Hitler's Secret Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Nazis' Plan for Final Victory by Michael FitzGerald

Author:Michael FitzGerald [FitzGerald, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: History
Publisher: Arcturus Publishing
Published: 2018-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

‘Flying discs’ photographed at Pontiac, Michigan in 1947. Were these aircraft somehow connected to the flying discs researched, developed and constructed by German scientists and engineers during the Third Reich?

Schriever–Habermohl project

The best-known flying disc project is generally known as the Schriever–Habermohl project. It is one of the best-documented ‘flying saucer’ stories under the Third Reich. Rudolf Schriever and Klaus Habermohl are said to have overseen the design of the discs. Work on the project began at Prague in 1941 and was originally under the control of the Luftwaffe, but it was later transferred to Albert Speer’s Armaments Ministry. Speer then put the engineer Georg Klein in overall charge and in 1944 it was transferred to the control of the SS. The common title for this series of experiments – the Schriever–Habermohl disc – is, however, inaccurate. The truth seems to be that Schriever and Habermohl worked separately on different flying disc projects.

There is disagreement over the degree of involvement the two men had in the design of the discs. Andreas Epp claimed that he devised the original design, but Schriever modified it in ways that harmed its performance. Epp stated that Habermohl’s disc followed his design more closely and was therefore more successful.174

In December 1965 Schriever was interviewed by Der Spiegel, when he claimed to have designed a vehicle powered by a circular plane of rotating turbine blades. The project was overseen by him at the BMW factory in Prague, he said, and continued until April 1945. According to Schriever he then escaped from Czechoslovakia and took his designs back with him to Germany. He continued working on his designs at a workshop in Bremerhaven-Lehe but then both his plans and a model of the device were stolen. Schriever said he believed that Czech agents had stolen them on behalf of ‘a foreign power’, presumably the Soviet Union.175

One problem with Schriever’s account is that he told a different story to Der Spiegel in October 1952, claiming that his plans were stolen from him on 14 May 1945 at a farm in Rogen, where he was hiding out. One consistent aspect of Schriever’s story, though, is that he never claimed his disc flew. An article in Luftfahrt International in May–June 1975 entitled ‘Deutsche Flugkreisel’ (German flying spinning top – the literal meaning is ‘roundabout’), created a further layer of confusion. This claimed that Schriever died during the late 1950s, a statement that is obviously incorrect since Der Spiegel interviewed him in December 1965. Luftfahrt International also declared that on his death papers were discovered, including notes for a flying saucer, designs of the machine and various newspaper clippings about himself and his saucer. The magazine printed what it described as ‘reproductions’ of the designs, none of which seem technically plausible. It seems safe to regard this article as an exercise in sensational journalism rather than a serious account of a project at the frontiers of aeronautical science.

Epp claimed that his design was the basis for two ‘saucer’ projects. His original idea

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