Obergruppenführer Hans Kammler - A secret weapons' expert of the Third Reich?
Some historians, such as of Rainer Karlsch, speculate that the
"Obergruppenführer" (SS General) Hans Kammler did not commit
suicide in 1945 but was brought to the United States by intelligence
service to make him transfer his knowledge about the secret weapon's
projects of Nazi Germany US authorities' technicians.[1]
Hans Kammler[2]
Indeed, Kammler had been responsible for the expansion of underground
production facilities for jet engines, jet airplanes, motors and the A4
rocket program since August 1943. On September 1st, 1943, he was
appointed "Sonderbeauftragter des Reichsführers-SS für das A
4-Programm" (Special Representative of the Reichsfuhrer-SS for the A 4
programme) under Obergruppenführer Oswald Pohl by the
"Reichsführer-SS", Heinrich Himmler. Previously, he had been
working in various administrative positions related to various
construction projects since October 1933 until the end of the war. [3]
Peenemünde, V2 launched [4]
In a documentary by German TV-channel
ZDF Kammler is addressed as mechanical engineer several times.[5]
Although this is one of his two regularly acquired academic titles,[6]
however, it suggests wrongly that Kammler had possessed a deeper
technical understanding of the special weapons technology – but
this he did not possess! Unlike General Walter Dornberger[7], he was an
architect (in Germany, also architects are granted the "Dipl. Ing." -
title once they successfully complete their studies)[8], and not a
mechanical engineer. So, he was not able to design weapons at all; and
even the construction of the underground factories for the special
weapon's production was probably "only" coordinated by him; static
calculations were most probably done by a civil engineer!
Conclusion
Obergruppenführer Hans Kammler was an important SS-bureaucrat and
armor manager of the Nazi regime, but he was not a designer who would
possess a deeper technical knowledge, of whatever kind, of the secret
weapons projects of the Third Reich! Accordingly, Albert Speer
describes Kammler as follows:
"Or Kammler. I knew him when he was still in the Air Ministry in charge
of the construction division. A inconspicuous, sociable and very
hardworking civil servant, of which no one would have thought it
possible that he would be one day one of the most brutal and ruthless
of Himmler's employees. "[9]
In the idea of Kammler as a “diabolical scientist genius”
it is normally not taken into account that he had worked his way up in
the system of Nazi-bureaucracy. For example it is systematically
concealed that Kammler in 1933 after the so-called
"Gleichschaltung” (co-ordination) became the "Führer des
Reichsbundes der Kleingärtner und Kleinsiedler Deutschlands"
(Leader of the Reich Federation of allotment holders and small settlers
of Germany),[10] because this obviously did not go along his reputation
as a "Special Representative of the Reichsführer-SS for the A 4
program "! Certainly Kammler was a criminal, a "technocrat of
destruction", as referred to him by Rainer Fröbe,[11] largely
responsible for the planning of Auschwitz-Birkenau,[12] but his career
in Nazi-Gemany made him a typical representative of the "banality of
evil" [13], and not for a brilliant weapons designer!
The thesis that the Obergruppenführer had been captured alive by
the Americans, and was brought to the United States, is obviously
caused by a remark in Albert Speer's book "The slave state - My
confrontation with the SS". In his book, Speer attributes that Kammler
had the intention to give documents and, especially, development
engineers of progressive secret weapons against a guarantee of his
freedom.[14]
Even if he had been taken prisoner alive by the forces of the Allies,
he would have been interrogated by TECHINT-officers at once. All
technical documentation would have been taken away from him without
consideration, and competent German weapon designers would have been
sought after anyway, and systematically brought to the USA within
"Operation overcast" or "Paperclip".[15]
This raises the question of what special value Kammler should have been
for the Americans, once technical documents had been taken away from
him! – His role in the armaments' industry of the Third Reich is
most likely similar to that of Albert Speer, a man known to be charged
and convicted at the Nuremberg Trials. – The direct military
superior of Wernher von Braun, on the other hand, Major General and
mechanical engineer Walter Dornberger, was, completely independent of
Wernher von Braun, brought to the USA in 1947. First, Dornberger worked
as a technical consultant for projects of the US Air Force, and later,
until his retirement, for the "Bell Aircraft Corporation". It should be
added that he himself had conducted research in Germany on the
gyro-stabilization of missiles in the 1930s.[16]
Author: Christian Brandau - The text is available under the "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)".
References:
[1]
http://www.welt.de/geschichte/article128873148/Versteckten-die-USA-den-Chef-Ingenieur-der-SS.html
[2] Mémorial du
camp de concentration Mittelbau-Dora
[3]
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Kammler
[4] „Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1978-Anh.026-01, Peenemünde, V2
beim Start“ by Unknown - provided by Bundesarchiv für
Wikimedia Commons, i.e. a cooperation between the Bundesarchiv and Wikimedia Deutschland.
Licensed after CC BY-SA 3.0 de via Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1978-Anh.026-01,_Peenem%C3%BCnde,_V2_beim_Start.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1978-Anh.026-01,_Peenem%C3%BCnde,_V2_beim_Start.jpg
[5] http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/2169446/Hitlers-Geheimwaffenchef#/beitrag/video/2169446/Hitlers-Geheimwaffenchef
[6] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Kammler
[7] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Dornberger
[8]
http://www.gutefrage.net/frage/architektur-vs-bauingenieur
[9] Speer, Albert: Der Sklavenstaat – Meine
Auseinandersetzungen mit der SS, Stuttgart 1981, p. 28 – 29.
[10] Hans Kammler, Führer des Reichsbundes der Kleingärtner
und Kleinsiedler Deutschlands, in: Der Kleingärtner und Kleinsiedler, Nr. 1,
26.10.1933, p. 4.
[11] Fröbe, Rainer: Hans Kammler, Technokrat der
Vernichtung. In: Smelser, Robert / Syring, Enrico Syring (Hrsg.): Die SS. Elite
unterm Totenkopf. 30 Lebensläufe. Paderborn 2000.
[12] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Kammler
[13]
https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Banalität_des_Bösen&redirect=no
[14] Speer, Albert: Der Sklavenstaat – Meine Auseinandersetzungen
mit der SS, Stuttgart 1981, p. 342.
[15]
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Overcast#Im_Rahmen_der_Operation_Paperclip
[16] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Dornberger
(c) 2011 - Christian Brandau
