Home > Hans Kammler

General Dr Hans Friedrich Karl Franz Kammler ( August 26 1901 - April 1945) was an engineer and high-ranking officer of the SS. He oversaw SS construction projects, and towards the end of World War II was put in charge of the V-2 missile programme.

Kammler was born in Stettin and from 1919 to 1923 studied civil engineering in Munich and Gdansk. He joined the NSDAP in 1932 and held a variety of administrative positions when the Nazi government came to power, initially in the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM - Aviation Ministry). In 1940Events January-February January 5 FM radio is demonstrated to the FCC for the first time. January 6 World War II: Mass execution of Poles, committed by Germans in the Poznan, Warthegau. January 12 World War II: Russia bombs cities in Finland. February 2 F he joined the SS, where from 1942Events January January 1 World War II: The word " United Nations" is first officially used to describe the Allied pact. January 2 World War II: Manila is captured by Japanese forces. January 5 Amy Johnson disappears in flight over River Thames estuary ass he worked at designing facilities for the extermination campExtermination camp ( German Vernichtungslager was the term applied to a group of camps set up by Nazi Germany during World War II for the express purpose of killing the Jews of Europe, although members of some other groups whom the Nazis wished to extermis, including gas chamberA gas chamber is a means of execution whereby a poisonous gas is introduced into a hermetically sealed chamber. When the condemned breathes this gas, death follows. Gas chambers have been used for animal euthanasia in the past (along with vacuum chambers)s and crematoria. Following the Warsaw GhettoThe Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Jewish ghettos established by Nazi Germany in Poland during the Holocaust in World War II. In the three years of its existence, starvation, disease and relocations to concentration camps dropped the population of t Uprising in 19431943 is the common year starting on Friday. Events January January 4 End of term for Culbert Olson, 29th Governor of California. He is succeeded by Earl Warren. January 11 The United States and United Kingdom give up territorial rights in China. January 1, Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Himmler ( October 7, 1900 May 23, 1945) was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany. As Reichsfuhrer-SS, he led the Schutzstaffel and Gestapo and was put in charge of organizing the mass extermination of Jews and others in extermination camp assigned him to overseeing the demolition of the ghetto in retaliation.

Kammler was also charged with constructing facilities for various secret weapons projects, including manufacturing plants and test stands for the Messerschmitt Me 262 and V-2. Following the Allied bombing raids on Peenemünde in Operation Hydra on August 17 1943, Kammler was assigned to moving these production facilities underground, which resulted in the Mittelwerk facility and its attendant concentration camp complex, Mittelbau-Dora, which housed slave labour for constructing the factory and working on the production lines. He was also assigned to the construction of facilities at Jonastal and Riesengebirge for nuclear weapons research and at Ebensee to develop a V-2 derived ICBM.

In 1944, Himmler convinced Hitler to put the V-2 project directly under SS control, and on August 8 replaced Walter Dornberger with Kammler as its director. From March 1945, he was also put in charge of the jet fighter projects as these came under SS authority as well.

In April 1945, Kammler disappeared. It is generally believed that he was assassinated by a member of his staff, acting on orders from Himmler not to allow personnel with detailed knowledge of the rocket programme to fall into Allied hands. The fact that his exact fate is unknown and that his body was never recovered has provided material for conspiracy theorists to suggest that he continued his work in the United States after the war, where it is alleged he worked on anti-gravity devices. A recent (2001) book, The Hunt for Zero Point, written by Nick Cook, investigates the possibility that Kammler was brought to the United States along with many other German scientists as part of the program known as "Operation Paperclip."