num_pages: 384
description: Launched by the Third Reich in late 1944, the first ballistic missile, the V-2, fell on London, Paris, and Antwerp after covering nearly two hundred miles in five minutes. The design and construction of this daring and deadly advance in weaponry took place at the German rocket development center at Peenemunde, a remote island off the Baltic Coast. Now, Michael J. Neufeld gives the first comprehensive and accurate account of the story behind one of the greatest engineering feats of World War II. At a time when rockets were minor battlefield weapons, Germany ushered in a new form of warfare that would bequeath a long legacy of terror to the Cold War era and a tactical legacy that remains essential today. Both democracy's and communism's ballistic missile and space programs, as well as the SCUD and Patriot missiles of the Gulf War, began in the service of the Nazi State.
language: English
title: The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missle Era
titlecomplete: The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missle Era
genres: Military History, Technology, History, Science, World War II, Space, Nonfiction, Military Fiction
ratings_count: 73
awards: awardedAt: 852105600000
name: Edelstein Prize
publisher: Harvard University Press