A technician is photographed making last-minute adjustments to the guidance system prior to launching an A4 rocket, which has been brought to the vertical position by the mobile erector.

In the aftermath of the defeat of 1918, Germany was severely limited in terms of the weapons she could possess. As we noted earlier, there was a large-scale campaign to circumvent the restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles by establishing development programmes abroad, but there were other avenues open, too; for instance, as early as 1929, the Heereswaffenamt began to look into rocketry as an alternative to long-range artillery, and set up a trials and proving ground about 32km (20 miles) south of Berlin at Kummersdorf. Captain Walter Dornberger, a professional soldier who had been sent by the Army to the School of Technology at Charlottenberg, and had earned an MA in ballistics there, was put in charge of the project in 1930 under the HWA’s head, Karl Becker, himself very enthusiastic.

In 1927, a group of keen amateurs, centred on Hermann Oberth, author of Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space), published in 1923, formed the Society for Space Travel, the Verein für Raumschiffahrt. They began to experiment with rocket motors, and were funded initially by Fritz von Opel (who, we may recall, had commissioned a rocket-powered glider from Alexander Lippisch, and had also built a rocket-assisted car, the RAK 2), and funded latterly by a 10,000-franc prize Oberth won in 1929 for his book Wege zur Raumschiffahrt (Ways to Spaceflight). In 1930, a promising student named Wernher von Braun joined the Society and the following year, they successfully flew a small rocket fuelled by liquid oxygen and petrol. By then, funds were running short, but fortuitously, the Society was approached by Dornberger, who arranged for them to receive a series of small grants. In 1932, von Braun, just graduated from the Berlin Technical Institute with a BSc in mechanical engineering, went to work at Kummersdorf and by December 1934, his group had launched two liquid-oxygen- and alcohol-fuelled rockets, designated A2, which had reached altitudes of over 2500m (8200ft).

In 1935, work started on a new rocket, the A3, which weighed 750kg (16551b) and stood 7.6m (25ft) tall. It, too, was fuelled by A-Stoff (liquid oxygen, at -183 degrees C) and M-Stoff (methyl alcohol, or methanol), but this time the motor produced 1500kg (33001b) of thrust for 45 seconds instead of the 300kg (6601b) for 16 seconds of the A2. More important, perhaps, was the new method of stabilisation which von Braun’s team devised. Whereas the A2 was stabilised by its centre section being spun by an electric motor to create a gyroscopic effect, the A3 would have small molybdenum ‘rudders’ (more accurately, vanes) acting to deflect a portion of the exhaust stream under the control of gyroscopes. The A3 also had four rudimentary tail fins, though these hardly extended outside the diameter of the body. Its payload consisted of an instrumentation package, and it was to return to earth on a parachute. The first A3 launch took place on 6 December 1937 from the island of Greifswalder Oie, off the Baltic coast. The new stabilisers worked, but other elements of the design, in particular the overall aerodynamics, were faulty, and the rocket was never entirely a success, although three examples were launched.