Oberammergau was a quaint resort town in the Bavarian Alps full of picturesque steep-pitched chalets. Snow lay on the pine-covered upper slopes. The air was like champagne. The deep valleys guarded a profound silence. It was hard to imagine that there was a war raging around them. Yet when Wernher von Braun arrived on 4 April, he found the situation confirmed his worst fears. This was hardly terrain in which to make a last stand and there were no discernible attempts to do so – no marshalling of resources, no attempt at defence. And no sign of Kammler either, but the SS were present in large numbers and von Braun soon learned that they would guard the camp for which the scientists were destined. This was surrounded by barbed wire and they were to be kept as prisoners.
It was unnerving waiting for Kammler; no one knew quite what his intentions were. Several days passed before von Braun was summoned. Without warning, Kammler had arrived with his Chief of Staff, SS Major Starck. The general kept him waiting and from an adjacent room in the hotel von Braun could hear fragments of their conversation and the sound of wine being poured generously into glasses. The mood was convivial, accompanied by much laughter; the discussion centred on ways of quietly vanishing – of performing the perfect disappearing act on the Allies. Major Starck suggested hiding in a nearby abbey famous for its liqueur. Kammler roared with laughter. Yes, how convenient; one minute a flamboyant Nazi general, the next a faceless monk with only intoxicating liquor to tempt him. He would burn his Nazi uniform and disappear.
Eventually an SS guard took von Braun to see Kammler and Starck. The two men were unaware that von Braun had overheard them. Kammler was smiling; Major Starck’s pistol was prominently displayed. Kammler was enjoying the role of genial host, his lean features relaxed, but his eyes still wary in spite of the empty wine bottles. He was solicitous, exuding his particular blend of charm with a convincing display of concern for von Braun’s arm. Von Braun provided the reassuring news that his men were still involved in research for the Führer. The general was feeling benign for he had collected yet another important post: to his distinguished list of titles had been added ‘General Commissioner for Turbojet Fighters’. This required him to be away for a while, he explained, but von Braun was not to worry: the SS guards would protect the scientists. While he was away they would be under the wing of SS Major Kummer. They should carry on with the research; victory was in sight. ‘Heil Hitlers’ and heel clicking signalled that the interview was over.
It soon became clear that Kammler really had left the area. Like a thief in the night, he had mysteriously disappeared under cover of darkness. No one could inform von Braun of his whereabouts. The meeting with Kammler had confirmed to von Braun that his team of scientists were indeed in a vulnerable position. They were unarmed, virtually under lock and key and easily controlled. There were too many SS guards about. Even if they could escape, five hundred scientists wandering about the snowy hillsides would be hard to conceal. Von Braun decided to gamble on a plan to outmanoeuvre SS Major Kummer. He hoped to persuade the major to disperse the scientists legitimately – and on his own orders.
Von Braun enlisted the support of a long-standing colleague from Peenemünde, Dr Ernst Steinhoff. The two men visited Major Kummer together, ostensibly to congratulate him on his new appointment. They expressed their delight that Kummer was looking after them; it was a great blessing. After a while, von Braun apparently began to confide in the major. Even though the Americans would obviously never take the Alpine redoubt, he was worried about the destruction a US bomber might inflict until the new turbojets were in production. Supposing the camp took a direct hit? It could be difficult to explain to General Kammler that all the top scientists were dead. A whole generation would be wiped out. There would be no more V-2s.
This was clearly not something that had occurred to the major. The room was silent as he pictured the carnage and pondered the immensity of the dilemma. While the two men waited for his reply, as though on cue there came the roar of a pack of US P-47 Thunderbolts strafing the valley, conveniently demonstrating the problem they faced. This made a difference. The major saw their point, but did not see how he could help. Von Braun and Steinhoff were ready with the answer: why not billet the men in the surrounding villages? Then, no matter how intensive a raid might be, the scientists would be in less danger.
Once again Kummer saw the point but was still unable to help as there was no petrol for the vehicles needed for such an operation. And once again the major was trumped. Steinhoff had the magic recipe for a home-made fuel. The major had a little petrol; the scientists had plenty of rocket fuel, alcohol and liquid oxygen. If these three were combined there would be more than enough fuel for such an undertaking. There was silence again while the major pondered Steinhoff’s suggestion, a long silence that augured defeat for the strategy. Then right on cue the P-47 Thunderbolts came roaring back up the valley, splintering the silence. This time the major was convinced.
The scientists and engineers now moved freely out of the camp. Rooms were found for everyone in the nearby mountain villages. Von Braun had won a temporary victory, but they still had not shaken off the presence of the SS. Everywhere they faced the dark uniforms, always creating that sting of dread, that fear not easily suppressed. The future was still unknown. Any kind of unpredictable madness could overtake them all.
As von Braun and his brother Magnus moved into a house in the village of Weilheim, just south of Oberammergau, it was becoming obvious that von Braun’s arm, broken in the car accident, was still not healing. Unless he got professional medical treatment soon, amputation could still not be ruled out. It was clear he could no longer postpone the fifty-mile journey over the mountains to a hospital at Sonthofen. The surgeon there was a man noted for his skill in dealing with the complications caused by climbing accidents, but the prognosis was not good. Von Braun had neglected what was now a serious injury. With great care the plaster was removed and the aching limb and shattered shoulder examined. His arm was rebroken and set again without anaesthetic and he was put in traction. He was to lie completely still. The surgeon promised to look in after a week, when he had the time.
Von Braun had no option but to wait and hope his arm healed before the advancing enemy arrived. He was unsure just how near they were and did not know that on 16 April the Soviets, who had been massing two and half million troops around Berlin for more than two weeks, had at last attacked and were ready to seize their long-awaited prize. By 24 April, they had encircled the city and there was hand-to-hand fighting in the suburbs. In his memory every Soviet soldier carried images of the rape and devastation of his homeland: the burnt villages, bodies frozen in the snow, the dead and dying on the streets of Leningrad as the besieged citizens slowly starved to death. Now they had arrived in the streets of Berlin and would exact a heavy payment. Some 325,000 Germans were to die, and more than 100,000 women were raped. It is estimated that almost 10,000 committed suicide.
At the heart of Berlin lay the Reich Chancellery, now reduced to a mere shell of its former grandeur, its polished floors and huge chandeliers ground to dust by the endless bombing. On 20 April, in the bunker beneath it, 50 feet underground where no daylight fell and the sounds of war were muffled, Hitler celebrated his fifty-sixth birthday. A wreck of a man in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease, his hands were shaking, blank eyes reviewing a busy inner world of triumph, unable to accept the inexorable march of the enemy across the glorious Third Reich that he had prophesied would last for a thousand years. He drank champagne with his generals and pondered moving south out of the dark shelter to the sunlight of his Alpine redoubt. His generals were given their orders to mount a counterattack. No one dared tell his Führer that there were few men left to fight, there would be no counterattack, that he was defended now in his sanctuary by sixteen-year-old boys from the Hitler Youth. One by one, leading figures in the Third Reich found an excuse to leave the doomed city.
The Allies were closing in, tightening the noose, the British and Canadians on a wide front in the north and west, the Soviets wiping out resistance in the east. In the south, the Allied armies were pushing their way up the length of Italy. The US First Army was less than a hundred miles from Berlin at the Elbe in central Germany. To the south-west, the French had crossed the Danube and were driving towards the Bavarian Mountains not far from Oberammergau. German soldiers tired of fighting a losing battle were surrendering in their thousands. For the Allies there was an almost palpable feel of victory in the air.
Allied intelligence reported the possibility of a redoubt in the mountains of southern Germany, anywhere from Oberammergau to Sonthofen. It was known that German scientists were involved in developing new weapons, possibly even an atomic bomb. Sporadic rumours that German scientists had succeeded in mounting poison-gas or even atomic warheads on to a long-range rocket could not be completely dismissed. If such a weapon were fired into the oncoming armies, the devastation caused could alter the course of the war even at this late stage. The US Seventh Army was directed towards the Bavarian Alps to investigate the redoubt.
In his bed in hospital, von Braun lay absolutely still, as he had been directed. Overhead, American bombers were mounting an attack. Suddenly, quite helpless and unable to move, he found himself in the thick of war. The bombs fell near the hospital and other patients were moved to the cellar. Von Braun could not leave for his condition would not allow it. He was left alone in the ward, listening to the barrage.
The days passed slowly. In his narrow hospital bed he longed to know the war news. German radio offered no clues. Had Berlin fallen? At any moment, while he lay immobile, he thought the SS could enter the ward. Losing all track of time, he woke one day from a deep sleep to see the feared dark shape bending over him. Whether it was Soviet, British, American or SS was not clear. A quick, instinctive fear told him it was the end.
The stranger said that he had orders to take him to a mountain rendezvous. Ignoring questions about who had sent him, the man urged von Braun to accompany him immediately – otherwise he would become a prisoner of the French who were poised to enter Sonthofen. Von Braun protested that he could not travel in his present condition but the soldier was insistent and they set off in an ambulance.
The mountain roads were full of twists and turns. As they slowly negotiated the convoluted ribbon bends, the bare mountain slopes rising to the high peaks gave an impression of a world untouched by war. Finally they arrived in a village, lost in the clouds, seemingly sitting on the very edge of habitable existence. The country below them was spread out in the sun like a map. Then coming towards him von Braun saw with enormous relief General Dornberger, his brother Magnus and several friends from Peenemünde. He soon became aware, too, of the black uniforms of the SD soldiers – the security service of the SS. Even here, in this remote hideaway, it was impossible to get away from the Nazis. His first thought on seeing them was to associate their presence with Kammler, but Dornberger assured him that Kammler was not with them. He had not been seen for a week.
To avoid the SS, Dornberger had moved the men into a hotel in the isolated village of Oberjoch but he had not been able to rid himself of a detachment of SD troops. He had arrived with a hundred of his own soldiers and was trying not to think about what would happen if the SD decided to follow one of Hitler’s rather more unpleasant directives. The quiet resort village with its steep-pitched houses seemed an unlikely venue for a shoot-out yet the soldiers and the SD detachment outnumbered civilians. Von Braun found it difficult to relax in their presence and Dornberger was edgy, anticipating trouble. Dornberger decided to find out from the SD major in charge what his instructions were.
Acting on the assumption that a little alcohol would help loosen tongues, he invited the major to his room for a friendly drink. The major was only too happy to accept. Dornberger had provided an exceedingly good wine and, by the third bottle, the major, now the worse for wear, had been gently relieved of his information. What exactly was he doing here, Dornberger wanted to know. The major replied that he was protecting scientists from the French and the Americans. Dornberger expressed his surprise that the major and his thirty men were expected to take on the French and the US battalions. ‘If we fail,’ the major revealed, ‘my orders are to shoot you all.’ ‘And have you considered what the Americans will do to you?’ Dornberger replied. ‘If you shoot a group of innocent civilians you will be hanged as a war criminal, probably immediately.’ The major was not a happy man; he had seen the inevitability of this outcome himself but no other option presented itself. Survival for the major, now in tears, seemed an unobtainable luxury.
Dornberger had the perfect scheme that would save them all. The major, still overcome with emotion, refilled his glass and listened, more in hope than expectation. Dornberger’s plan was simple. The major and his thirty men were invited to lose their SD identity completely, to burn their uniforms and hand over their weapons to Dornberger, who would supply ordinary German army uniforms that would complete the metamorphosis. When the US arrived, they would all become prisoners of war with a life ahead of them. As SD soldiers they would almost inevitably be shot.
The major was impressed by such a luminous understanding of the problem. He pulled himself together and agreed wholeheartedly to the plan. Next day the uniforms were burned, the guns were handed in and thirty more ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers joined Dornberger’s one hundred. The easing of the tension that had plagued the little village was felt immediately. The major was seen to smile, as was Dornberger, fully aware that SS tattoos were not so easily removed.
The days thus passed unnoticed. They were all in limbo, waiting, divorced momentarily from the real world of war. They played cards or chess, drank quietly through the night or sat in the late spring sunshine and talked companionably. The silence of the mountains acted on them like a calming drug. ‘About us towered the snow-capped Allgau Mountains,’ Dornberger wrote in his diary, ‘their peaks glittering in the sunlight under the clear blue sky. Far below us it was already spring. The hill pastures were a bright green. Even on our high mountain pass the first flowers were thrusting buds through the melting snow. It was so infinitely peaceful here. Had the last few years been nothing but a bad dream?’
The spell was finally broken by the sounds of human voices and traffic in the valley road below. At first it was insignificant: people calling, a line of carts, possessions piled high. Then the trickle increased, trucks appeared, and lorries, the stream turning into a never-ending flow of people on the move, of refugees and army convoys and all the noise and paraphernalia of war.
There was no news, but rumours emerged like ghouls on Halloween. Munich had fallen to the American Seventh Army which was about to make an all-out attack on the Allgau foothills. It was suspected that the Nazis were gathering there for the redoubt. In the west, the French could almost be seen in the blue distance, and a company of French colonial soldiers would soon be in Oberjoch. The final end to the war in Europe was close. Everyone in the hotel was sure of that, but the threat of violence was undiminished. One could almost smell the scent of peace and understand what it would be like to wake in the morning without fear. But at the moment there was still nowhere to hide.
By the end of April, the once handsome city of Berlin was a pile of rubble, a vast tomb. A smell of death hung in the air. So many thousands had been killed in the Allied raids and were buried by the rubble where they fell. The soldiers of the Soviet army had fought relentlessly and were now within a few hundred yards of the Reich Chancellery which hid the deep bunker where the architect of this monumental catastrophe still enjoyed his freedom.
Hitler’s little world was shrinking. The Soviets would soon arrive. He could just hear the faint music of war: the staccato sound of machine guns, the sharp crack of rifle fire echoing in the streets; a fitting requiem for the many dead. The Soviets lost 300,000 men clawing their way through the streets of Berlin to get to Hitler, the prize they wanted to take back to Stalin.
Hitler had received news that Himmler had tried to surrender to the Allies. Momentarily his corpse-like demeanour became animated as he gave one of his more demonic performances, screaming at this betrayal by his former right-hand man. But there was little strength left in him now and he soon lapsed into listlessness. Buried 50 feet below ground, in the heart of the deep bunker, so grave-like and joyless, Hitler married his devoted blonde mistress. Eva Braun wore his favourite dress, with the décolleté neckline and roses over the bodice. A simple woman, her composure did her credit. She smiled although the mood was sombre. Goebbels and his wife were witnesses and a few old generals were there too. It was time for the bride and groom to be alone. Then, behind the heavy padded door where custom decreed long-held marriage rites should begin with kisses and affection, in a solitary, unwitnessed, very private moment, he offered her the kiss of death. Historians believe she swallowed a cyanide pill and that he did too. He then raised a pistol to his head, just to make sure. Marriage to Hitler meant so much to Eva Braun that she was prepared to accept this ignominious, shuffling exit from the maelstrom he had created.
On 1 May, in the hotel in Oberjoch, Bruckner’s 7th Symphony was playing on the wireless, trying to compete with the babble of laughter and conversation in the lounge. Suddenly the music was interrupted by the sound of an announcer’s voice. Silence descended as though responding to an unheard command. Into the stillness came the beautifully articulated, disembodied voice from the wireless:
Our Führer, Adolf Hitler, fighting to his last breath against Bolshevism, fell for Germany this afternoon in his operational headquarters in the Reich Chancellery.
The room was still quiet as everyone waited for a fuller explanation but no details about the end of the war were forthcoming. The announcer continued with the news that Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, Commander in Chief of the Navy, was the new Führer and would continue Hitler’s war. In reality the conflict was over but as yet there was no peace. The country was in a vacuum. The situation was without precedent; anything could happen. Von Braun considered the position of the scientists to be more dangerous than ever.
He summoned the team to a private meeting and outlined their position. The French First Army was known to be approaching; they might arrive before the Americans. Worse, it was rumoured that a detachment of French Colonial Moroccan troops was creating havoc in a nearby valley. Most sinister of all were the SS who were in the area in large numbers. Extremists among them, ever-loyal to Hitler, shot anyone they thought would surrender to the Allies. Equally, the scientists could all be shot in cold blood to prevent their knowledge falling into the hands of the enemy. The scientists were unarmed. There was nowhere to hide and von Braun’s ability to act was hampered by the cumbersome plaster around his torso and arm. The question was how to engineer ending up in American hands?
They formulated a plan that they hoped would not draw attention to themselves and entrusted von Braun’s young brother, Magnus, whose English was good, to carry it out. On 2 May, as sunlight struggled to break through the early morning mist, he left the hotel on a bicycle, conscious that their future depended on him. His hopes centred on meeting the Americans rather than a welcoming party led by Hans Kammler.
In late April, the American Seventh Army, after taking Munich, had proceeded south with all speed to the edge of the Bavarian Alps expecting to meet heavy resistance from the rumoured Alpine redoubt. Their 44th Infantry Division had passed quite near Oberjoch on its way south, meeting little hostility. On the morning of 2 May, one of the anti-tank units was easing its way along the isolated mountain roads near Oberjoch, on the lookout for Nazi resistance, when a figure appeared out of the mist.
The soldiers debated whether or not to shoot. Could this be preliminary to an ambush? The sun’s rays cut wide beams through the pines bordering the steep-sided road, still thick with winter snow. The misty figure became clearer, a young blond man on a bike cycling frantically and waving madly. Private Fred Schneiker from Wisconsin narrowed his eyes. Was the figure waving something white? He did not have time to work it out. The young man was suddenly among them, his face split by a broad grin that would not go away once he learned they were American even though he was ordered to put his hands up. His first words to Schneiker made the private doubt the young man’s sanity. He needed to see Ike (Eisenhower), he said. Then he revealed that he was a messenger representing a group of rocket scientists who were staying at a hotel nearby. They were responsible for making the V-2 and they wanted to surrender. Would the private come with his tanks and fellow soldiers and rescue them? They were in grave danger from the SS Obergruppenführer Hans Kammler, who was in the mountains somewhere nearby and had orders to shoot the scientists rather than allow them to be captured by the Allies.
Private Schneiker, who knew little about rocketry, sensed the situation was taking on a bizarre quality as they stood deep in enemy territory, talking about rocket scientists, conscious that fanatical Nazis were in the area. ‘I think you’re nuts,’ he replied, ‘but we’ll investigate.’ After searching Magnus, they took him back to their headquarters in the nearby town of Reutte and delivered him to the Divisional Counter Intelligence Corps. The American officers listened as the young man in the grey leather coat told his story with an eagerness that became more vehement as he watched the growing disbelief in the eyes of his interrogators. They were unsure how to proceed but after a discussion they gave him ‘safe passes’ and instructions to came back with the rocket scientists.
Magnus returned to the hotel in the early afternoon and explained the situation. Losing no time, von Braun commandeered three cars. Ten of them, including von Braun himself, Magnus, Dornberger and his Chief of Staff, Huzel and Tessman, were to make the momentous journey along the winding roads; each man was conscious that he was taking a step into the unknown. It was dark as they arrived at the Counter Intelligence Corps in Reutte. They were questioned briefly by Lieutenant Charles Stewart, who was in charge of them overnight, then given comfortable rooms. For von Braun and his core team, the apparently insurmountable barrier of getting from Nazi-ridden Germany to cosy quarters under American protection had finally been accomplished. Nothing could hurt them now, it seemed.
But as they lay asleep upstairs, confident that at last they had reached safety, a Polish kitchen hand, hearing that Germans were sleeping the sleep of the innocent in feather-bedded luxury under American protection, decided to take retribution into his own hands. He crept upstairs, gun at the ready. There was only one thought in his mind: he would ‘kill those German swine’. In the semi-darkness, there was the unmistakable sound of a safety catch being released on a pistol.
Fortunately for the sleeping scientists, he was intercepted by the observant Lieutenant Stewart who had gone downstairs to investigate suspicious noises. The scientists never knew how close they had come to death that night – ironically the first time they believed themselves to be safe. Over the following days, US counterintelligence found most of the remaining scientists around Oberammergau. With von Braun and Dornberger they were taken to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a ski resort in Bavaria, for questioning. Housed together in a large building under guard, their future now depended on their perceived value to America.
Two days later, on 4 May, Helmut Gröttrup, the one man who was quite certain that America was not his preferred destination, at last arrived back in the Nordhausen area. He had escaped the SS when he jumped from Kammler’s private train and laboriously walked the long journey home to the haven of his wife and family. Irmgardt Gröttrup was overjoyed. ‘The sun is shining and Helle [Helmut] has returned,’ she wrote in her diary. ‘He was beaten. His arms and legs look dreadful, covered in bruises. What he has gone through – how he escaped the SS. He should be dead!’
But their trials were far from over. Unlike von Braun and most of the other scientists, the Gröttrups wanted to stay in Germany. The idea of being forcibly taken to Russia or America had no appeal, but it was difficult to see how their skills in rocket science would be accommodated by a Germany completely bankrupt and divided up among the Allies. As they struggled to eke out a living ‘like peasants’, Irmgardt noted ominously, ‘I cannot sleep. I keep thinking that someone is coming to take me away.’