Walter Dornberger oversaw 20,000 prisoner deaths building a rocket — then America gave him a de

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Walter Dornberger oversaw 20,000 prisoner deaths building a rocket, then America gave him a desk job.

[00:00:06]In 1943, deep inside Mittelwerk, a factory carved into a mountain in central Germany, the SS ran an underground assembly line for the V-2 ballistic missile.

[00:00:16]Prisoners [music] from Dora concentration camp worked in shifts around the clock. The conditions were designed to use them up. Around 20,000 of them didn't make it.

[00:00:24]>> [music] >> Dornberger was the commanding general.

[00:00:25]He knew.

[00:00:27]In 1945, British war crimes investigators listed him as a suspect. A tribunal held him for 2 years.

[00:00:33]Then, in 1947, the United States Army quietly pulled him out of custody under a program called Operation Overcast, [music] later renamed Paperclip.

[00:00:41]He was resettled in Texas. He went on to work for Bell Aircraft and later advised the US Air Force on ballistic [music] missile systems.

[00:00:48]He retired with full consultant status.

[00:00:50]No trial, no [music] sentence. The declassified recruitment files, now held at the National Archives, show American officers were told to reframe his record to quote, "overcome any possible objection." The men who passed away under his watch never got a file.

[00:01:05]Here's the part nobody talks about.

[00:01:06]Dornberger's personal post-war memoir was published in the West and praised the V-2 program without a single mention of Dora.

[00:01:12]Follow for the World War II they don't teach you.