page_title: List of German inventions and discoveries
section_title: Military and (chemical) weapons
hierarchical_section_title: List of German inventions and discoveries / Military and (chemical) weapons
caption_attribution_description: English: Bergmann MP 18.1 First submachine gun used in combat during WW1, precursor to all modern submachine guns
context_page_description: German inventions and discoveries are ideas, objects, processes or techniques invented, innovated or discovered, partially or entirely, in Germany or abroad by a person from Germany. Often, things discovered for the first time are also called inventions and in many cases, there is no clear line between the two.
  Germany has been the home of many famous inventors, discoverers and engineers, including Carl von Linde, who developed the modern refrigerator; Paul Nipkow, who laid the foundation of the television with his Nipkow disk; Hans Geiger, the creator of the Geiger counter; and Konrad Zuse, who built the first fully automatic digital computer and the first commercial digital computer. Such German inventors, engineers and industrialists as Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, Otto Lilienthal, Gottlieb Daimler, Rudolf Diesel, Hugo Junkers and Karl Benz helped shape modern automotive and air transportation technology. Aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun developed the first space rocket at Peenemünde and later on was a prominent member of NASA and developed the Saturn V Moon rocket.
context_section_description: 1498: Barrel rifling in Augsburg
  1836: Dreyse needle gun by Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse
  1842: Pickelhaube by King Frederick William IV of Prussia
  1901: Modern flamethrower by Richard Fiedler
  1916: First anti-tank grenade
  1916: Stahlhelm by Dr. Friedrich Schwerd
  1918: First anti-tank rifle (Mauser 1918 T-Gewehr) by Mauser
  1918: First practical submachine gun (MP 18) by Theodor Bergmann
  1920s: Creation of Zyklon B by Walter Heerdt and Bruno Tesch at Degesch
  1935: Flecktarn by Johann Georg Otto Schick
  1935–37: Jerrycan by Müller & Co in Schwelm
  1936: The first ever nerve agent, tabun, by Gerhard Schrader (IG Farben) in Leverkusen
  1938: The nerve agent sarin by IG Farben in Wuppertal-Elberfeld
  1939: Warfare method of blitzkrieg by i.a. Heinz Guderian
  1941: The only rocket-powered fighter aircraft ever to have been operational and the first piloted aircraft of any type to exceed 1000 km/h (621 mph) in level flight, the Messerschmitt Me 163, by Alexander Lippisch.
  1942: First modern assault rifle (StG 44) by Hugo Schmeisser
  1943: First aviation unit (Kampfgeschwader 100) to use precision-guided munition
  c. 1944: First anti-tank missile (the X-7)
  1944: First operational cruise missile (V-1 flying bomb) by Robert Lusser at Fieseler
  1944: A modern pioneer and the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile (V-2 rocket) under the direction of Wernher von Braun
  1944: The nerve agent soman by Konrad Henkel in Heidelberg
caption: MP 18
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