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Hermann Goering Politician. Born 1893. Died 1946.

Personal: Male.

Fighter pilot in the first World War; National Socialist politician, general field marshal and commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe. Goering was supportive of the development of rocketry but was unable to wrest control of Von Braun and the Peenemuende team from the German Army. The Luftwaffe made great strides in development of rocket propulsion independently with Saenger's team, but none of this resulted in a weapon that could be fielded before the end of the war.


Goering Chronology

30 October 1944 - Wasserfall test. The Wasserfall surface to air missile was launched from a table, as was the V-2. The missile was optically steered to its target, and had a potential range of 26 km and ceiling of 18 km, with a flight speed of 600 m/s. Goering observed the first launch from Test Stand IX. He was immensely fat, wearing a fantastical outfit, downing pills every five minutes, and uninterested in the proceedings. Dornberger ruefully noted that the Reich is losing the war due to the leadership's shortsightedness. They had not accepted Von Braun's rocket plans in 1939 or the Panzerfaust in 1942. They only became interested in the latter when the first American bazooka fell into German hands in Tunisia.



Bibliography:

  • Michels, Juergen and Przybilski, Olaf, Peenemuende und seine Erben in Ost und West, Bernard & Graefe, Bonn, 1997.


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