Walter Dornberger
From Turtledove
| Walter Dornberg | |
| |
| Historical Figure | |
| Timeline: | OTL |
| Nationality: | Germany, later United States |
| Date of Birth: | 1895 |
| Date of Death: | 1980 |
| Cause of Death: | Natural Causes |
| Occupation: | Scientist |
| Affiliations: | Nazi Party, Bell Aircraft Corporation |
| Timeline: | Worldwar |
| Occupation: | Scientist, Commander of the Reich Rocket Force, Chancellor and Führer of the German Reich |
Major-General Dr. Walter Robert Dornberger (1895-1980) was a German Army artillery officer whose career spanned World Wars I and II. He was a leader of Germany's V2 rocket program and other projects at the Peenemünde Army Research Center.
Walter Dornberger in Worldwar
Walter Dornberger was a general in the Luftwaffe in World War II and the father of German rocketry. He designed the V2 Rocket, which was used against the Race late in the war touched off by their invasion of Earth in 1942.
Following the war, Dornberger became commander of the Reich Rocket Force. He was not a supporter of the Nazi Party and was especially unhappy with his country's genocide against the Jews. He supported one of his astronauts, Johannes Drucker, when Drucker's wife was accused of having a Jewish grandmother in 1962.
In 1965, Dornberger disagreed with the decision of the new Chancellor, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, to fullfill his predecessor Heinrich Himmler's plan to provoke a war with the Race by invading Poland. During the ensuing Race-German War of 1965, Dornberger did his duty as a German general as best he could, with no hope of victory.
When Kaltenbrunner and everyone else senior to Dornberger were killed, Dornberger assumed the office of Chancellor and ordered Paul Schmidt, the German ambassador to the Soviet Union, to ask Soviet General Secretary Vyacheslav Molotov to mediate a peace settlement with the Race. Dornberger's leadership of Germany's postwar reconstruction was skillful in the extreme: he satisfied the Race that Germany was complying with the arms limitations and other harsh terms the Race had set while secretly stockpiling atomic bombs and rocket technology. Within a few decades of the war's end Germany was once again able to threaten the Race.
Dornberger also loosened the oppressive policies of his Nazi predecessors. Symbolic of this was his granting of an audience to Jewish militia leader Mordechai Anielewicz.
| Office | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Ernst Kaltenbrunner | Chancellor of Germany (Worldwar) 1966-???? | Succeeded by unknown |
| Office | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by none | Head of Reich Rocket Force 1942-1966 | Succeeded by Johannes Drucker (after a vacancy) |
