Missiles for the Fatherland: Peenemünde, National Socialism, and the V-2 Missile (Cambridge Centennial of Flight) - Hardcover

Petersen, Michael B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521882702 ISBN 13: 9780521882705

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Missiles for the Fatherland tells the story of the scientists and engineers who built the V-2 missile in Hitler's Germany. This is the first scholarly history of the culture and society that underpinned missile development at Germany's secret missile base at Peenemünde. Using mainly primary source documents and publicly available oral history interviews, Michael Petersen examines the lives of the men and women who worked at Peenemünde and later at the underground slave labor complex called Mittelbau-Dora, where concentration camp prisoners mass-produced the V-2. His research reveals a complex interaction of professional ambition, internal cultural dynamics, military pressure, and political coercion, which coalesced in daily life at the facility. The interaction of these forces made the rapid development of the V-2 possible but also contributed to an environment in which stunning brutality could be committed against the concentration camp prisoners who manufactured the missile.

About this title

Book Description:

Missiles for the Fatherland is the first scholarly investigation of the culture underpinning missile development at Germany's secret missile base at Peenemünde. Michael Petersen's research reveals a complex interaction of professional ambition, internal cultural dynamics, military pressure, and political coercion, which coalesced daily life at the facility.

About the Author:

Michael Petersen received his Ph.D. in German history from the University of Maryland in 2005. He is currently a historian under contract with the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, DC, where he is writing a book on the history of the Defense Intelligence Agency in the Cold War. He has also worked for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group (IWG) at the National Archives and Records Administration, and has contributed to a collection of essays on Japanese war crimes records held by the National Archives. He is the recipient of several fellowships and awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0521882702
• ISBN 13: 9780521882705
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 290