A mystery wraps its end. On the death of the general of the SS Hans Kammler there are five different versions. He probably lived and died as an American, under a false identity, in a secret location in the United States and with a mountain of unconfessable secrets.
SS Obergruppenfuher Hans Kammler (1901-1945) was appointed by Himmler to oversee and accelerate the development and production of German secret weapons. He was a fanatical Nazi and a brilliant organizer, with a boundless ambition. In carrying out his task proved to be ruthless, subsequently eliminating all those responsible including Peenemunde technicians. In August of the 1943, he assumed responsibility for the construction of underground production facilities for the V-2, near the Mittelbau-Dora death camp that housed slave workers involved in the construction of the underground factory and production lines. This project was pushed forward under enormous pressure of time, despite the consequences for the committed laborers. Kammler's motto was: "do not worry about the victims. Work must proceed forward as soon as possible ". Originally called "Block 17 / 3 Buchenwald" at the end of September 1944, the SS administration ordered to politically separate Dora from Buchenwald, to become with its 32.471 prisoners the center of "Konzentrationslager Mittelbau".
In the 1944, Himmler convinced Hitler to put the V-2 project directly under the control of the SS, and the 8 August Kammler replaced Walter Dornberger (1895-1980) as director. 8 1944 September when the first V-2 operational units began shooting against England he obtained from Hitler the post of commander of the 65 army corps, established as an army for the use of special weapons, whose autonomous regiments were directly dependent on Hitler's authority. The rockets came directly from the underground factories of Nordhausen.
Their number increased rapidly and steadily until the end of hostilities. In September 1944 350 rockets and 500 arrived in October, in the following months Kammler had at its disposal a minimum of 900 V-2 rockets. teams of specialists from the underground factory went to complete the shooting units and to repair the frequent faults. But little by little Kammler reduced the number of failed rolls and made the 65 ° corps a special unit. From the 31 January 1945, Kammler was head of all missile projects. Hans Kammler died with weapons in his hand 9 May 1945 in a bunker in Prague, where six hundred Czech partisans attacked the fist of SS remained loyal to him. His helper obeying the orders received, followed him and when he thought that all was lost he knocked him down with a burst. SS Obergruppenfuher Hans Kammler, after a ruthless and cruel life, had the death he had wished. It was the last official of the SS to receive, on the first of March 1945 the promotion to Obergruppenfuher.
In his book "The Hunt for Zero Point"Released in the 2001, author Nick Cook raised the possibility that Kammler (Photo) because of his alleged involvement in secret projects, he was brought to the United States, with other German scientists as part of the "Paperclip" operation; it was the code name of an operation initiated by the Office of Strategic Services and continued by the CIA, having as its priority the recruitment of German scientists (pictured below) in the phases immediately following the end of the war. This operation was also initiated with the aim of preventing the Nazi scientific knowledge from ending up in the hands of the Soviets. It began in November 1945 and could be up to 1970, it consisted of discovering and recruiting for the US about 2.000 between German scientists and their families. But since July 1945 the Combined Intelligence Objective Sub-Committee (CIOS) of London had ordered a search in this direction. In August, the name of Kammler had become part of the "13 List" a list of the United Nations containing the Nazi war criminals. Only in the 1948 the CIOS received information that Kammler had fled to Prague and attempted suicide. The informant claimed that Kammler always had his plans with him, and that a voice among his former collaborators claimed he was working in the Soviet Union.
As it really ended we will never know, but we know very well that under his command, more than 60.000 prisoners who passed through the Mittelbau-Dora complex at least 20.000 died of hunger or disease. When the American troops reached Mittelbau the 11 1945 found 2.000 corpses and only a few hundred living mostly sick or dying. Also the Mittelbau-Dora camp and its sub-camps had already been forcibly evacuated by the SS-Totenkopfverbande the 6 April 1945. The camp commander the SS Obergruppenfuher Hans Karl Moser (1906-1948) was the only one sentenced to death of the 19 defendants in the Dora trial. Hanged in Landsberg prison in the 1948.
