In addition to von Braun’s recent promotion to head of the Mittelbau-Dora Planning Office, he was also promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer, or SS major. One of the benefits that came with this position was a chauffeur-driven car to shuttle von Braun back and forth between Nordhausen and Berlin. It was in the backseat of this car on the night of March 12, 1945, that von Braun was nearly killed. As his car was speeding down the autobahn headed for Berlin, his driver nodded off at the wheel. The car veered off the road and hurtled down a forty-foot embankment until it crashed on its side near a railroad track. The driver was knocked unconscious. Von Braun broke his arm. Both men lay bleeding in the cold, dark night when two of von Braun’s colleagues from Nordhausen, facilities designer Bernhard Tessmann and architect Hannes Lührsen, happened to drive by and spot the smashed-up car. They called for a military ambulance, which came to the scene and transported von Braun and his driver to a hospital.
While recuperating, von Braun received a visit from his personal aide, Dieter Huzel, and Bernhard Tessmann, one of the two men who had saved von Braun’s life. Tessmann and Huzel told von Braun that the arrival of the U.S. Army was imminent. Any day now, they said, V-2 operations would cease. Word was going around that every man not considered a valuable scientist was going to be assigned to an infantry unit, handed a weapon, and ordered to fight the Americans on the front lines.
Von Braun was now ready to concede that Germany would lose the war. What he was unwilling to do was relinquish his career. He needed a bargaining chip to use against the Americans after he was captured. Von Braun told Tessmann and Huzel where he kept the most valuable classified V-2 documents. Because von Braun was bedridden, he needed his two subordinates to crate up these documents and hide them in a remote, secure place where the Allies would never find them on their own. Von Braun told Tessmann and Huzel that if they could do this they would be included in von Braun’s future negotiations with the Allies. General Dornberger would also be part of the team. Von Braun told Tessmann and Huzel that he would personally bring the general up to speed.
Mittelwerk laborers continued to produce missiles until the end of March. The last V-2s were fired on March 27 and the last V-1s were fired the following day. On April 1, Dornberger received an order from SS-General Kammler demanding that Dornberger evacuate his staff from the Mittelwerk at once. Kammler had selected five hundred key scientists and engineers who were to board his private train car, parked in Bleicherode and nicknamed the Vengeance Express, and then travel four hundred miles south into the Bavarian Alps to hide out. Huzel and Tessmann were on Kammler’s list, but after colluding with General Dornberger they were able to stay behind to complete the document stash. Von Braun, still requiring medical attention and encumbered by a heavy cast, was taken to the Alps in a private car. Dornberger and his staff drove themselves, fleeing the Harz in a small convoy.
When night fell on D?rnten, a small mining community at the northern edge of the Harz, the village was in a blackout. The local gauleiters (Nazi Party district leaders) had ordered villagers to shutter their windows, turn off the lights, and stay home. It was April 4, 1945, and American forces were reportedly camped out just thirty miles to the west. The village’s cobblestone streets were empty, save a lone truck driving slowly with its lights off, navigating by the moon. In the front seat sat Tessmann and Huzel. In the back of the truck were seven German soldiers wearing blindfolds. Also in the truck were dozens of crates filled with classified V-2 information.
The truck passed through town and headed up a winding rural road leading into the mouth of an abandoned mine. Huzel and Tessmann parked the truck and shook hands with the caretaker, Herr Nebelung, a loyal Nazi, who sold the two engineers space in a large antechamber in the back of the D?rnten mine. The seven soldiers were told it was okay to take off their blindfolds now and get to work.
The group unloaded the crates, placed them onto flatcars, and oversaw them as they were driven down a long tunnel by an electric-battery-powered locomotive. At the end of the tunnel, behind an iron door, was a small, dry room. The crates of V-2 documents were packed inside, the door shut and locked. Outside, a soldier lit a stick of dynamite in front of the doorway to create a huge pile of rubble and keep the important Nazi documents hidden from the outside world.
Huzel and Tessmann had sworn not to tell anyone what they’d done, but just as they were leaving for Bavaria to rendezvous with Dornberger and von Braun, the two men decided to make an exception. Karl Otto Fleischer had served as the army’s business manager for the Mittelwerk slave labor enterprise. Fleischer’s name was not on General Kammler’s list, and he’d gone home to his house in Nordhausen to blend in. Karl Fleischer was a loyal Nazi who reported directly to General Dornberger during V-2 production, and Huzel and Tessmann believed Fleischer would keep their secret safe. Fleischer was local. He could keep an eye on things and monitor if anyone started poking around the D?rnten mine. Huzel and Tessmann told Karl Fleischer about the secret location of the V-2 document stash, and with the U.S. Army just a few days outside Nordhausen, Huzel and Tessmann sped away.
CHAPTER THREE
The Hunters and the Hunted