L'arme secrète de Peenemünde
Les fusées V 2 et la conquête de l'espace
Memoirs of engineer-general Walter Dornberger, who from 1932 to 1945 directed the German military rocket programme, from the first trials at Kummersdorf to the industrialisation of the V-2 at Peenemünde and the underground Mittelwerk facility. A chronological account of technical milestones, political arbitrations and tensions between the Army Weapons Office, the Nazi Party and the SS, organised around the major dates of the programme, the first flight beyond the sound barrier on 3 October 1942, the British raid on Peenemünde in August 1943, and operational launches against London and Antwerp in 1944. The French translation, published by Arthaud in 1954 with a preface by Jacques Bergier and seventeen plates of heliogravures, appeared at a moment when France was discovering German military astronautics through the first accounts of its surviving actors.