There is no question that the Germans produced a number of scientific breakthroughs in their quest for war technology during World War II. The V-1 buzz bombs--a forunner of today's cruise missles--and the V-2 rockets that terrorized London are two of the most famous examples, along with the Messerschmitt 262, the world's first operational jet fighter.
A respectful British historian Barre Pitt noted, "The Nazi war machine swung into action utilizing as much as it could of the most up-to-date scientific knowledge available, and as the war developed the list of further achievements grew to staggering proportions. From guns firing "shells of air to detailed discussions of flying saucers, from beams of sound that were fatal to a man at 50 yards to guns that fired around corners and others that could 'see in the dark'--the list is awe-inspiring in its variety."
While some German technology was less developed than imagined at the time, some technologies were dangerously near to completion stage which could have reversed the war's outcome. Secret German weapons nearing completion in 1945 included the Messerschmitt 163 Komet and the vertically launched Natter rocket fighters, the jet-powered flying wing Horten Ho-IX and the delta-winged Lippisch DM 1. Another secret weapon that might account for some of the "foo-fighter" reports was an antiradar, unmanned device called the Fuerball or Fire Ball. Piloted by remote control, the Fire Ball was designed to interfere with the ignition systems and radar operation of Allied bombers. According to author Renato Vesco, the Fuerball was "a highly original flying machine." It was circular and armored, resembling a tortoise shell, and was powered by a special turbojet engine, whose principles of operation, generated a great halo of luminous flames, Radio controlled at the moment of take-off, it then automatically followed enemy aircraft, attracted by their exhaust flames, and approached close enough without collision to wreck their radar gear.
Vesco claimed that the basic principles of the Fuerball were later applied to a "symmetrical circular aircraft" known as the Kugelblitz, or Ball Lightning, automatic fighter. He said this innovative craft was destroyed after a "single lucky wartime mission" by retreating SS (Schutzstuffel) or Defense Force troops and later kept secret from the Americans and Russians by the British military, who captured plans for the craft.
British author W. A. Harbinson wrote two novels based on the idea that the Nazis developed a flying saucer and secreted them away after the war in a hidden base in Antarctica. He claimed that he got his ideas after discovering postwar German articles concerning a formaer Luftwaffe engineer, Flugkapitan Rudolph Schriever. According to articles gleaned from Der Spiegel, Bild am Sonntag, Luftfabert International, and other German publications. Harbinson learned that Schriever claimed to have designed a "flying top" prototype in 1941, which was test-flown in June 1942. In 1944, Schriever said he constructed a larger jet version of his circular craft with the help of scientists Klaus Habermohl, Otto Miethe, and an Italian, Dr. Giuseppe Belluzzo. Drawings of this saucer were published in the 1959 british book German Secret weapons of the second world War by Maj. Rudolph Lusar.
Lusar described the saucer as a ring of separate disks carrying adjustable jets rotating around a fixed cockpit. The entire craft had a height of 105 feet and could fly vertically or horizontally, depending on the positioning of the jets.
Schriever claimed that his "flying disc" had been ready for testing in early 1944 according to the novelist Harbinson. But with the advance of the allies into Germany, the test had been canceled, the machine destroyed, and Schriever's designs either mislaid or stolen. However. Schriever's story is disputed by an alleged eyewitness Georg Klein, who claimed that he had actually seen the test flight of the Schriever disc on February 14, 1945.
Schriever is reported to have dies in the late 1950s, and according to a 1975 issue of Luftfahrt International, notes and sketches concerning a large flying saucer were found in his effects. The periodical also stated that Schriever maintained until his death that his original saucer concept must have been operational prior to the war's end. This possibility is aknowledged by British author Brian Ford.
Another candidate for an inventor of a German UFO was the Austrian inventor Viktor Schauberger, who reportedly was kidnapped by the Nazis and was forced to design a number of "flying discs" in 1940 using a flameless and smokeless form of electromagnetic propulsion called "diamagnetism." Schauberger also reportedly worked for the US govenment for a short time after the war before dying of natural causes. Shortly before his death, he was quoted as saying, "They took everything from me. Everything." No one knew for certain who he meant--the Nazis or the Allies.
While any number of books have strongly suggested that The Nazi hierarchy was involved in occult practices, there is no question that the Germans were experimenting with a wide variety of innovative aircraft and propulsion systems toward the end of the war. There is little doubt that they at least contemplated building a flying saucer. There are tantalizing bits of evidence that Nazi Germany indeed added a flying disc to its inventory of secret weapons. However, there is no indication of what became of it.
The solution to this puzzle might be found by studying the man in charge of Germany's high-tech weapons programs--SS Obergruppenfuhrer Dr. Hans Kammler. In mid-1943, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler sent a letter to Germany's minister for armaments and munitions, Albert Speer.
According to Speer, Kammler worked his way into all phases of the V-2 program until Hitler finally put him in charge of all air armaments, including any possible secret saucer project. He became commissioner general for all important weapons just weeks before the end of the war. As the war drew to a close, Himmler's SS gradually assumed total control over Germany's weaponry production and research.
Working closely with Kammler on the V-2 project were Werner von Braun, who after the war headed America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and his superior, Lufftwaffe Maj. Gen. Walter Dornberger, who later became vice-president of Bell Aircraft Company and of Bell Aerosystems Company in the United States.
Alarmed by the progress on the V-2 rockets, Britain's Bomber command sent 597 bombers on the night of August 16-17, 1943, to raid Peenemunde--Germany's top-secret rocket facility built on an island at the mouth of the Oder River near the border of Germany and Poland. Because so much of Peenemunde was underground or well camouflaged, much was left undamaged. After the raid, it was quickly realized by the Germans that some of the facilty needed to be dispersed throughout Germany. Theoretical development moved to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, development went to Nordhausen and Bleicherode, and the main wind-tunnel and ancillary equipment went down to Kochel, some twenty miles south of Munich. It can be noted that a certain portion of top-secret Nazi weaponry was moved to an area near Blizna, Poland.
As Kammler, von Braun, Dornberger, and company worked fevershly to perfect the V-2s and other secret weapons, Himmler was working on separating his SS from normal party and state control. In the spring of 1944 Hitler approved Himmler's proposal to build an SS-owned industrial concern in order to make the SS permantly independent of the state budget.
In moves that were to be emulated in later years by the Central Intelligence Agency, SS leaders created a numbser of business fronts and other organizations--many using concentration-camp labor--with an eye toward producing revenue to support SS activities. SS officers neither required nor desired any connection with Germany's high-profile leaders. Their purpose was to continue Nazi goals long after the defeat of Germany.