Nazi SS General Hans Kammler was in charge of Hitler’s advanced weapons from 1944 onward including the Me-262 jets, V-2 rockets, and more exotic weaponry. After WW2 he “disappeared” as in off the face of the planet! No one is quite sure just what happened to him but neither he nor his remains have ever been found anywhere on the planet. Theories about what happened to him range from suicide to escaping to Argentina, hiding out at a secret Nazi base in Antarctica, to using the Nazi Bell to get to another planet. Some theories suggest that he may have been part of the US Operation Paperclick which brought Nazi scientists to the US after the war such as Werner von Braun. I’ll address these theories later but for now let’s take a look at just who Kammler was.
Kammler was a long-time Nazi. He rose through the ranks and ended up in the Office of
Economics and Administration (WVHA) of the SS. In that position he was placed in charge of designing and constructing concentration camps and, indeed, that’s how he first came to the attention of Hitler and Goering. Kammler had hand drawn plans for an extermination camp and those plans were shown to Hitler and Goering who ordered him to build it. And he did. Kammler was a university educated engineer and he joined the SS in 1942. He was placed in charge of designing extermination camps including gas chambers and crematoria. He later became a deputy of Oswald Pohl in the WVHA which oversaw the administration of the death camps. Following the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 Kammler was put in charge of overseeing the demolition of the ghetto in retaliation toward the Jewish people there for their uprising.
Kammler was also put in charge of constructing facilities for various Nazi secret weapons projects which included manufacturing plants and test stands for the Messerschmitt Me 262 and V-2. After the allies bombed Peenemunde, Kammler was given the task of moving this weapons production plant underground. The facility then became known as the Mittewerk plant which also contained a concentration camp complex for housing slave labor used for production and construction. Kammler also designed and constructed the facilities at Jonastal and Riesengebirge used for nuclear weapons research and the facility at Ebenee used to develop a reported V-2 being modified into an ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) which would have been able to reach the United States.
In 1945 Hitler put Kammler in charge of all missile projects and a month later he was placed in charge of all Nazi aerospace programs as well. Kammler was one of the main players who made the Holocaust possible and he was also one of the main players who made Nazi Super-weapons possible. Kammler was also the man who designed and oversaw the construction of the massive gas chambers at the Nazi death camp known as Auschwitz.
One might say Kammler was the SS version of Albert Speer! Kammler was known to be a somewhat ruthless and
highly ambitious man eager to get to the center of Nazi power. He was along with Himmler (chief of the SS) when Himmler visited Auschwitz in 1942. He was the man who explained to the SS Chief how the death camp would be expanded and how gas chambers at neighboring camps would also be expanded. It was perhaps during that visit that Kammler learned rather quickly that Himmler was not a man who liked to be bothered by difficulties but one who wanted “positive and optimistic” reports. In April of 1945 Hitler considered making Kammler head of the Luftwaffe (Nazi air force) but there was one problem. By 24 April 1945 SS General Hans Kammler had already disappeared and was nowhere to be found!!
Kammler had a reputation among the scientists working under him for being somewhat ruthless, to say the least. Nazi rocket scientists like Werner von Braun were thrilled when Kammler disappeared but they worried that Kammler might be up to something sinister. They even thought at one point Kammler was going to have them all executed so they wouldn’t be captured by Allied Forces! Let’s face it….the Nazi scientists feared Kammler and they knew well how evil he could be! Continue Reading