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134-549: Post-war: The V2 ( German : Vergeltungswaffe 2 , lit.   'Vengeance Weapon 2'), with the technical name Aggregat 4 ( A4 ), was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile . The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the Second World War in Nazi Germany as a " vengeance weapon " and assigned to attack Allied cities as retaliation for

268-545: A PIGA accelerometer , or the Walter Wolman radio control system, to control engine cutoff at a specified velocity. Other gyroscopic systems used in the A-4 included Kreiselgeräte's SG-66 and SG-70. The V-2 was launched from a pre-surveyed location, so the distance and azimuth to the target were known. Fin 1 of the missile was aligned to the target azimuth. Some later V-2s used " guide beams ", radio signals transmitted from

402-465: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it

536-402: A second language , and 75–100   million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220   million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90   million people, or 16% of

670-612: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become

804-644: A 1-ton payload, a range of 172 miles with a dispersion of 2 or 3 miles, and transportable using road vehicles. After the A-4 project was postponed due to unfavorable aerodynamic stability testing of the A-3 in July 1936, Braun specified the A-4 performance in 1937, and, after an "extensive" series of test firings of the A-5 scale test model, using a motor redesigned from the troublesome A-3 by Walter Thiel , A-4 design and construction

938-724: A French prisoner of war camp, mostly in solitary confinement because of repeated escape attempts. In the late 1920s, Dornberger completed an engineering course with distinction at the Berlin Technical Institute , and in the spring of 1930, Dornberger graduated after five years with an MS degree in mechanical engineering from the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg in Berlin. In 1935, Dornberger received an honorary doctorate , which Col. Karl Emil Becker arranged as Dean of

1072-559: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from

1206-451: A ground signal transponded by the A-4 to measure the velocity of the missile. By 9 February 1942, Peenemünde engineer Gerd deBeek had documented the radio interference area of a V-2 as 10,000 metres (33,000 feet) around the "Firing Point", and the first successful A-4 flight on 3 October 1942, used radio control for Brennschluss . Although Hitler commented on 22 September 1943 that "It is a great load off our minds that we have dispensed with

1340-768: A meeting at Peenemünde: This third day of October, 1942, is the first of a new era in transportation, that of space travel... Two test launches were recovered by the Allies: the Bäckebo rocket , the remnants of which landed in Sweden on 13 June 1944, and one recovered by the Polish resistance on 30 May 1944 from the Blizna V-2 missile launch site and transported to the UK during Operation Most III . The highest altitude reached during

1474-570: A movie showing the successful launch on 3 October 1942, with scale models of the Channel coast firing bunker, and supporting vehicles, including the Meillerwagen . Hitler then gave Peenemünde top priority in the German armaments program stating, "Why was it I could not believe in the success of your work? if we had had these rockets in 1939 we should never have had this war..." Hitler also wanted

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1608-458: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained

1742-572: A number of times. For example, Artillerie Init 444 arrived in the southwest Netherlands (in Zeeland ) in September 1944. From a field near the village of Serooskerke , five V-2s were launched on 15 and 16 September, with one more successful and one failed launch on the 18th. That same date, a transport carrying a missile took a wrong turn and ended up in Serooskerke itself, giving a villager

1876-696: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In

2010-483: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it

2144-544: A second launch bunker built. Saur planned to build 2,000 rockets per month, between the existing three factories and the Nordhausen Mittelwerk factory being built. However, alcohol production was dependent upon the potato harvest. A production line was nearly ready at Peenemünde when the Operation Hydra attack occurred. The main targets of the attack included the test stands, the development works,

2278-419: A speed of 2,000 m (6,600 ft) per second. The oxygen to fuel mixture was 1.0:0.85 at 25 tons of thrust, but as ambient pressure decreased with flight altitude, thrust increased until it reached 29 tons. The turbopump assembly contained two centrifugal pumps, one for the alcohol, and one for the oxygen, The turbine connects directly by a shaft to the alcohol pump and through a flexible joint and shaft to

2412-460: A time forced into prostitution ; each group was executed after two weeks in order to maintain security. In June 1943, in a speech to nearly 6,500 German employees and soldiers in Peenemünde, Dornberger blended traditional German patriotism with Nazi ideological motifs while also highlighting and reinforcing many of the unique factors that made missile development so successful at Peenemünde in

2546-601: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as

2680-612: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German

2814-558: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic

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2948-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German

3082-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25   million speak it as

3216-535: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in

3350-611: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as

3484-565: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are

3618-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and

3752-597: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as

3886-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German

4020-525: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c.  1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period

4154-776: Is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ),

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4288-578: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish

4422-485: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers

4556-462: Is yourself. I never believed that your work would be successful. In January 1944, Dornberger was named Senior Artillery Commander 191 and was headquartered at Maisons-Lafitte near Saint Germain, and in December 1944, Dornberger was given complete authority for anti-aircraft rocket development ( Flak E Flugabwehrkanonenentwicklung ). On 12 January 1945 on Dornberger's proposal, Albert Speer replaced

4690-689: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to

4824-484: The Heereswaffenamt (Army Weapons Department), commenced work under the direction of Colonel Ing. h. c. Dornberger. Dornberger also took over his last military command on 1 October 1934, a powder-rocket training battery at Königsbrück . In May 1937, Dornberger and his ninety-man organization were transferred from Kummersdorf to Peenemünde . In September 1942, Dornberger was given two posts: coordinating

4958-574: The Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR)'s leased Raketenflugplatz (English: "Rocket Flight Field") and subsequently issued a contract for a demonstration launch. On 21 December 1932, Captain Dornberger watched a rocket motor explode at Kummersdorf while Wernher von Braun tried to light it with a flaming gasoline can at the end of a four-meter-long (13 ft) pole. In 1933, Waffenamt Prüfwesen ( Wa Prüf , English: "Weapons Testing") 1/1, under

5092-639: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as

5226-634: The Allied bombings of German cities . The V2 rocket also became the first artificial object to travel into space by crossing the Kármán line (edge of space) with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on 20 June 1944. Research of military use of long-range rockets began when the graduate studies of Wernher von Braun were noticed by the German Army . A series of prototypes culminated in the A4, which went to war as

5360-568: The Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German

5494-537: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share

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5628-417: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language

5762-527: The Friedrichshafen facilities of Zeppelin Works. In 1943, a third factory, Raxwerke , was added. On 22 December 1942, Hitler signed the order for mass production, when Albert Speer assumed final technical data would be ready by July 1943. However, many issues still remained to be solved even by the autumn of 1943. On 8 January 1943, Dornberger and von Braun met with Speer. Speer stated, "As head of

5896-522: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout

6030-469: The Gestapo and most of the members were executed. The A4 used a 75% ethanol /25% water mixture ( B-Stoff ) for fuel and liquid oxygen (LOX) ( A-Stoff ) for oxidizer . The water reduced the flame temperature, acted as a coolant by turning to steam and augmented the thrust, tended to produce a smoother burn, and reduced thermal stress . Rudolf Hermann's supersonic wind tunnel was used to measure

6164-746: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in

6298-666: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c.  765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in

6432-676: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung

6566-550: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit.   ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this

6700-696: The Todt organisation I will take it on myself to start at once with the building of the launching site on the Channel coast," and established an A-4 production committee under Degenkolb. On 26 May 1943, the Long-Range Bombardment Commission, chaired by AEG director Petersen, met at Peenemünde to review the V-1 and V-2 automatic long-range weapons. In attendance were Speer, Air Marshal Erhard Milch , Admiral Karl Dönitz , Col. General Friedrich Fromm , and Karl Saur . Both weapons had reached

6834-722: The United States Air Force for three years, developing guided missiles . From 1950 to 1965, he worked for the Bell Aircraft Corporation , where he worked on several projects, rising to the post of Vice-President. He played a major role in the creation of the North American X-15 aircraft and was a key consultant for the Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar project. He also had a role in the creation of ideas and projects which, in

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6968-400: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and   Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German

7102-426: The V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket development programs and directing active operations. The first successful test launch of a V-2 was the third test launch on 3 October 1942. The launch sites for V2 rockets in the Netherlands were built by Dutch slave labour , with Dornberger having the workers killed once each project was completed. He also organised a brothel for the German launch crews, with 20 Dutch women at

7236-425: The V2 . Beginning in September 1944, more than 3,000 V2s were launched by the Wehrmacht against Allied targets, first London and later Antwerp and Liège . According to a 2011 BBC documentary, the attacks from V-2s resulted in the deaths of an estimated 9,000 civilians and military personnel, while a further 12,000 laborers and concentration camp prisoners died as a result of their forced participation in

7370-408: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from

7504-418: The 26 successful Blizna launches had satisfactorily reached the Sarnaki target area due to in-flight breakup ( Luftzerleger ) on re-entry into the atmosphere. (As mentioned above, one rocket was collected by the Polish Home Army , with parts of it transported to London for tests.) Initially, the German developers suspected excessive alcohol tank pressure, but by April 1944, after five months of test firings,

7638-444: The A4's aerodynamic characteristics and center of pressure, using a model of the A4 within a 40 square centimeter chamber. Measurements were made using a Mach 1.86 blowdown nozzle on 8 August 1940. Tests at Mach numbers 1.56 and 2.5 were made after 24 September 1940. At launch the A4 propelled itself for up to 65 seconds on its own power, and a program motor held the inclination at the specified angle until engine shutdown, after which

7772-480: The Allies had liberated less than two weeks earlier ), but both crashed soon after launch. On 8 September a single rocket was launched at Paris, which caused modest damage near Porte d'Italie . Two more launches by the 485th followed, including one from The Hague against London on the same day at 6:43 pm. – the first landed at Staveley Road , Chiswick , killing 63-year-old Mrs. Ada Harrison, three-year-old Rosemary Clarke, and Sapper Bernard Browning on leave from

7906-413: The American Office of Strategic Services . Location sketches of V-rocket manufacturing facilities, such as those in Peenemünde, were also sent to the Allied general staff in order to enable Allied bombers to perform airstrikes . This information was particularly important for Operation Crossbow and Operation Hydra , both preliminary missions for Operation Overlord . The group was gradually captured by

8040-405: The Americans, and many of the original V-2 team transferred their work to the Redstone Arsenal , where they were relocated as part of Operation Paperclip . The US also captured enough V-2 hardware to build approximately 80 of the missiles. The Soviets gained possession of the V-2 manufacturing facilities after the war, re-established V-2 production, and moved it to the Soviet Union. During

8174-413: The Château du Molay were dismissed in favour of mobile launching. Eight main storage dumps were planned and four had been completed by July 1944 (the one at Mery-sur-Oise was begun during August 1943 and completed by February 1944). The missile could be launched practically anywhere, roads running through forests being a particular favourite. The system was so mobile and small that only one Meillerwagen

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8308-614: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In

8442-414: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of

8576-417: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of

8710-399: The German states; the invention of the printing press c.  1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of

8844-623: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by

8978-547: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are

9112-428: The Long-Range Weapons Commission with "Working Staff Dornberger". In February 1945, Dornberger and staff relocated his headquarters from Schwedt-an-der-Oder to Bad Sachsa, then on 6 April 1945, from Bad Sachsa to Haus Ingeborg in Oberjoch near Hindelang in the Allgäu mountains of Bavaria. Before going to the Alps, General Dornberger hid comprehensive V-2 documentation in a mine near Goslar , which were recovered by

9246-459: The Luftwaffe over the northern German attack route near the town of Lochem on 1 January 1945. Possibly, from the potential sighting of the American fighter by the missile's launch crew, the rocket was quickly lowered from a near launch-ready 85° elevation to 30°. After the US Army captured the Ludendorff Bridge during the Battle of Remagen on 7 March 1945, the Germans were desperate to destroy it. On 17 March 1945, they fired eleven V-2 missiles at

9380-408: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c.  thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c.  1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy

9514-498: The Pre-Production Works, the settlement where the scientists and technicians lived, the Trassenheide camp, and the harbor sector. According to Dornberger, "Serious damage to the works, contrary to first impressions, was surprisingly small." Work resumed after a delay of four to six weeks, and because of camouflage to mimic complete destruction, there were no more raids during the next nine months. The raid resulted in 735 lives lost, with heavy losses at Trassenheide, while 178 were killed in

9648-472: The Royal Engineers, and one that hit Epping with no casualties. The British government , concerned about spreading panic or giving away vital intelligence to German forces, initially attempted to conceal the cause of the explosions by making no official announcement, and euphemistically blaming them on defective gas mains. The public did not believe this explanation and therefore began referring to

9782-627: The SS Werfer-Abteilung 500 was formed, and by October, the SS under the command of SS Lt. Gen Hans Kammler , took operational control of all units. He formed Gruppe Süd with Art. Abt. 836, Merzig , and Gruppe Nord with Art. Abt. 485 and Batterie 444, Burgsteinfurt and The Hague . After Hitler's 29 August 1944 declaration to begin V-2 attacks as soon as possible, the offensive began on 7 September 1944 when two were launched at Paris (which

9916-595: The US 332nd Engineer Regiment on 16 May 1945 by a secret action when Goslar was already occupied by the British Army. On 2 May 1945, Dornberger, von Braun, and five other men departed from Haus Ingeborg and travelled through Gaicht Pass and towards the little Austrian village of Schattwald. They met American soldiers who convoyed the group to the Tyrolean town of Reutte for the night. At an internment camp after

10050-516: The V-2s as "flying gas mains". The Germans themselves finally announced the V-2 on 8 November 1944 and only then, on 10 November 1944, did Winston Churchill inform Parliament, and the world, that England had been under rocket attack "for the last few weeks". In September 1944, control of the V-2 mission was transferred to the Waffen-SS and Division z.V. Positions of the German launch units changed

10184-604: The accuracy of the V-2, with many rockets being misdirected and exploding harmlessly. Accuracy increased during the war, particularly for batteries where the Leitstrahl (radio guide beam) system was used. Missile strikes that did hit targets could cause large numbers of deaths; 160 were killed and 108 seriously injured in one explosion at 12:26 pm on 25 November 1944, at a Woolworth's department store in New Cross , south-east London. British intelligence also helped impede

10318-413: The alcohol and oxygen into the combustion chamber at 125 liters (33 US gallons) per second, where they were ignited by a spinning electrical igniter. Thrust increased from 8 tons during this preliminary stage whilst the fuel was gravity-fed, before increasing to 25 tons as the turbopump pressurised the fuel, lifting the 13.5 ton rocket. Combustion gases exited the chamber at 2,820 °C (5,100 °F), and

10452-462: The bridge, their first use against a tactical target and the only time they were fired on a German target during the war. They could not employ the more accurate Leitstrahl device because it was oriented towards Antwerp and could not be easily adjusted for another target. Fired from near Hellendoorn , the Netherlands, one of the missiles landed as far away as Cologne, 40 miles (64 km) to

10586-487: The building of the Aggregate (A) series of rockets , named for the German word for mechanism or mechanical system. After successes at Kummersdorf with the first two Aggregate series rockets, Braun and Walter Riedel began thinking of a much larger rocket in the summer of 1936, based on a projected 25,000 kg (55,000 lb) thrust engine. In addition, Dornberger specified the military requirements needed to include

10720-634: The cause was still not determined. Major-General Rossmann, the Army Weapons Office department chief, recommended stationing observers in the target area – c. May/June, Dornberger and von Braun set up a camp at the centre of the Poland target zone. After moving to the Heidekraut, SS Mortar Battery 500 of the 836th Artillery Battalion (Motorized) was ordered on 30 August to begin test launches of eighty 'sleeved' rockets. Testing confirmed that

10854-579: The city was struck by 590 direct hits. The largest loss of life by a single rocket attack during the war came on 16 December 1944, when the roof of the crowded Cine Rex was struck, leaving 567 dead and 291 injured. An estimated 2,754 civilians were killed in London by V-2 attacks with another 6,523 injured, which is two people killed per V-2 rocket. The death toll in London did not meet the Nazis' full expectations, during early usage, as they had not yet perfected

10988-474: The combustion chamber and exhaust nozzle under slight pressure through four rings of small perforations. The mushroom-shaped injection head was removed from the combustion chamber to a mixing chamber, the combustion chamber was made more spherical while being shortened from 6 to 1-foot in length, and the connection to the nozzle was made cone shaped. The resultant 1.5 ton chamber operated at a combustion pressure of 1.52 MPa (220 psi). Thiel's 1.5 ton chamber

11122-482: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with

11256-456: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in

11390-519: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of

11524-595: The effectiveness of the Nazi weapon, sending false reports via their Double-Cross System implying that the rockets were over-shooting their London target by 10 to 20 miles (16 to 32 km). This tactic worked; more than half of the V-2s aimed at London landed short of the London Civil Defence Region. Most landed on less-heavily populated areas in Kent due to erroneous recalibration. For the remainder of

11658-673: The end, led to the creation of the Space Shuttle. Dornberger also developed Bell's ASM-A-2 , the world's first guided nuclear air-to-surface missile developed for the Strategic Air Command . Dornberger advised West Germany on a European space program . During the 1950s he had some differences with von Braun and was instrumental in recruiting several engineers out of the Huntsville's team for US Air Force projects. These included Krafft Ehricke , who later created

11792-519: The enthusiasm of its developers, and needed a " wonder weapon " to maintain German morale, so he authorized its deployment in large numbers. The V-2s were constructed at the Mittelwerk site by prisoners from Mittelbau-Dora , a concentration camp where 20,000 prisoners died. In 1943, the Austrian resistance group including Heinrich Maier managed to send exact drawings of the V-2 rocket to

11926-439: The final stage of development, and the commission decided to recommend to Hitler that both weapons be mass-produced. As Dornberger observed, "The disadvantages of the one would be compensated by the other's advantages." On 7 July 1943, Major General Dornberger, von Braun, and Dr. Steinhof briefed Hitler in his Wolf's Lair . Also in attendance were Speer, Wilhelm Keitel , and Alfred Jodl . The briefing included von Braun narrating

12060-668: The first place. By emphasizing the path-breaking nature of their work as well as its singular importance to the war effort, all while playing on the popular fear of the Soviet Union and the disdain for the Western Allies for bombing their cities into rubble, Dornberger composed a powerful message that would certainly appeal to many Peenemünders. In the early morning of 7 July 1943, Ernst Steinhoff flew von Braun and Major-General Dornberger in his Heinkel He 111 to Hitler's Führerhauptquartier " Wolfsschanze " headquarters and

12194-413: The fuel tanks so the A-4 did not have a tendency to form ice, a problem which plagued other early ballistic missiles such as the balloon tank -design SM-65 Atlas which entered US service in 1959. The tanks held 4,173 kilograms (9,200 lb) of ethyl alcohol and 5,553 kilograms (12,242 lb) of oxygen. The V-2 was guided by four external rudders on the tail fins, and four internal graphite vanes in

12328-418: The ground, to keep the missile on course, but the first models used a simple analog computer that adjusted the azimuth for the rocket, and the flying distance was controlled by the timing of the engine cut-off, Brennschluss , ground-controlled by a Doppler system or by different types of on-board integrating accelerometers . Thus, range was a function of engine burn time, which ended when a specific velocity

12462-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,

12596-481: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of

12730-488: The jet stream at the exit of the motor. These 8 control surfaces were controlled by Helmut Hölzer 's analog computer , the Mischgerät , via electrical-hydraulic servomotors , based on electrical signals from the gyros. The Siemens Vertikant LEV-3 guidance system consisted of two free gyroscopes (a horizontal for pitch and a vertical with two degrees of freedom for yaw and roll) for lateral stabilization, coupled with

12864-479: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Walter Dornberger Dornberger was born in Gießen in 1895. In 1914 he enlisted in the German army during World War 1 . In October 1918, as an artillery lieutenant, Dornberger was captured by United States Marines and spent two years in

12998-442: The late 1920s, a young Wernher von Braun bought a copy of Hermann Oberth 's book, Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen ( The Rocket into Interplanetary Spaces ). In 1928 a Raketenrummel or "Rocket Rumble" fad in the popular media was initiated by Fritz von Opel and Max Valier , a collaborator of Oberth, by experimenting with rockets, including public demonstrations of manned rocket cars and rocket planes . The “Rocket Rumble”

13132-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted

13266-624: The new Faculty of Military Technology at the TH Berlin. In April 1930, Dornberger was appointed to the Ballistics Council of the German Army ( Reichswehr ) Weapons Department as Assistant Examiner to secretly develop a military liquid-fuel rocket suitable for mass-production that would surpass the range of artillery. In the spring of 1932, Dornberger, his commander (Captain Ritter von Horstig), and Col. Karl Emil Becker visited

13400-540: The next day Hitler viewed the film of the successful V-2 test launch (narrated by von Braun) and the scale models of the Watten bunker and launching-troop vehicles: This third day of October, 1942, is the first of a new era in transportation, that of space travel ... I have had to apologize only to two men in my whole life. The first was Field Marshal von Brauchitsch . I did not listen to him when he told me again and again how important your research was. The second man

13534-653: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from

13668-545: The north, while one missed the bridge by only 500 to 800 yards (460 to 730 m). They also struck the town of Remagen, destroying a number of buildings and killing at least six American soldiers. German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It

13802-730: The opportunity to surreptitiously take some photographs of the weapon; these were smuggled to London by the Dutch Resistance . After that the unit moved to the woods near Rijs , Gaasterland in the northwest Netherlands, to ensure that the technology was not captured by the Allies. From Gaasterland V-2s were launched against Ipswich and Norwich from 25 September ( London being out of range). Because of their inaccuracy, these V-2s did not hit their target cities. Soon after that only London and Antwerp remained as designated targets as ordered by Adolf Hitler himself, Antwerp being targeted in

13936-531: The oxygen pump. Hydrogen peroxide converted to steam, using a sodium permanganate catalyst powered the pump, which delivered 55 kg (121 lb) of alcohol and 68 kg (150 lb) of liquid oxygen per second to a combustion chamber at 1.5  MPa (218  psi ). Dr. Thiel's development of the 25 ton rocket motor relied on pump feeding, rather than on the earlier pressure feeding. The motor used centrifugal injection, while using both regenerative cooling and film cooling. Film cooling admitted alcohol into

14070-472: The period of 12 to 20 October, after which time the unit moved to The Hague. During the succeeding months about 3,172 V-2 rockets were fired at the following targets: Antwerp, Belgium was a target for a large number of V-weapon attacks from October 1944 through to the virtual end of the war in March 1945, leaving 1,736 dead and 4,500 injured in greater Antwerp. Thousands of buildings were damaged or destroyed as

14204-658: The production of the weapons . The rockets travelled at supersonic speeds , impacted without audible warning, and proved unstoppable. No effective defense existed. Teams from the Allied forces —the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union—raced to seize major German manufacturing facilities, procure the Germans' missile technology , and capture the V-2s' launching sites. Von Braun and more than 100 core R&D V-2 personnel surrendered to

14338-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation

14472-499: The radio guiding-beam; now no opening remains for the British to interfere technically with the missile in flight", about 20% of the operational V-2 launches were beam-guided. The Operation Pinguin V-2 offensive began on 8 September 1944, when Lehr- und Versuchsbatterie No. 444 (English: 'Training and Testing Battery 444') launched a single rocket guided by a radio beam directed at Paris. Wreckage of combat V-2s occasionally contained

14606-471: The rocket continued on a ballistic free-fall trajectory. The rocket reached a height of 80 km (50 mi) or 264,000 ft after shutting off the engine. The fuel and oxidizer pumps were driven by a steam turbine , and the steam was produced by concentrated hydrogen peroxide ( T-Stoff ) with sodium permanganate ( Z-Stoff ) catalyst . Both the alcohol and oxygen tanks were an aluminum-magnesium alloy. The turbopump , rotating at 4,000 rpm , forced

14740-419: The rocket was "V2", unhyphenated – exactly as used for any Third Reich-era "second prototype" example of an RLM-registered German aircraft design – but U.S. publications such as Life magazine were using the hyphenated form "V-2" as early as December 1944. The first successful test flight was on 3 October 1942, reaching an altitude of 84.5 kilometres (52.5 miles). On that day, Walter Dornberger declared in

14874-596: The rockets. The LXV Armeekorps z.b.V. formed during the last days of November 1943 in France commanded by General der Artillerie z.V. Erich Heinemann was responsible for the operational use of V-2. Three launch battalions were formed in late 1943, Artillerie Abteilung 836 (Mot.), Grossborn , Artillerie Abteilung 485 (Mot.), Naugard , and Artillerie Abteilung 962 ( Mot. ). Combat operations commenced in Sept. 1944, when training Batterie 444 deployed. On 2 September 1944,

15008-535: The settlement, including Dr. Thiel, his family, and Chief Engineer Walther. The Germans eventually moved production to the underground Mittelwerk in the Kohnstein where 5,200 V-2 rockets were built with the use of forced labour . After the Operation Crossbow bombing, initial plans for launching from the massive underground Watten , Wizernes and Sottevast bunkers or from fixed pads such as near

15142-401: The so-called 'tin trousers' – a tube designed to strengthen the forward end of the rocket cladding – reduced the likelihood of air bursts. On 27 March 1942, Dornberger proposed production plans and the building of a launching site on the Channel coast. In December, Speer ordered Major Thom and Dr. Steinhoff to reconnoitre the site near Watten. Assembly rooms were established at Peenemünde and in

15276-546: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,

15410-500: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in

15544-516: The time, Adolf Hitler was not particularly impressed by the V-2; he opined that it was merely an artillery shell with a longer range and much higher cost. During early September 1943, Braun promised the Long-Range Bombardment Commission that the A-4 development was "practically complete/concluded", but even by the middle of 1944, a complete A-4 parts list was still unavailable. Hitler was sufficiently impressed by

15678-428: The transponder for velocity and fuel cutoff. The painting of the operational V-2s was mostly a ragged-edged pattern with several variations, but at the end of the war a plain olive green rocket was also used. During tests the rocket was painted in a characteristic black-and-white chessboard pattern, which aided in determining if the rocket was spinning around its longitudinal axis. The original German designation of

15812-512: The war was 174.6 kilometres (108.5 miles) (20 June 1944). Test launches of V-2 rockets were made at Peenemünde, Blizna and Tuchola Forest , and after the war, at Cuxhaven by the British , White Sands Proving Grounds and Cape Canaveral by the U.S., and Kapustin Yar by the USSR. Various design issues were identified and solved during V-2 development and testing: Through mid-March 1944, only four of

15946-418: The war, British intelligence maintained the ruse by repeatedly sending bogus reports implying that these failed rockets were striking the British capital with heavy loss of life. At least one V-2 missile on a mobile Meillerwagen launch trailer was observed being elevated to launch position by a USAAF 4th Fighter Group pilot defending against the massive New Year's Day 1945 Operation Bodenplatte strike by

16080-765: The war, known as " CSDIC Camp 11", the British bugged Dornberger, who in conversation with Generalmajor Gerhard Bassenge (GOC Air Defences, Tunis & Biserta) said that he and Wernher von Braun had realized in late 1944 that things were going wrong and had consequently communicated with the General Electric Corporation through the German Embassy in Portugal , with the intent of coming to some arrangement. In mid-August 1945, after taking part in Operation Backfire , Dornberger

16214-413: The warhead was protected by a thick layer of glass wool , but even so it could still explode during the re-entry phase. The warhead weighed 975 kilograms (2,150 lb) and contained 910 kilograms (2,010 lb) of explosive. The warhead's percentage by weight that was explosive was 93%, a very great percentage when compared with other types of munition. A protective layer of glass wool was also used for

16348-555: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during

16482-600: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching

16616-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of

16750-415: Was achieved. Just before engine cutoff, thrust was reduced to eight tons, in an effort to avoid any water hammer problems a rapid cutoff could cause. Dr. Friedrich Kirchstein of Siemens of Berlin developed the V-2 radio control for motor-cut-off ( German : Brennschluss ). For velocity measurement, Professor Wolman of Dresden created an alternative of his Doppler tracking system in 1940–41, which used

16884-547: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially

17018-653: Was escorted from Cuxhaven to London for interrogation by the British War Crimes Investigation Unit in connection with the use of slave labour in the production of V-2 rockets; he was subsequently transferred and detained for two years at Bridgend in South Wales. Along with some other German rocket scientists, Dornberger was released and brought to the United States under the auspices of Operation Paperclip and worked for

17152-492: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which

17286-505: Was ever caught in action by Allied aircraft, during the Operation Bodenplatte attack on 1 January 1945 near Lochem by a USAAF 4th Fighter Group aircraft, although Raymond Baxter described flying over a site during a launch and his wingman firing at the missile without hitting it. It was estimated that a sustained rate of 350 V-2s could be launched per week, with 100 per day at maximum effort, given sufficient supply of

17420-693: Was highly influential on von Braun as a teenage space enthusiast. He was so enthusiastic after seeing one of the public Opel-RAK rocket car demonstrations, that he constructed and launched his own homemade toy rocket car in a crowded sidewalk and was later taken in for questioning by the local police, until released to his father for disciplinary action. Starting in 1930, von Braun attended the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin ), where he assisted Oberth in liquid-fueled rocket motor tests. Von Braun

17554-554: Was kept classified by the German Army and was not published until 1960. By the end of 1934, his group had successfully launched two rockets that reached heights of 2.2 and 3.5 km (1.4 and 2.2 mi). At the time, many Germans were interested in American physicist Robert H. Goddard 's research. Before 1939, German engineers and scientists occasionally contacted Goddard directly with technical questions. Von Braun used Goddard's plans from various journals and incorporated them into

17688-563: Was ordered c. 1938–39. During 28–30 September 1939, Der Tag der Weisheit (English: The Day of Wisdom ) conference met at Peenemünde to initiate the funding of university research to solve rocket problems. By late 1941, the Army Research Center at Peenemünde possessed the technologies essential to the success of the A-4. The four main technologies for the A-4 were large liquid-fuel rocket engines, supersonic aerodynamics, gyroscopic guidance and rudders in jet control. At

17822-430: Was then scaled up to a 4.5 ton motor by arranging three injection heads above the combustion chamber. By 1939, eighteen injection heads in two concentric circles at the head of the 3 mm (0.12 in) thick sheet-steel chamber, were used to make the 25 ton motor. The warhead was a source of trouble. The explosive used was amatol 60/40 detonated by an electric contact fuze . Amatol had the advantage of stability, and

17956-670: Was working on his doctorate when the Nazi Party gained power in Germany. An artillery captain, Walter Dornberger , arranged an Ordnance Department research grant for von Braun, who from then on worked next to Dornberger's existing solid-fuel rocket test site at Kummersdorf . Von Braun's thesis, Construction, Theoretical, and Experimental Solution to the Problem of the Liquid Propellant Rocket (dated 16 April 1934),

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