The Amerika Bomber

The Nazis wanted to attack America.  They couldn't.  Under the Nazi military doctrine of Blitzkreig, airpower was to be used to support an attack spearheaded by tanks. The Nazis had a grand vision of world domination without a strategy to achieve it.  Long-range bombers, deemed too expensive and unnecessary to the Blitzkrieg, were not developed. They could have. After all, the Nazis had developed jet-powered fighters and rocket-powered ballistic missiles. But there was some small development of large bombers.

The U.S. Boeing B-29 Super Fortress long-range bomber

 

Large bombers are good for one thing, they fly high over long distances at relatively fast airspeeds to carry destructive power to the enemy's heartland.  The Nazi effort to develop the long-range bomber was carried out under the general code-name Amerika Bomber.

 

The United States, for a variety reasons largely involving the size of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and vast interior distances, had developed long-range bombers.  Hitler, left to contemplate the distance from Berlin to Moscow, or Tokyo, saw a need, but could do little to foster this need as the day-to-day needs of running a dictatorship became to large.  This did not stop Hitler from his desire to see New York City in flames.

 

Messerschmitt Me 264 Amerika Bomber

 

Sänger Silbervogel Amerika Bomber

 

The Nazis had several designs, and iterations of these designs, at their disposal. Some were conventional; others extraordinary. The Messerschmitt Me 264 was characteristic of the conventional. It looked a lot like our own Boeing B-29 Superfortress. The Me 264 saw limited production and was used in spotting Allied convoys in the Atlantic. None-the-less, the Nazis showered money on the unconventional.  Werner von Braun was a Nazi who developed an Amerika Bomber based on rocket technology. Another Nazi scientist, Dr Eugen Sänger, along with his future wife, mathematician Irene Bredt, developed the "Antipodal Bomber" under the code-name Silbervogel [Silver Bird]. After the war was over, engineers would use Sänger's work as a starting point that led to the development of the NASA's Space Shuttle.  On the other side of the world, Josef Stalin was personally interested in Sänger's work. A third design centered on the Horten/Gotha Go 229 Flying Wing. This design was reproduced by a consortium of U.S. aviation companies led by Northrop that produced the B-2 Spirit, the Stealth Bomber.

 

The United States' presence in space and on the global stage began in Nazi Germany.  The Nazis had not the time or resources to make these projects work.  New York City would not burn in World War II.

 

Image from the Hubble Space Telescope (NASA)

 

As victors of World War II, we gained the Nazi's technology.  Von Braun's rocket allowed us to take that "giant leap for mankind" by putting humans on the moon.  One of the gemstones in the Space Shuttle's crown is the Hubble Telescope which showed us, for the first time, just how awesome the universe is.  The Stealth Bomber has kept us safe.

 

We were not the only people to inherit from the Nazis.

 

New York City's World Trade Center, March 2001

 

Sitting in the hospital on that cold January morning in 2000, I had no idea that another man had a vision of New York City in flames.  This other man, Osama bin Laden, had already set a plan in motion...