Reviews

Absorbing...This is a hard-hitting book, but is also a fair and scholarly one that does equal justice to all aspects of the German rocket program--technical, political, moral, and human. It bids fair to become the standard work on this subject for many years to come.--Richard J. Evans "New York Times Book Review "

One cannot study science and technology in the Third Reich without raising dangerous, difficult and important general questions about the relationship between knowledge and power, the moral responsibility of scientists and engineers, and the relationship between modernity and brutality...[Neufeld] has written the first complete history in English of the story of the German liquid-fuelled rocket programme...and does not shy away from these issues.--David Edgerton "Nature "

The German V-2 rockets that hit London in 1944 arrived silently, having covered 200 miles in five minutes. "The Rocket and the Reich,.".is the astonishing story of their development and how the Allies tried to kill the development teams and destroy the factories. It is a dispassionate account, but one that builds excitement and tension in the reader.

A truly remarkable, wonderful book. This history of German missile technology is a must...The author...has developed in a magnificent way the origins, motivations, technical development and advent of the German rockets...In a word, a very well written book.

Absorbing...This is a hard-hitting book, but is also a fair and scholarly one that does equal justice to all aspects of the German rocket program--technical, political, moral, and human. It bids fair to become the standard work on this subject for many years to come.--Richard J. Evans "New York Times Book Review "
One cannot study science and technology in the Third Reich without raising dangerous, difficult and important general questions about the relationship between knowledge and power, the moral responsibility of scientists and engineers, and the relationship between modernity and brutality...[Neufeld] has written the first complete history in English of the story of the German liquid-fuelled rocket programme...and does not shy away from these issues.--David Edgerton "Nature "
The German V-2 rockets that hit London in 1944 arrived silently, having covered 200 miles in five minutes. "The Rocket and the Reich,.".is the astonishing story of their development and how the Allies tried to kill the development teams and destroy the factories. It is a dispassionate account, but one that builds excitement and tension in the reader.
A truly remarkable, wonderful book. This history of German missile technology is a must...The author...has developed in a magnificent way the origins, motivations, technical development and advent of the German rockets...In a word, a very well written book.

Based on previously untapped sources, Neufeld's comprehensive history of German rocket research and development during WWII includes an analysis of Hitler's indirect involvement with the Peenemünde-based project and SS chief Heinrich Himmler's ultimate domination of it. The study reveals how the decision came about to use slave labor from the concentration camps to manufacture the terrifying ``buzz bombs'' that, according to Neufeld, had minimal effect on the course of the war. He presents solid evidence that the project's technical director-Wernher von Braun, who later headed NASA's rock booster program-was an SS officer, and describes his 1944 arrest accused of sabotaging the A-4 project by concentrating more on space flight than on his duties. Von Braun was freed after several days. The author discusses the postwar rebirth of the rocket program at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., where von Braun and several of his Peenemünde colleagues played a historic role in the development of the intercontinental ballistic missile and the space-launch vehicle. Neufeld, curator of WWII history at the National Air and Space Museum, has written a major study of the Nazi rocket program. Illustrations. (Nov.)