LESSONS OF HISTORY

A place to engage extended discussions of things that come up on the ttbrown.com website. Anything goes here, as long as it's somehow pertinent to the subject(s) at hand.
twigsnapper
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one more crumb

Post by twigsnapper »

Paul,

Regarding General Dornberger. He had reason to know of a facility just 60 miles south of Berlin, a town called Kummersdorf. It was to this town that some of the scientists from Nordhausen were destined. Though I am sure you are going to be hard pressed to find that in any literature, it may in fact be out there somewhere. A person sometimes goes back to familiar ground, especially in time of stress. twigsnapper
Radomir
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Re: one more crumb

Post by Radomir »

twigsnapper wrote:Paul,

Regarding General Dornberger. He had reason to know of a facility just 60 miles south of Berlin, a town called Kummersdorf. It was to this town that some of the scientists from Nordhausen were destined. Though I am sure you are going to be hard pressed to find that in any literature, it may in fact be out there somewhere. A person sometimes goes back to familiar ground, especially in time of stress. twigsnapper

OK, I am finding some tidbits here and there that I hope may be worth mentioning.

Dornberger is mentioned several times in the vonBraun entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

including the following about the beginning of Von Braun's career:
Von Braun was working on his doctorate when an artillery captain, Walter Dornberger, arranged an Ordnance Department research grant for him, and von Braun then worked next to Dornberger's existing solid-fuel rocket test site at Kummersdorf.
and from: http://www.fathom.com/course/21701743/session2.html
By 1934 von Braun and Dornberger were directing a team of 80 specialists in Kummersdorf (near Berlin) to build rockets. That year, von Braun was awarded grants to develop a rocket to help heavy bombers take off (later becoming known as Jet-Assisted Take-Off [JATO]) and for a rocket-propelled, high-speed fighter. Kummersdorf proved to be too small for these projects, and so a new facility was built at Peenemünde on the Baltic coast. Peenemünde's desolate location meant that rockets could be test flown for 200 miles without risking people or property.

Through the early 1940s, von Braun and (now General) Dornberger developed a series of successively larger rockets, ultimately arriving at the A-4.
and again from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
The Soviet Army was about 160 km from Peenemünde in the spring of 1945 when von Braun assembled his planning staff and asked them to decide how and to whom they should surrender. Afraid of Soviet cruelty to prisoners of war, von Braun and his staff decided to try to surrender to the Americans. Forging a set of orders on SS stationery, von Braun authorized a convoy to move 5,000 personnel [Radomir's note: another source says he moved only 500] south through war-torn Germany toward the American lines. The SS had meanwhile been ordered to kill the German engineers and destroy their records. The engineers, however, had hidden these in a mineshaft and continued to evade their own troops. Upon finding an American private, von Braun's brother and fellow rocket engineer, Magnus, greeted him with the words "My name is Magnus von Braun. My brother invented the V-2. We want to surrender."[5] The American high command realized the importance of the engineers and immediately sent soldiers to Peenemünde and Nordhausen to capture the remaining V-2s and their parts before destroying both sites with explosives. Over 300 train-car loads of spare V-2 parts ultimately found their way to America. Many members of von Braun's production team, however, were captured by the Russians. The V-2 rocket plans that had been hidden near Bad Sachsa in Germany were later recovered by the US 332nd Engineer General Service Regiment.
Also, as an aside, I think someone we've been keeping track of is mentioned here in a chronology of Dornberger's involvement in the V-2 program:
http://www.astronautix.com/astros/dorerger.htm
8 August 1944 - Obergruppenfuehrer Kammler of the SS put in charge of the V-2 program..
and here: http://www.maebrussell.com/Project%20Pa ... rclip.html
At the end of January 1945, more than four thousand personnel still remained at Peenemünde, and due to the approach of the Russians, S.S. General Hans Kammler ordered their evacuation to the Harz Mountains. Kammler, brutal and treacherous, was an engineer who had to his credit the construction of numerous concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and had served as the dedicated tool of Heinrich Himmler to win control of all armaments programs. He was responsible for injecting slave labor into the rocket program; he was instrumental in the arrest of von Braun* for failing to make a clear distinction between space travel and weapons development; and, by virtue of sinister infiltration, he finally gained control of the secret weapons projects. His order to disperse was one of the few that met with the approval of von Braun and his staff; their preference, bolstered by the tales of Russian brutality told by the melancholy parade of refugees, was to surrender when necessary to the British or the Americans. General Dornberger quickly moved his headquarters to the village of Bad Sachsa; Dr. Kurt Debus, director of the test stands, took his team to Cuxhaven on the North Sea; and during February the entire organization moved with its documents and equipment to the cotton-mill town of Bleicherode, twelve miles from Nordhausen.

*In March 1944 the Gestapo learned that von Braun had expressed in public a defeatist attitude about Germany's chances in the war, and a desire to design a spaceship rather than a weapon. Voracious in their demand for control of the V-2 program, the S.S. leaders used this information, together with a trumped-up charge that von Braun had Communist leanings, to imprison him for two weeks in a Gestapo cell in Stettin.

Under the code-name "Mittlebau Construction Company," the rocket experts made an attempt to install their laboratory equipment and continue their work, but conditions allowed for little more than meetings and discussions. Even those ended on April 1; in response to a rumor that American tanks were in the vicinity, Kammler ordered Dornberger and von Braun to hide the technical data and move with 450 of the best personnel to Bavaria. Von Braun entrusted the documents to an aide, Dieter Huzel, who buried them in an abandoned mine shaft in the mountains. Fearing extinction from the S.S. guards, most of the scientists scattered to nearby villages. Von Braun joined Dornberger at Oberjoch near the Adolf Hitler Pass, and on the rainy afternoon of May 2, the two leaders surrendered with five of their associates—Magnus von Braun, Hans Lindenberg, Bernhard Tessmann, Dr. Herbert Axster, and Dieter Huzel—to American authorities near Reutte.(20)
Finally, though it doesn't mention the 458 people Mr. twigsnapper referenced, this does give a very interesting history of what happened to the Nordhausen personnel and materiel after capture by the Allies, including capitulation & cooperation by Dornberger.
http://www.v2rocket.com/start/chapters/backfire.html
and here:
http://www.v2rocket.com/start/deployment-start.html

Is this hound barking up the right tree, Mr. twigsnapper, or is he on the wrong hill entirely?

Respectfully submitted,

R.
twigsnapper
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clear voice

Post by twigsnapper »

A clear voice Mr. Radomir, and in the right direction. thankyou for the work that you have done. twigsnapper
grinder
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60 miles south?

Post by grinder »

That phrase sort of jumped out at me. 60 miles south of Berlin.
This " facility at the town of Kummersdorf. Once the rocket scientists went north because the facility at Kummersdorf was too little then what did they do with it? I am wondering why it was that Mr. Twigsnapper cast us in this direction. Some importance to this? I have the hunch that we should look at this?

Thanks for all those links Radomir. If nothing else we will sure learn about the end of the war and post war World War II history! grinder
Mikado14
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ok!

Post by Mikado14 »

Radomir,

Don't you work?<G>

I'm impressed...not that that means anything but....Thatta boy!

Oh, yeah, a lot of Larry Niven too!

Grinder,

I believe I know what you are implying and I concure. So, Mr. Twigsnapper, how was Kummersdorf in the spring?

Mikado
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy
Elizabeth Helen Drake
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Just look! just look

Post by Elizabeth Helen Drake »

Sometimes you can get the strangest places when you follow hunches.

On a calculated hunch I typed Kummersdorf flying saucer and see what popped up!

http://www.combatsim.com/memb123/htm/2001/12/hfsaucer/

"By 1932 Adolph Hitler gained enough control of German society to put scientists to work in laboratories on advanced aircraft design. Aided by the "implosion vortex technology" of Victor Schauberger, and the technical expertise of scientists like Schriever, Habermohl, Ballenzo, von Braun and Miethe, the Germans made extraordinary progress.

Operation "Canned Meat" began in 1939, when the Germans staged an incident at the Polish border as a prelude to the invasion. They were in the Eastern European countries creating facilities unmolested for many years. As a result of newly acquired technology, the German scientific effort was pushed forward by leaps and bounds, and was developed at several underground research facilities at Reinickendorf, Kummersdorf and Thuringia. The earliest pilotless aircraft designs (V-1 & V-2 plus others) were produced beginning in 1934, and had some moderate degree of success owing to the German's unrestricted rocketry development not outlined in the Versailles Treaty at the end of WWI."

Paul! Hadn't you asked me already about " Thuringia" . What did I say then, " huh? " Now thanks to all the help out there I agree with you Mikado! I have a feeling that we have discovered ( on our own? hardly!) where Mr. Twigsnapper was during the spring of 1945!.

Here we go! Check it out! Elizabeth
Elizabeth Helen Drake
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supplied papers

Post by Elizabeth Helen Drake »

Radomir,
If you have the opportunity and you happen to see that information about Von Braun " forging papers" for the trip south could you look at that again and see if it says HE specifically forged the papers or that the forged papers were SUPPLIED to him.

Information coming to us about a year ago suggested that the papers were handed to him. I was just curious to see if the story of how that came about goes along with him getting the papers from an outside source.

It was not a simple forged document like the get out of school parental permission slip many of us may know about! This involved an entire train I understand, and could only have been supplied by someone very high up in the transportation department. Forged or not it had to be authentic enough to pass the railroad authorities.

Don't go on a particular search but if any of you happen upon that information mark it fore me would you? Thanks

Paul should be back on tomorrow. Like coming home to an empty corral. Its going to take him a long time to figure out where we all went mentally! Elizaberh
twigsnapper
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sometimes vipers bite

Post by twigsnapper »

I found this which might answer the earlier question about Gehlen. Or at least it can open a discussion.

"As for the supposed indispensability of the Peenemunde group, that was greatly exaggerated during the Cold War so as to get people to accept all sorts of immoral decisions that were made. A similar decision was made as to Reinhard Gehlen, the Nazi intelligence chief who, it was believed, had a valuable network of agents who would prove useful to the Americans. In fact, many of those who had been loyal to Hitler became not agents for the Americans, but double agents, actually working for the Soviets. Every pact with the Nazi devil that tbe Americans made -- including a role in helping Klaus Barbie escape -- proved to be either of minimal value, or actually self-defeating, and dangerous."

The statement above is actually quite right. It was Gehlen who sold the US on the idea of the "Berlin Tunnel". He in fact who chose the area for it to be constructed ( someone should have noticed right there that he had picked a veritable swamp and an innappropriate spot and questioned his true motives. But he had information on the Russians and this would enlarge that information. So they dug the damned tunnel. On the western side was the front of a radar station. Trucks arrived delivering " heavy boxes of material, (or so it looked to the outsiders.) Men strained to unload these boxes. Big show. In actuality they were emty and would go back ..... filled with dirt from the secret tunnel being constructed. The CIA was extremely pleased over the finished product , though it had its problems. Someone decided it should be comfortably warm in the tunnel, forgetting that the warmth would melt the light snowfall on the ground above. The heat was turned off. The damned tunnel leaked, a bad combination for all that electrical equipment. They had to put pumps in to keep the place dry.... which it never actually was. It was built alot like a submarine with hatches between chambers and they had been able to tap right into the main Soviet communications lines. And under it, along the entire length of the tunnel charges were set to destroy it if it came to that. All so convenient. Used to call the place "Harveys Hole" because it was the station heads pride and joy. Runners were sent out to London and Washington with all of this outstanding information. Mountains of information. Everybody was feeling quite up about it.

But as Paul knows, there were a few people who when walking through the situation said almost immediately " I don't like it, it doesn't feel right"

twigsnapper
grinder
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great lesson!

Post by grinder »

Thank you for this Mr. Twigsnapper! What a great lesson! Everybody else try this:

http://www.americanheritage.com/article ... rint.shtml

So do I get to ask Mr. Twigsnapper? What part did you play in this Berlin Tunnel Experience? I have learned by now that you don't generally mention something unless you want us to look in that direction for some reason.

I have already noticed that Kim Philby is mentioned and he I remember was a guy that Paul particularly mentioned in the Las Vegas talk. Something about a "mole" from his organization at Dr. Browns demonstration? So, what else is here that I should be paying attention to? I guess the Berlin Tunnel was in operation for just short of a year, starting in 1956 ? No, I take that back.......

"In February of 1955, a year after the planning meeting in London, everything was ready for the taps to be installed. All the equipment for capturing, amplifying, and transmitting the signals was in place. Some six hundred tape recorders stood ready to capture the purloined transmissions. (A few spymasters worried that the installation would noticeably affect the world market for recording tape.)"

Can you imagine? Using so much tape that you might affect the world market? And trying to keep it secret at the same time!

So Paul, can I ask? Where was Dr. Brown during this time? Maybe thats a shot in the dark, but why would Mr. Twigsnapper have mentioned it if I am not supposed to ask? grinder
Radomir
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forgeries

Post by Radomir »

EHD wrote:
Radomir,
If you have the opportunity and you happen to see that information about Von Braun " forging papers" for the trip south could you look at that again and see if it says HE specifically forged the papers or that the forged papers were SUPPLIED to him.
I'm sorry, even when I went back and looked at those sites again briefly today, I couldn't find anything additional on where those forgeries might have come from if von Braun didn't forge them himself. Clearly they had to be really good, as you mention, to help him commandeer an entire train.

I don't know if I trust wikipedia, but it does say "Forging a set of orders on SS stationery, von Braun authorized a convoy..." If you have better sources, perhaps they can lead you to more tangible information.

R.
Elizabeth Helen Drake
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forged papers and hunches

Post by Elizabeth Helen Drake »

I agree with you Radomir. Simply a "note" even on very good SS stationary is not going to get you a train going in the right direction. Especially then when such a thing would have been a VERY high priority.

Now, I am saying train because thats what I understood it to be when I got this information nearly a year ago. They took over a train. Now perhaps I misunderstood ( I don't think so , but anything is possible) and they might have meant truck Convoy. No, I just can't go there because I specifically wondered at the time how in the heck they managed to get an an entire train at their disposal.

As I said. This was not a simple letter from your Mother excusing you from class that maybe you had busily forged as a school kid. ( Oh, I say that as if I knew what I was talking about and had actually DONE such a thing a time or two! <G>.

My hunch is that the papers may have been forged but it was well and professionally done and the arrangement for the train was done at a very high level.

Of course last year I knew nothing of this " Red Orchestra" that LindaB found reference to. And Mr. Twigsnapper had not said anything about the eight friends who infiltrated the command of the German SS regime.But thats who I am thinking now might have been responsible for the arrangements. And didn't Mr. Twigsnapper mention the name of a man who supplied forged identies and papers? for his group. Mr. Cornellion? The "grocer?" My mind is blank right now but I will go back to it to see if any of this fits.

This is ENTIRELY my wild rabbit thought here. Perhaps the fellow who was mentioned (or an underling) who was the head of the transportation dept. at the time could have done this? As you said, it would have taken some real authority.

The most common reference I find is the exactly worded sentence " After stealing a train with forged papers". I submit there is more to the story than is being shown in that common sentence. Elizabeth
Elizabeth Helen Drake
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AMAZING contributions

Post by Elizabeth Helen Drake »

This forum has offered up some AMAZING contributions.

I have been spending a quiet morning just slowly rereading what has been sent over the past couple of weeks. I know that when Paul posts the next chapter there will be a long pause, and then the discussion will thunder off as it has in the past. I look forward to all of that mental activity but I also value this moment. The sun is just rising where I am. The household is still asleep. Chores can wait. Its a good time to just BE.

And I sat here thinking how often Morgan has told Paul and me to simply "look in your mirror" As if he knew something in that process that we have yet to figure.

And then I "stumbled" onto something that Radomir sent and suddenly I knew EXACTLY what Morgan was trying to tell us. This is what tripped my particular switch

http://www.heartspace.org/misc/IndraNet.html

" The Indra's Net: What Is It?

FAR AWAY IN THE HEAVENLY ABODE OF THE GREAT GOD INDRA, THERE IS A WONDERFUL NET WHICH HAS BEEN HUNG BY SOME CUNNING ARTIFICER IN SUCH A MANNER THAT IT STRETCHES OUT INDEFINITELY IN ALL DIRECTIONS. IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE EXTRAVAGANT TASTES OF DEITIES, THE ARTIFICER HAS HUNG A SINGLE GLITTERING JEWEL AT THE NET'S EVERY NODE, AND SINCE THE NET ITSELF IS INFINITE IN DIMENSION, THE JEWELS ARE INFINITE IN NUMBER. THERE HANG THE JEWELS, GLITTERING LIKE STARS OF THE FIRST MAGNITUDE, A WONDERFUL SIGHT TO BEHOLD. IF WE NOW ARBITRARILY SELECT ONE OF THESE JEWELS FOR INSPECTION AND LOOK CLOSELY AT IT, WE WILL DISCOVER THAT IN ITS POLISHED SURFACE THERE ARE REFLECTED ALL THE OTHER JEWELS IN THE NET, INFINITE IN NUMBER. NOT ONLY THAT, BUT EACH OF THE JEWELS REFLECTED IN THIS ONE JEWEL IS ALSO REFLECTING ALL THE OTHER JEWELS, SO THAT THE PROCESS OF REFLECTION IS INFINITE


...........In its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number ....... not only that.... but EACH of the jewels reflected in this ONE JEWEL is also reflecting .............

You know what I noticed about the above. Among other things, the tense.
IS ALSO REFLECTING ..... thats an ongoing happening . IS REFLECTING.

Odd moment there. Sorry if I dragged you over to see it if you had something else on your mind. But to me I have been suddenly reminded that this is all an ongoing process with infinite scope.

Good morning everybody. Elizabeth
grinder
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more foo fighting!

Post by grinder »

Paul,

I recognize the cartoon as something that you have used in another chapter but I wondered if you have read this link. I got to it by simply going for Kummersdorf UFO and came up with this:

http://greyfalcon.us/restored/PROJECT%20UFO.htm

and there is some interesting stuff here. I don't know how much is crap but it still rings an interesting bell .

As this statement: " Kugelblitz, together with its "younger brothers of the fireball, lens-shaped bomb and other weapons, began the real history of the UFO's. In itself, it was a second generation fireball.

The 'round lightning' weapon, the incredibly fast and mysterious disk-shaped craft that had been rumored and sighted in action, was used only once. As the Allied forces crossed the Rhine, the only craft of it's type was destroyed by the SS on instructions from Berlin, to prevent it's capture. But ever since, due to the severe censorship imposed by 'T' force of the British Army in Germany, and later, thanks to the complete blackout imposed by London, nothing more was heard of "Round Lightning."

I know that agents of the 'T' force camp at Bad Gandersheim closely examined the documents found in the G-Works, documents which had been elaborated by the technical general staff of the SS and by technical control of the Henshel and Zeppelin works. These documents concern the propulsion unit of the Kugelblitz prototype built by the Kreislaufbetrieb Motor D.W. in 1943 for the F.F.K.F. (Forschungsinstitut for Kraftfhart and Fahrzeugmotoren) at Stuttgart-Untertürkheim and perfected by Professors Kamm and Ernst."

All this good stuff came up and I still can't find the thing that got me to this link in the first place. The place called Kummersdorf. Anybody else find it? Damn.

And .... whats this all about?
"Neither the British nor the Americans, on an official level, saw eye to eye in scientific matters at the close of the war against Germany and afterward.

The United States' refusal to share atomic secrets with Britain was never quite forgotten in Whitehall, and Britain set out to prove, with Canada, that she was well able to produce her own fission bomb. If Congress steadfastly accused the British of giving little or nothing in return for information, the British felt they had been mistrusted and severely neglected. They preferred to go ahead with their plans in Canada.

The fact that the area has been photographed again and again by high altitude reconnaissance planes, both U.S. and Russian, does not perturb the Canadian or British authorities. The plants and saucer ports are underground, hidden in primeval forests of Columbia.

The question immediately arises: Why have not Britain and Canada made such craft available to their other partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?"


Or maybe .... even the English didn't know something was being with held from them too? Is it just me or is anybody else seeing the possibility of this Caroline Group at work here?

AFTER READING PAULS NEXT CHAPTER. I am really interested in this Panzer " Caroline " Officer. Working so hard to get an individual into " Caroline" hands .... but other hands obviously screwed that up. But I see the plan here though. They were working on their own, irregardless of who they happened to be signed up with they were still primarily and first Caroline members. Hiding in plain sight. Thats VERY interesting.

grinder
Last edited by grinder on Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Radomir
Senior Cadet
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Re: AMAZING contributions

Post by Radomir »

Elizabeth Helen Drake wrote:...........In its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number ....... not only that.... but EACH of the jewels reflected in this ONE JEWEL is also reflecting .............

You know what I noticed about the above. Among other things, the tense.
IS ALSO REFLECTING ..... thats an ongoing happening . IS REFLECTING.

Odd moment there. Sorry if I dragged you over to see it if you had something else on your mind. But to me I have been suddenly reminded that this is all an ongoing process with infinite scope.

Good morning everybody. Elizabeth
Any morning spent in contemplation of Indra's Net is a good morning! Thanks for sharing your enthusiastic take on that.

R.
Paul S.
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Re: AMAZING contributions

Post by Paul S. »

Yeah amazing... serves me right for taking a weekend off...
Elizabeth Helen Drake wrote:I know that when Paul posts the next chapter there will be a long pause,
If by that Elizabeth means a "long pause" before Chapter 56 materializes... she might be right. Especially in light of all the stuff that Twigsnapper, Radomir, etal, have unearthed in this thread.

This is where it all goes next... well, into the Cold War, anyway... Kammler, Gehlen, Philby, Paris, Berlin.... tunnels and tunnel diodes, eyes and ears in the sky...

Seems no matter how big a pig my python swallows, the next one is always bigger...

--PS
Paul Schatzkin
aka "The Perfesser"
"At some point we have to deal with the facts, not what we want to believe is true." -- Jack Bauer
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