Hitlers Missiles: the Aggregate Rocket Program

During WWI the Germans used rockets solely for illumination or signal purposes. Those rockets were exclusively solid fuel. In the interwar period, army ordnance section one had a renewed interest in rocketry with innovations in the field of solid fuels and smokeless powder. The expressed interest was in using solid fuel rockets to launch poison gas attacks against the enemy. A much greater reality came to the Germans with the advancement of liquid fueled missiles. Although rockets were overlooked in the Treaty of Versailles as a weapon that was to be limited, they were still developed in absolute secrecy. It was this secrecy that further caused the fall of the British and French morale. The young Wernher von Braun, along with Johannes Winkler, played a key role in the development of these "aggregate" rockets.…