Page 57 of V2

‘Whereabouts in Poland?’ Graf had asked von Braun when the plan was first mooted.

‘About two hundred and fifty kilometres south of Warsaw.’

‘What? Inland?’ Ever since Max and Moritz in 1934, they had always fired their rockets out to sea, so that they would fall harmlessly into the Baltic at the end of the test.

‘Yes, I pointed out the risk of civilian casualties, but apparently it can’t be helped.’ He had held up his hand to forestall Graf’s protests. ‘It has to be situated somewhere out of the range of the RAF.’

Graf had started attending the tests in Poland a couple of months later, flying down from Peenemünde to stay for two or three days at a stretch. The engineers were accommodated in railway cars in a siding near the village of Blizna. The whole facility, which was called Heidelager, was guarded by the SS. It was hard not to feel a prisoner. General Dornberger was still nominally in charge, but soon Kammler was turning up to watch the launches. At first he was content merely to observe, ‘on behalf of the Reichsführer-SS’. But as the winter went on, he began to take a more active part in the technical conferences, arriving sometimes unannounced when Dornberger wasn’t present. It was yet another period when the missile repeatedly misfired. As rocket after rocket flew horizontally over their heads or exploded in mid-air, Kammler’s tone became increasingly sarcastic. He even challenged von Braun. ‘Your head is in the stars, Professor! This whole project needs to be gripped more ruthlessly!’ Once, when Graf was passing his office, he overheard him on the telephone to Himmler, talking sufficiently loudly to make sure his voice carried. ‘Yes, Reichsführer – another failure! … I agree … I agree … Utterly irresponsible. Now that we have had the opportunity to study them more closely, I am starting to think we should arrest the whole lot of the swine for treason!’

It was clear the poison was spreading from the limbs to the heart. Yet when it reached it four months later, the crudeness of the denouement still took him by surprise. Because of the bombing, he had been evacuated from his apartment in the Experimental Works compound and was living with the other senior engineers in a hotel in Zinnowitz, the Inselhof, that looked out over the reed beds to the sea. It was two o’clock in the morning when he was woken by a pounding on his door, and opened it to find two men in belted raincoats and black hats. ‘We have orders to arrest you. Dress and come with us.’

‘I demand to speak to Professor von Braun.’

‘He’s being detained as well.’

He could hear the Gestapo going from room to room. Four engineers were picked up that night, including von Braun, and driven in a night-time convoy from Peenemünde to Stettin. They weren’t allowed to talk to one another – each prisoner in a separate car; each lodged in a separate cell; each interrogated separately.

Did you or did you not, on the evening of Sunday 17 October 1943, at a beach party in Zinnowitz, in the company of Professor von Braun, Dr Helmut Gröttrup and Dr Klaus Riedel, state that the war was lost, the rocket would not save Germany, and your aim all along had been to build a spaceship?

‘Gentlemen, I don’t recall saying any such thing …’

Of course, he remembered it perfectly clearly, at least until the point when he became too drunk to stand up properly. It had been just after their second visit to Nordhausen, when he was still in a state of shock. Von Braun had put his head round Graf’s door and said that Fraulein Butzlaff, the local dentist, was having a cocktail party further along the beach, and they were all invited. ‘Come along, it will cheer you up.’

A warm, calm autumn evening. Chinese lanterns – pink, lemon, lime – strung along the dunes. Illegal American jazz music on the gramophone. Vodka cocktails, plenty of food – too many cocktails and too much food, in fact: he had thought at the time it was strange that a female dentist in a tiny seaside town should be able to lay her hands on such a spread in wartime. But what the hell? Perhaps it was the contrast with the slave labour factory that made them all get so drunk and loudly relive the good old days at the Rocket Aerodrome.

GRAF: I wanted to build a spacecraft, not an instrument of murder.

RIEDEL: On the bright side, it is not a very effective murder instrument.

VON BRAUN: When the war is lost, our task will be to ensure that what we have achieved is not destroyed.

GRÖTTRUP: Peenemünde will fall into the hands of the Soviets. It is only a question of time. The communist system is our best hope.

Every word had been written down, either by their hostess or by some other guest who was an informer for the Sicherheitsdienst. When Graf was shown it in black and white, he assumed they were all dead men. But as the questioning went on, for day after day, ranging back over the whole history of the rocket programme, he began to change his mind. After all, if the SS had known this much since October, why had they waited until March to arrest them?

After a week, they were driven back to Zinnowitz and released. The story was that Dornberger had spoken to Speer, and Speer had spoken to Hitler, and Himmler had magnanimously agreed to release them. Why shouldn’t he? They were much more useful alive than dead. Their words were on file. He could snuff them out any time he wanted. Not long afterwards, Dornberger was shunted sideways and Himmler was formally given full control of the rocket programme. He appointed Kammler operational commander.

‘In Germany now there are three choices,’ Kammler told them. ‘You are shot by the SS, you are imprisoned by the SS, or you work for the SS.’

He was seated now in Huber’s office, leaning back in Huber’s chair, with his polished boots on Huber’s desk, as usual speaking loudly into the telephone. His two staff officers stood behind him, stiff as footmen in their immaculate uniforms. ‘Yes … Yes … So I have your agreement to proceed?’ He noticed Graf and beckoned him forward with a single crook of his finger. Huber, Drexler, Biwack, Klein and Seidel were standing at a respectful distance, watching him. ‘Excellent!’ He gave the receiver to one of his aides, who replaced it in its cradle. ‘Dr Graf?’ He frowned and cocked his head, waiting.

Graf extended his arm. ‘Heil Hitler.’

‘I shouldn’t have to remind him, Huber. It is the law. Make sure your men give the correct salute at all times.’

‘Yes, Gruppenführer.’ Huber gave Graf a withering look.

Kammler swung his boots off the desk. He went over to the conference table, where a map was spread out.

‘So, gentlemen. There has been a development overnight. It seems the enemy bombers may not have received their intelligence from the local population after all.’ He bent over the map. Behind his back, the Wehrmacht officers risked a brief exchange of glances. Seidel caught Graf’s eye. ‘Our intelligence department still has a few sources operating in Belgium, and one of them made contact with his controller last night. It appears the British have brought in some advanced new radar units and installed them here, in Mechelen.’ His finger tapped the town repeatedly. ‘In addition to the survey troops, a group of women’ – he pronounced the word derisively – ‘are apparently being employed to make mathematical calculations based on the radar data.’ He turned to Graf. ‘A technical question for you, Doctor. Is it possible for the enemy to determine the location of our launch sites using radar?’

Graf’s hands had balled into fists; his fingernails were digging into his palms. In his head he was hearing the rattle of the machine-gun fire in the woods. He stared at Kammler. ‘I’m sorry, Gruppenführer. Could you repeat that?’

Kammler sighed. ‘Is there any way the enemy could determine the location of our launch sites using radar and a team of female calculators?’

‘May I see the location?’ He indicated the map.

‘Of course.’