Friedrich Georg

There’s a niche market for books explaining how Hitler could have won WWII if only he had a little more time to develop some technological wonder or another. In this case, it’s various missile weapons. The text consists of various arm-waving speculations by Third Reich hangers-on contending that various ICBMs were under development; there are lots of illustrations, including blurry contemporary drawing of various devices that might have had something to do with rocketry, blurry contemporary sketches of underground factories, modern airbrush paintings of miscellaneous rockets, and a series of scale models of the same. None of the drawings or sketches include dimensions, suggesting that they were drawn on the backs of menus to beguile Allied newspaper reporters in exchange for another round. The models are prettily painted with splinter camouflage and Iron Cross stencils.


The Germans did get as far as “working” on A-10 and A-11 rockets, with “working” consisting mostly of designs (although apparently there was a test stand at Peenemunde intended for the A-10 engine). Most of the designs involved bolting together A-4 (V-2) engines, plus multiple stages. The original A-10 motor consisted of six A-4 engines, and the A-11 coupled fifty A-10s (thus, 300 A-4s). Given that the Germans had enough problems getting single A-4s to work, the odds of getting 300 of them to go at once would have been short. It’s interesting that the internal code name for the A-11 was the “Japan Rocket”, suggesting that “Tomorrow the World” was being taken seriously.


Perhaps useful if you want some alternate history background, but pretty pricey. Not surprisingly, a German import.… (plus d'informations)