Missiles for the Fatherland: Peenemunde, National Socialism, and the V-2 Missile

Synopsis

Missiles for the Fatherland tells the story of the scientists and engineers who built the V-2 missile in Hitler's Germany. This is the first scholarly history of the culture and society that underpinned missile development at Germany's secret missile base at Peenemunde. Using mainly primary source documents and publicly available oral history interviews, Michael B. Petersen examines the lives of the men and women who worked at Peenemunde and later at the underground slave labor complex called Mittelbau-Dora. His research reveals a complex interaction of professional ambition, internal cultural dynamics, military pressure, and political coercion, which coalesced in the texture of life at the facility. The interaction of these forces made the rapid development of the V-2 possible but also contributed to an environment in which stunning brutality could be committed against concentration camp prisoners who manufactured the missile.