledge go six meter deep and come on the other side to zero level yes there and over the middle of the fire ditch stay the test tower inside the rocket and this was one of the two tasks of the test and seven testing of the guidance system of the a4 rocket with this test tower this picture was picked up from right inside and show the test tower over the fire ditch and via rail railway wagon for liquid oxygen here and for echo and then of course when the rocket was tested that was wheeled back out right yes yes yes actually the liquid oxygen i guess yes you see here the a4 rocket and you see the layout from the desktop is also for the next generation of rocket sciences yeah that's this is this 14 meters yes that's a lot bigger than the the test sequence is the rocket is in this test tower clamped by by holders uh and uh can uh change the angel in all directions but can can launch from the side not it's not not possible and the rocket motor is vertical and the uh rocket was ignited the steam come out and divide it in two parts in this in this direction the flame reflector inside and then the rocket uh then one one people gave the rocket a push in in in in in in that direction and the rockets stay not vertical and the guidance must bring the rocket in very fast time in the vertical position and this was a was a value for the for this for this guidance system worked well or not yeah so but this is this is very expensive you have only one minute time for testing after one minute uh the rocket uh tanks are empty 4.5 alcohol and 4.5 tons liquid oxygen burnt out and rocket is empty so technically that's all it would take to get it to england about a minute of burning no no from the complete right pass uh uh the flight way uh flight time is five minutes and uh uh from this five minutes only one minute the rocket motor is active and that one that's all it needs to get up to the uh to the to to the highest point of the trajectory the rest of it is just coming stopped in 28 kilometers high then the rocket motor should down and then fly the rocket without propulsion to the highest point and come down later so and this is a very expensive and uh one man from the from brown team dr helser have a very good idea he brings this mechanical uh ballistic problem uh in um in parts of the former electronics uh electron tubes in this time electron tubes resistors capacitors and other things and worked bring this together and the result was the first analog computer in the world and this computer allows the same sequence make in the office without further ado yes without fuel and without time limiting yeah and this was the first uh today we say simulation electronic simulation from a mathematical ballistic problem in the world yes and um downgrade uh system from this analog computer was the guidance of the of the rocket the first flyby uh guidance in the world and for for uh when when the when all things are uh resolved with the analog computer then the final test make here with with a real uh resolution what is that thing it's a hydrant a fire hydrant yeah the big ass fire delivering water for emergencies or for yeah it's a picture from the wartime you see the hydrant yeah there it is and you see behind the steam the lounge table yeah and the a4 rocket the first step in the sky was taking here on this place and i think from brown have a big strap step take a big step here on this place for his next step in america with a saturn v the picture is from 26th may 943 the same place you see in the end the the wings the fin of the a4 rockets and these people come to us yes so let's see who we got here so we let's beginning right hand side yeah it's uh venom brown of course uh everybody's handkerchief in his jacket yes also after the war yeah ever always yeah yeah this is general donbegger the military chief from this this is general lape uh the chief of the staff in berlin the next higher staff this is admiral alderness that's donation yes and general orbit starting the second man behind gouring yep and this is dr thiel is a developer of the 25 tonnes rocket motor only two people wasn't never here first this hitler was never here and second is goebbels the propaganda minister um gobbles uh right uh in his in his book [Music] the intelligence from the enemy countries have a look for him in germany on which place he go or not yes and therefore decide uh he decided that he come come not to pin him in there he didn't and we see a railway wagon with erecting system or a modified launch table and uh one rocket stay on the table yeah so they were going to launch these off railroad railroad cars yes and this this order come from the ss how many people would it take to launch a rocket like that off a railroad car car i think 30. and one of the other test stands are closer to the ocean on this place the 56th smetaling rocket was fired but also my favorite what we have left here that i'm standing on and i think it's really cool to stand on it this is the original test site for the vastafar this is where it was and this is what's left all right granted there were not a lot of large buildings for this particular missile but this was one of the things von braun he was tasked with building because the allies were devastating germany at the time and something had to be done juan bond was the one to try to build it and it worked and they fired how many did they fire from here uh 44. 44 bossa falls were fired for was that was tested here and you're gonna have to imagine on your own what it would have been like to stand here at various times in this really really beautiful place by the ocean so this so this is the hole where it uh actually was um was it was that the blast there was a flame deflector yeah and uh bring the flame in this direction to the baltic and this was a was a hole for um for emergency uh the filling of the rocket oh this was yes for one of the fuels i think for nitric acid so if anything went wrong they could quickly release the fuel into this nice little pond but basically you have all the setup of any regular rocket firing base you have a blast deflector you can empty it quickly and you have a great view [Music] now a conversation we absolutely need to have is was it worth it for germany to spend the time effort and money in these weapons programs and i wanted to break down the actual benefit cost analysis of the v1 versus the v2 including the fact that the entire german rocket program combined cost twice as much as the manhattan program and i think that's food for thought now general kamala was very interested as was himmler in taking over the v2 rocket program as they indeed did kamla was in charge of all the special weapons programs for the third hike but he showed less interest in the v1 of course he had other rockets that were smaller and cheaper than the v2 and costs for the v2 went down throughout the war but i want to break it down now the v1 was a design that dated our way back to a concept beginning in 1915. however in 1939 when the hails waffenamt wanted a rocket that took deliver a one-ton warhead over 200 miles away the design was brought back and what the v-1 could deliver was a range of 299 kilometers that's 186 miles at a speed of about 700 kilometers an hour and it was only capable of carrying a half a ton warhead however it was cheap it was extremely cheap and it was easy to produce and the luftwaffe liked it and they put it into production 10 492 v1s were launched against britain four thousand two hundred sixty one v ones had been destroyed by fighters shot down by anti-aircraft barrage balloons 2 400 or so landed within the greater london area inflicting 6 000 casualties now get this the v1 only cost 5 000 reichmarks on the other hand you had the a4 which was exceptionally expensive it cost a lot to run it took a lot to fire it would take over 30 tons of potatoes just for creating the fuel to fire and this at the time where a lot of german and foreign population were starving they would cost a hundred thousand reichsmarks at the beginning of production and reduced down to fifty thousand likes months later on 3225 were launched killing about 9500 people in addition to that approximately 12 000 or so forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners also died which made it a more costly weapon to produce than damage inflicted on the enemy and to put that into perspective there was about 6048 v2s produced for the same price as one v2 rocket you could have four tiger tanks or four panzer fours you could have had 48 000 tanks for the same cost as it was for the v2 rocket program which really did not do much for winning germany the war in any which way however for future development and space flight it absolutely was merited at the cost especially from the point of view of america and russia who benefited from all the money and lives that have been wasted and spent by germany in order to create this rocket that they were now benefiting from post-war but again the german rocket program cost twice as much as the manhattan project which defeated japan in one american war the cost of heisenberg's nuclear project granted one that i have always claimed was underfunded deliberately was only eight million reichmark building germany the atlantic wall cost 3.7 billion reich marks and the cost of project derisa is between 150 and 200 million reichsmarks just to put things in perspective i'm not entirely sure that germany was not wasting its money in all the wrong things that were not winning them the war however some very special projects were giving a lot of money many of them are under the austrospins of the ss and i'm still trying to find out exactly what they did by calculating the money spent and the slave labor used on the different projects but clearly the rocket program started a lot of technology it created a lot of know-how that funneled out into different other branches now as opposed to the enormous amounts of fuel money and lives wasted on the v2 the v1 flew 8025 sorties it dropped 14 600 tons of bombs and it only consumed 4 600 gallons of fuel it also cost 22 682 casualties which makes it more successful than the v2 now this was the site of the guard house or the original guard house as we've seen the pictures leading in to pina minda with the pillars up here in the front of course again the russians destroyed the building lots and lots and lots of rubble [Music] there's one of the outer walls yeah here's the corner and another corner this is what's left of the old main gate entrance to pina mundo and of course to get into the era you not only have to show your papers your identification you were given different colored chips denoting what zone you were allowed entry to those could change so you could double check that people had access and were allowed to go where they needed to be a piece of the pipes and what's left of what was a herringbone floor it looks like and tiles off to the side and then the main pillars from the front entrance here and the staircase so again all that's left of history is a foundation i went a few clicks down the road now i'm walking back towards the pina mundo center uh passing with the railroads because in the forest here there's a lot of different little things little bunkers and stuff that's not on the tour i'll see if i can find them this was the largest uh passenger train station at the pina mundo where um this was the last stop for regular civilian passenger trains to be able to change onto the factory network and there's a 183 meter long uh tunnel underneath here that had to be kept dry because it's below the ground water level and this is where uh people who were visiting or working here to the going to the collegehogan camp they would dismount here and for factory workers it was free to take the uh take the train the civilian trains but not for their relatives and as we fully see this is no longer being drained see the steps down leading down to it seriously what a shame what a shame that that is locked off there should be an aerial shelter down here let's see if we can find that until all the way after 1942 43 there was only four major air raid shelters um then they started building these smaller splinter proof shelters only 30 centimeter fake walls was basically a pipe in the ground with an angled entrance not something you see a whole lot anywhere near any of the battlefields or wolfshanks we've seen because a direct hit on any of these would prove very very very bad for those inside what you call almost a big sewer pipe and still of course it's hollow so you can hear everything resonating in here which makes it even less fun if it doesn't aerate i seem to be cracking a little bit out here in the entrance and that's pretty much it that was pretty much a little sprinter splinter proof shelter so not much in protection of any kind of direct hit now you look for unexploded ordnance out here speaking of i see something vertical that looks a little green see a little bit of cement here not sure what i'm seeing here see foundation of a brick building here's something over here i don't know what this my little was rooms so out here beyond the fencing see a thicker foundation here a little bit of rebar maybe if what's that 30 centimeters 40 maybe on red brick ground level piece of metal something sitting here attachment for something that would have gone into screws interesting now i know there should be another bunker on the other side of the island which is essentially a peninsula i don't know what this was but here is some more cement this was fairly thick now here's the main path on the railroad and in here is something rather large and gray that looks like the reason why i always wear green when i sightsee in nature what have we here little piece of something [Applause] it doesn't look like it used to have been a fighting position i'm standing on a piece of uh is this actually moving how special i don't want to jump off that yep what was this now it looks like it spontaneously disassembled itself with some force what the hell am i looking at [Applause] would have been the outside pieces of metal looks like there's one subterranean level this was a rather long building yeah there is a central indian level you can see down there well i don't know we came clearly but it was red brick could have been the roof of the structure with these pillars could have been storage i don't know i guess i'm gonna have to ask here's one long beam warning [Applause] there's a lot of interesting pieces right here [Applause] it would have been more helpful if i had studied so this would have been the outside this is weatherproofing and then you yeah this looks like a rail looks like a rail a crane could have been on and the tile and there were holes going through it this is very interesting yeah what's on the bottom there it looks like that was in the it roof go on and on [Applause] this is uh this is not something i've seen before [Applause] obviously whoa this continues all the way in this was very large here's a piece of something that is not moving and here's the other piece of it it looks like it'll be a holder for some sort of container possibly an access tunnel going through here continuing here so there's been an access tunnel leading through that big building and the rubble continues all the way in the forest here and here's another skeletal remain of a little quitter critter that decided to crawl up on this mound and die here let's uh try to assume i will not do the same thing [Applause] but this was not from bombing this was russian demolition work there's more bones of them in the guy look at this this is interesting wow and this continues all the way in [Applause] railroad loading platform [Applause] i truly do not know i would love to give you a guess but and over here and as far as i can see inside in the woods it continues there's a plate and hooks can't see a lot of metal shooting what we're usually looking at [Music] [Applause] this just goes on and on and on and here's another [Applause] [Music] axis tunnel i'm assuming [Applause] yeah there's cross tunnels between them too and here's a third piece of the structure oh tunnel and more red brick this just continues continuously [Applause] i know that's a repetition of words but so far i'm looking at at least 150 meters long building or structure and it keeps going there's parts of it everywhere that has spontaneously disassemble itself with some vengeance wow this was a very very large building this could have been one wonder this is the original manufacturing site damn it continues i can't see where this ends this is absolutely fine fascinating this is this building was huge and here's a third and there's a third tunnel running parallel underneath here and there and one or two more over there underneath the building so it continues this direction too this must have been the old manufacturing print this must have been the old manufacturing plant i don't remember pictures of anything from pinotanda that was this big there are pipes in the ground and it continues this is three maybe 400 meters deep right parallel with the railroad this is an enormous building deeper in the forest yep there's another wall of it with something i didn't know any better outside than milk jug i sort of [Applause] does look somewhat period anchor's sitting in the ground sticking up there i will gps mark this and then i will ask somebody what the hell this was of course this was clearly something special there's another pipe sticking out of the ground there's clearly an underground to whatever this was and there was clearly an above ground that was higher than this so two-story building into a lace with access channels underneath several layers of them the other metal rubble everywhere this was an enormous building and i will it just continues i would like to come back to this when i have an idea what it was because that will make looking at it so much more interesting here's another it could have been it could have been a water container or oil actually i think that's what it was this could have been a smaller water oil fuel container again it's impossible to see no signs of barbed wire or british bombs [Applause] electrical cable look at these this is very heavy rebar [Applause] there's some almost anchor points to something that looked like a sewage tunnel and more of the building and more of these metal plates i'm more and more convinced they are the reservoirs containers as we've seen in large bunkers on the east wall we've seen those before inside the bunkers and they couldn't be bothered removing them so they just flew them up in place and 75 years later they're all buckled this is what we're looking at [Applause] and just to prove that i have not actually broken any of the laws here i'm going to be nice and let the camera roll as i walk out to holy hill remember how there's always a hole behind you there's a hole behind us let's see what's in there [Applause] holy [ __ ] you really really want to watch you really want to watch out and be careful when you do this because especially if you're trying to document these areas and you're just for a minute not paying attention to where you're going you don't know what hell hole literally you might fall into there's always a hole behind you remember that it's not a t-shirt anymore but like i said this is not fenced off riding i can find out where i came in this was very special and i really look forward to seeing what this is the best determination i could make for the huge facility i found destroyed here is the pilot rocket factory workshop and that is one of the main reasons i wanted us to go here to see exactly the scale of what it would take to build something like this studying history and studying the things that came before has nothing to do with taking sides or passing judgment that is for you and your unconscious to do as a historian what is interesting and important is to document what happened and especially keep it fresh in memory when it is something that is as important as what happened here at pinamenda and in generally what the germans did during world war ii in technological development because everything that happened during world war ii has an impact on your life today one way or another and you may not realize it you may not realize just how big of an impact world war ii its outcome its technological development has on your everyday life today but it does and that is why it's really interesting to study because there are things that were developed here and other places some of them we don't even know what were yet as we have clearly seen in lower silesia but here we know what they did and we know what happened to it and we know what breakthroughs it brought us after the war [Music] and now that we all have an idea of how big elaborate and expensive it is to make rockets we're going back to lower silesia we're going to castle firstenstein i want to see the tunnels underneath i found some other leads for the henge and i found a tunnel for hitler's train that's over 1600 meters long hiding in lower silesia and i found some of the missing pictures from the henge and i found something else there's another access tunnel now do you see this right there it's the same axis tunnels leading down to the hinge that the very heavy duty electrical cabling ran from the power plant into the mountain [Music] hey you

Channel: Lost Battlefields w Tino Struckmann

Views: 192,880

Keywords: peenemunde, rocket, tino, struckmann, lost, battlefields, kammler, ss, nazi, v1, v2, specialk, project, hidden, ruins, bunker, dornberger, oberth, von, braun, riese, nordhausen, dora, ww2, military, luftwaffe, wehrmacht, army, airforce, buzz bomb, a4

Id: TIqQLFJS0N4

Length: 85min 8sec (5108 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 04 2021