Fire in the clouds
West Germany. Ravensburg. The usual sitting of the city court is going on …
To testify, the accused is called - Professor, Doctor of Sciences Hans Erhard. Then the verdict is announced: two years six months in prison. Basis for the verdict: evasion of payment of alimony and adventurous falsification. According to the conclusion of the forensic psychiatrist, in this case it was a question of "a person with a very mediocre intellect, an exorbitant desire to assert himself and with a pathological inclination to lie."
How could it happen that the venerable professor landed in the dock?
Let's start with the fact that the defendant turned out to be simply a swindler: firstly, he is not a professor at all, secondly, not a doctor of sciences and, thirdly, not even Hans Erhard. Johannes Engelke's dizzying career began allegedly with the fact that he offered SS Reichsfuehrer Himmler a way to destroy enemy bombers. The essence of the invention was as follows: incredibly large clouds of crushed coal are shot into the air, after which the clouds are set on fire by a rocket. False Erhard vowed before the court that on April 1, 1945, such a "cloud fire" destroyed 36 British bombers.
Wernher von Braun and Wehrmacht officers attend rocket tests. Peenemünde, 1944
When fascism in Germany came to an end, the "inventor" did not suffer at all. On the contrary, Engelke is only now taking off. While in the internment camp, he enters into relations with the American secret service and impersonates the patent holder "A method of obtaining heavy water for atomic research." A few months later, the Americans let Engelke go on all four sides. Now he is no longer just an "inventor", but also a "professor" and a "doctor of sciences." The newly minted priest of science goes on a tour of England. Later he ends up in Switzerland, where he is interested in the relevant firms with his proposal to organize the country's defense using death rays. In Italy, he surprised the world with the announcement that he had invented the water engine, which should de-facto supplant the gasoline engine and thus ensure the collapse of the oil companies. So the enterprising businessman traveled around the European capitals, concluding contracts here and there, from which he was very far from fulfilling.
This is not to say that this adventurer did not have his own method and his own system. As a rule, the "talented inventor" was a regular guest in the reception rooms of those institutions that dealt with the supply of weapons. In this area, he felt like a fish in water. It is not for nothing that the organ of the West German military, Deutsche Soldaten Zeitung, came out in its time with a series of articles in which Erhard was declared the arbiter of destinies, the steward of the life and death of millions of people.
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Zeppelin vs radar
The fanning of the myth about the “miracle weapon” saving Germany began long before the last stage of the Second World War. Arrogance and a complete lack of a sober view of reality have always been characteristic of the fascist general staff.
In the spring of 1939, the German secret service received a report that a system of defense measures was being developed in England, according to which fascist aircraft should be intercepted and destroyed in the air long before approaching the coast of Great Britain. Obviously, it was about radars. Goering immediately issued an order: allocate one zeppelin and instruct the airship commander to cruise in the skies over the Baltic Sea for several days; equip the airship with radio equipment in order to detect the enemy's radar installations. Upon the return of the zeppelin to Goering, it was reported that no traces of radar signaling were found. Paradoxically, it never occurred to anyone that the British installations were immediately turned off, as soon as the slowly flying reconnaissance aircraft approached the radar visibility zone. Imagine the amazement of the would-be strategists when it was subsequently revealedthat there are twenty radar installations on the coast of England!
Recruiting poster of the SS troops. The call on the poster reads: “The only goal is Victory! Worker, the SS troops are calling you. Please respond immediately! ”
In the spring of 1943, Reich Minister of Arms and Armaments Speer declared: “Technical superiority will ensure a speedy victory for us. The protracted war will be won by the wunderwaffe. The Reichsminister hinted that the miracle weapon is about to leave the testing stage and then …
The man who stopped the tram
What was Speer hinting at in his statement? The highly classified research that has been conducted since 1941 in the Buchenwald extermination camp.
In Buchenwald, there was an independent team of electricians, numbering about one hundred prisoners, overseen by several lower ranks of the SS. During the events described, the team was located in one of the barracks, which did not differ much from the others: it was about forty in length and about nine meters in width.
One day, camp electricians were ordered to re-equip their barracks. A wall was erected inside it; all doors were walled up; immediately behind the department of radio technicians and professional telephone operators, a board fence was put together. Thus, only one access was provided to the working space - from the street. Only the camp commandants and the SS commander could enter here. One of the prisoners settled in the new laboratory - a certain Blau. He had to develop a secret invention he made several years ago. From now on, all contacts with Blau were strictly classified. Only one person - an experienced electrician Armin Walter - was charged with the obligation to provide the inventor with all kinds of support and assistance. Before giving this assignment, the camp commandant told Walter: “You are, of course, a hefty fool, but remember,that Blau had invented double beams and with these beams stopped the tram!"
Who was this miracle worker from Blau's technique?
According to Blau himself, he was an important person in the lists of military officials of the "Third Reich", but he was convicted of some fraud and ended up in Buchenwald.
Since the founding of the laboratory, Blau has set the stage on a grand scale. Soon the room was littered with rheostats, ammeters, capacitors, coils of wire, transformers, radio tubes, etc.
Once Walter was summoned to Blau. In front of the barracks he saw a huge planked X-ray lamp, two meters across. It was clear from the technical documentation accompanying the shipment that the giantess lamp had been hastily manufactured by Siemens. Several other huge boxes contained transformers of inconceivable dimensions. A few days after installing the lamp and transformers, Walter discovered that the inventor was introducing some innovations in this equipment …
Buchenwald. On the gate is the famous inscription “ Jedem das Seine - To each his own ”.
Somewhat later, Blau said that in order to increase the efficiency of reflection of the "double XX rays", it was necessary to lay a cable of silver and copper in the ground around the hut. Within a day, this idea was also implemented.
On another occasion, Blau demanded a substantial portion of monolithic sand from Sweden. A special SS courier was immediately dispatched directly from Berlin to Stockholm. The Nazis did not spare their forces and resources in order to get the long-awaited weapon.
Sparks, lightning, funny lights …
This strange "wonder weapon" had an equally strange principle of operation. “Modulation scheme of inclusion in a permanent ultrashort-wave magnetic field with remote control by wireless telegraphy and remote pulses. Modulation of terrestrial magnetism with a force linear field of synchronous magnetic collection by means of the so-called eddy current effect, in order to generate delta-magnetic beams, "the wunderwaffe indicated on the diagram. Any more or less competent engineer will just shrug his shoulders, having familiarized himself with such a "delta-magnetic" gibberish. How could it have happened that until the very end of the war, Blau managed to fool everyone and everything?
Another example of Nazi propaganda. The poster states: “The youth serve the Fuehrer. All ten years should be in the ranks of the Hitler Youth.
After the first bomb strikes - raids on the cities of Germany - every next experience of the inventor took place with a large concentration of high-ranking officials interested in the early success of the "wunderwaffe".
Here is the story of one of the eyewitnesses: “I saw SS generals and Gruppenführer in the retinue of those invited. There were also people in civilian clothes - probably the luminaries of science: the bonzes from the SS obligingly accompanied them to the laboratory, where they listened attentively to what the inventor was telling them at length and not without aplomb. Such chaos reigned in the experimental room that it was impossible to step even a step so as not to stumble upon some outlandish device. There were especially many electrical panels. When Blau turned on the equipment, it felt like your head had been thrust into a stream of sparks. Lightning flashed all around, relays crackled, fluorescence was suddenly blinding.
Especially memorable are two tricks that the inventor demonstrated in front of his retinue. An ordinary electric lamp with a tin holder hung from an iron nail driven into the ceiling. The equipment has just stopped rumbling, the fireworks have died out. Blau took one (!) Of the wires at the output of the transmitter and touched the tin holder with it - the bulb lit up with a dazzling light. The amazement of those present was great, for the trick just done demonstrated the principle of operation of the "double XX rays". According to Blau, instead of igniting the lamp, the following effect was to be provided: the earth's gravity field was disturbed around the enemy's aircraft, and, thus, whole armada of bombers had to fall to the ground. However, Blau "forgot" to explain to the guests the true secret of this trick:a few days before the performance, he led a cleverly disguised wire to a nail, which was connected to a different phase.
On another occasion, Blau demonstrated his skill as a magician in such a spectacular way: having previously turned on the receiver at full power, after several manipulations at the remote control he muted the radio transmission. At the same time, unnoticed by high-ranking guests, of whom few could even think about possible cheating, he thrust an iron rod into one of the capacitor coils; the coil, in turn, was installed on a branch of the antenna drive. An inductive barrier in the antenna circuit was, of course, the reason that the receiver suddenly fell silent. Nevertheless, the fact of some kind of remote action of "double XX-rays" was demonstrated in one way or another, and the charlatan could calmly continue his activity.
Now it is possible to answer the question - how could it happen that those invited to the test demonstration could not expose the charlatan on the spot? In all likelihood, not a single idea, not a single technical trick at that time seemed so extravagant that it was impossible to grab hold of them as the last hope to escape from the relentlessly impending collapse - the defeat of Nazi Germany.
The work connected with the invention of the "double XX rays" was under the jurisdiction of the higher authorities of the SS. The SS men intended, using the "wunderwaffe", to radically change the course of hostilities. Which expert could risk in such a situation declaring the inventor of the "wunderwaffe" a fraud? To do this, it was necessary to put one's life on the line, for such a statement deprived the fascists of their last hope.
The saying goes: two boots are a pair. In this sense, the connection between the charlatan Blau and the charlatan Erhard-Engelke is fully clarified. German militarism was not very picky about the means when it came to opportunities that promise superiority over the enemy.
Nikolay Grechanik