Peenemünde Interviews Project: Karl Heimburg 11/9/1989 (Tape 2 of 3) B

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Michael Neufeld: Tape 2, Side 2, interview with Karl Heimberg.

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I was going to ask you whether you felt there was any

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Luftwaffe/Army rivalry tension or involved in this collaborative,

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it was a collaborative venture between Luftwaffe and army wasserfall.

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Karl Heimberg: I had the impression that it worked out very well and that there were no rivalries.

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As far as I could see it, or as far as I could [[??]] it, there were no rivalries.

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Michael Neufeld: Mm-hmm. [[affirmative]] Uhm, this is of interest in part because the, you know, there were so many rivalries at the very top

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over V1 versus V2, as they were later called, or V4 versus FI103 that they were infighting

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and so forth at the level of Milch and, you know, at the top of the Luftwaffe- [[Crosstalk]]

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Karl Heimberg: -At the top level of the [[??]].

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Michael Neufeld: Mm-hmm [[affirmative]] Your own perception of who threw out, in terms of relations with Luftwaffe and Peenemünde West or with Luftwaffe assigned to Peenemünde Ost and Wasserfall, and so forth, was a very good relationship.

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Karl Heimberg: I do not know if Rudolph told you that story but

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[[??]] didn't get the money to build up the facility for military [[??]]

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and that he, Gunberger, organized the [[??]] air force to pay for that project Peenemünde because he could get that money from the army, the air force paid for that.

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And they only finally made a fence. Here is West, that's air force, and here is East, this is army.

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Michael Neufeld: Right. Mm-hmm. [[affirmative]] Yeah, certainly building Peenemünde was also a collaborative project.

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Karl Heimberg: That was, yeah.

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Michael Neufeld: I get, you see one, get the, just from the highest level you get the impression that relationship is very good in the early years.

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Karl Heimberg: Yeah.
Michael Neufeld: 36 to 39, 40, and that there was then a bit of a break, a bit of a deterioration which may have had no affect on the lower level at all.

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Namely, that they, Luftwaffe, dropped starthilfe and they dropped aircraft rockets and so forth at Peenemünde Ost.

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Karl Heimberg: At Peenemünde, there were not that I know of.

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Michael Neufeld: Mm-hmm. [[affirmative]] Those projects were sort of killed at the beginning of the war. And then Wasserfall came along as a collaborative project later on.

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Karl Heimberg: Yeah, later on.
Michael Neufeld: Mm-hmm. But from --

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Michael Neufeld: From your side or from what people said and obviously you only came in 1942 so you can't say much about earlier periods.

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Karl Heimberg: Right.

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Michael Neufeld: That the relationship was always friendly.

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Karl Heimberg: Yeah.
Michael Neufeld: And there wasn't a sense of rivalry or something like that.

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Karl Heimberg: No. This again is a question that you could ask Tessmann.

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Michael Neufeld: Mmhmm.
Karl Heimberg: Because Tessmann was sent relatively only Peenemunde for planning purposes.

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Michael Neufeld: Um. So when you-- From what you were saying, it sounds like you were responsible for construction of that test stand for Wasserfall.
Karl Heimberg: For the science, yeah.

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Michael Neufeld: And then you were moved on to some other job after that?

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Karl Heimberg: Yeah, then, then came the mass production of the A4. And uh, you know we had, we had only that one test stand at Peenemunde for combustion chambers and we knew that uh, one test stand was not enough. And...they even-I cannot tell you what was, what was planned. At Wiener Neustadt, you may have heard that word.

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Michael Neufeld: Mmhmm.
Karl Heimberg: But I don't believe that the test stand were planned there. Uh, but again Tessmann could tell you, because he was sent out to find out where our possibilities and I believe Tessmann was even involved with liaison.

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This liaison was um, slate quarry and uh, you had perpendicular walls. You could say that's ideal for test stands. You do not need a chet deflector. For the chet deflector you need water. So if you would had a perpendicular wall you would put your test stand on top, you wouldn't need a deflector. And uh...

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Karl Heimberg: Therefore that was built, at least. And then it was decided this is still not sufficient. We need more. And then came the Schlier Project.

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Michael Neufeld: And Schlier was where in Austria?

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Karl Heimberg: Eh...[[long pause]]..it was on the water shed. Um...

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Michael Neufeld: Was it in...was it in--

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Karl Heimberg: Ask me that question again, this afternoon I have to, to look it up again at the map.

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Michael Neufeld: Mhmm, but do you think it's, it's in the Alp- more in the western Alpine part of Austria? Tyrol, over there-

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Karl Heimberg: No. No, no. [[crosstalk]]
Michael Neufeld: It's much more-
Karl Heimberg: It was more to, to-
Michael Neufeld: To the east.

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Karl Heimberg: To the Bavarian side.
Michael Neufeld: Bavarian side.
Karl Heimberg: The Bavarian side.

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Michael Neufeld: Close to Bavaria.
Karl Heimberg: Close to Bavaria, yeah. It was not far. Uh, well I'll take a look at the map and then this afternoon I can show you it.

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Michael Neufeld: Oh, okay.
Karl Heimberg: If you have not thought of that for 20 years you see.[Both laugh]

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Michael Neufeld: That's tru-I, I test people's memories a lot on these interviews. I keep pushing, I understand you can't remember these things.
Karl Heimberg: Ya.
Michael Neufeld: Sometimes.

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But immediately after you completed the design and the construction of the Wasserfall test stand in, in early 43, mid 43--

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Karl Heimberg: This was, this was already...
Michael Neufeld: Mhmm
Karl Heimberg: Yeah, going in 40, 43 I would say.

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Michael Neufeld: End?
Karl Heimberg: End 43.

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Michael Neufeld: Mhmm. So you were involved almost most of 1943?
Karl Heimberg: Yeah, yeah.
Michael Neufeld: On building and fini- designing and building..

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Karl Heimberg: Waterfall
Michael Neufeld: Wasserfall test stand.
Karl Heimberg: Yeah, yeah.

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Michael Neufeld: Was there a second Wasserfall test stand? Did you s-?
Karl Heimberg: No, no.
Michael Neufeld: It was just the one.

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Karl Heimberg: And the Schwimmweste. But the Schwimmweste was strictly built in case Peenemünde is occupied by the Russians. We can still test the water fall on a floating test stand.

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Michael Neufeld: Mhmm. And that, that was a 1944 project.
Karl Heimberg: That was 1944. Right.
Michael Neufeld: Mhmm. It came up late in '44?
Karl Heimberg: I beieve in the middle of '44.
Michael Neufeld: The middle? Mhmm.

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Michael Neufeld: So um...Were you mostly working with Luftwaffe people? When you were building that test stand or was that a mixture?

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Karl Heimberg: Oh they were of course the normal Peenemünde people involved too on the building side and everywhere. So you could not say it were only air force people.
Michael Neufeld: Mhmm.

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Karl Heimberg: There were Peenemünde people, normal Peenemünde people involved too.
Michael Neufeld: Mhmm.

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Michael Neufeld: Um, so a question I had never thought about before: where, who was the construction labour force in building the test stands? Where did you, I mean I know there where prisoners of war used there. I don't know where they were used.

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Karl Heimberg: Uh, there were, prisoners were used. And uh, I-I just give you an example, I was interested. How did people come in this uniform? And uh, we were supposed not to talk with them.
Michael Neufeld: Mhmm.

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Karl Heimberg: Uh, but I was interested and I asked one, "How the hell did you come in that uniform?" They said, "Oh that's very simple. At the beginning of the war I smuggled coffee from the Netherlands and into Germany and they, they caught me."

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Michael Neufeld: Hmmph.
Karl Heimberg: And uh, I had to ask a second one what was...

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Karl Heimberg: He had [[?]] that was a smuggling affair too, Where he was caught, [[inaudible]], Seebär.

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This is a normal affair, there's nothing specially about it, if they commit something against the prescription, they will be punished,

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Um - [[silence]]

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But this were in the building groups you had. They worked with, with prisoners.

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Michael Neufeld: Did they, did they wear the concentration camp prisoner uniform?
Karl Heimberg: Yeah, they did, they did.

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Michael Neufeld: They were, but they, but from the ones that you knew, they were largely-- They weren't political prisoners --
Karl Heimberg: No.
Michael Neufeld: —they were largely ordinary prisoners.
Karl Heimberg: They were ordinary prisoners, they were ordinary prisoners.

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Michael Neufeld: And the, the, I've heard of these —-
Karl Heimberg: Something that might, may be interesting to you, too —-

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When I was at, at Lehestens, there were prisoners too. And the prisoners got cigarettes. You know, we had three cigarettes a day, and the prisoners got cigarettes too, but somehow, you could buy cigarettes from the prisoners.

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Karl Heimberg: How they did it? I do not know. Probably, the prisoners got cigarettes and they didn't go to the prisoners, but they were smuggled out before. This is what I assume.

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Michael Neufeld: The, the POW labor force that was used— Was that used elsewhere? And I don't know, there's almost no details, I know that Russian, Polish prisoners of war, there was a camp, and they were used for construction purposes, I think.

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Karl Heimberg: Yes, but generally, they were used for construction problems, and I believe even --

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There were Polish people involved because some information which I heard later on from the British side, their information they got from Polish prisoners, about Peenemünde.

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Michael Neufeld: Yeah, I know that some information was smuggled out. [[cross talk]]
Karl Heimberg: And I had, I had even seen papers here where they had drawn maps, and you could see this, where people only who came from the construction site.

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Karl Heimberg: But that showed the test stand exactly, very exactly, but not in the final end where you had your containers and your-- It was strictly construction drawings, construction sketches, and these papers came from the British side, and the British said, "Well, these came from, from Polish prisoners."

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Michael Neufeld: So you, the, the test stand was constructed, and you were totally involved with that activity for 1943. On a daily basis you were, you were completely busy I assume just working --
Karl Heimberg: Yeah.

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Michael Neufeld: --on trying to, on the various problems involved in working out the construction of it?

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Michael Neufeld: That's right, that's right. Until it was put in charge and functioned, and then this was the end of my work at, at Wasserfallen, but you had still problems. I give you one.

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You know the idea was to launch the V2 from France, and they had built a big concrete shelter, or were trying to build a big concrete shelter, in France, and every time concrete was poured, the British came and bombed it.

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So, all of a sudden, we got the task; we had to make the V2 mobile, and then came the design of the table, and the trying out of the table, and the trying out of the vehicle, either by train or by street, you know where--

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[[crosstalk]]
Michael Neufeld: Yeah the road, the road mobile unit.
Karl Heimberg: Yeah, the road mobile.
Michael Neufeld: When do you recall that road stuff started? Are you--
Karl Heimberg: I think that was in '43, but I take it out of the air.
Michael Neufeld: It wasn't your, it wasn't your area?
Karl Heimberg: No, it wasn't my area.
Michael Neufeld: Um, so and the train experiments, the train launch experiments were in '43? I think?

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Michael Neufeld: couldn't have been much earlier. Couldn't be any earlier.
Karl Heimberg: I think that was in '43. End of '43.
Michael Neufeld: Do you remember, do you know anything about why the bunker approach was taken?

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Karl Heimberg: In the beginning?
Michael Neufeld: Yeah, in the beginning.

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Karl Heimberg: The idea was, you have in the bunker, you have your oxygen plants, and you have no transportation problem with the oxygen because you manufactured right there.

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This was the reason, and you know, I had mentioned Lehesten, Lehesten had 16 oxygen plants underground with a production of 500 kilogram per hour per plant. So, 16 times is 8 metrical tons per hour.

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And against the last months of the war, the production for the V2's came from Lehesten, by rail, the oxygen plants.

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Michael Neufeld: Lehesten was near the Mittelwerk, or was in the same general area.
Karl Heimberg: It was in Thuringia.
Michael Neufeld: Yeah. it was in Thuringia.

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Karl Heimberg: And it was a slate, a slate plant originally.

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Michael Neufeld: The bunker idea, did the bunker idea have support in part because you felt early on, and again it may be too far from your area, but do you know anything about why the difficulties in launching such a complicated vehicle led to that? Did that cause people to say we need a underground test area?

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Karl Heimberg: You know, you could prepare the vehicle completely underground. Fill it and prepare it for launch completely, and then roll it out and launch it.

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So you couldn't be disturbed, when you were outside. And later on, after the whole thing was made mobile, you know, they went into the forests. And in the forest, they could not launch more than, I believe, 8 or so because then you could detect it from the air, because the leaves were burnt.

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So they launched up to 8 out of the forest, then they went to the next position. But, you still had fuel and oxidizer had to come right after it. So that was still quite some transportation necessary.

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Michael Neufeld: I gather though that the road mobile thing worked very well, that it was very successful.
Karl Heimberg: It worked better than we originally thought.

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Michael Neufeld: The reason I'm pursuing this is I got the impression, and this may be wrong, that at the earlier stage, that von Braun and others maybe felt that you needed an underground check out facility, more like a test stand for such a difficult vehicle, as opposed to giving it over to military units, you know, where most of the people did not have, would not have any special particular expertise in this. Just the training in their job. And I don't know whether that is true or not?

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Karl Heimberg: You know, we helped the troops on the test stand, and trained them on the test stand. And, the soldiers we had, were technical people. sSo, to train them was not a difficult problem.

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It didn't take long.

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So I don't believe, that at least from my viewpoint, you would have thought that would be difficult.

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Michael Neufeld: So-- Do you have- the troops that were assigned from, you know for units to a, training for that. Was that in 1944 or did that start earlier on?

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Karl Heimberg: No, that was earlier. That was earlier.

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Michael Neufeld: Earlier on. {00:18:20]
Karl Heimberg: Yeah, you know we had a training ground for troops in Poland. And, this was a special division, which was trained very far in Poland. And, how was that?

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Michael Neufeld: Heidelager
Karl Heimberg: Heidelager, yeah.
Michael Neufeld: And Blizna.

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Karl Heimberg: Yeah. Blizna. Who did that? And said, "I go directly into target area in order to direct." Who did that? I went to the target area because it said, "If I am in the target area I know exactly that it won't hit that spot."

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Michael Neufeld: Oh, von Braun himself tells that story.

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Karl Heimberg: I believe von Braun.

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Michael Neufeld: Yeah, I, I've read it. He said that they were trying to understand the air burst problem. And he said they couldn't be, that if they sat right at the, at the target ground zero, that they wouldn't be hit, and then one landed very close.

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Karl Heimberg: You are right, this is where the air burst, where we didn't know what is the reason for the air burst, and they want to find out what, and you couldn't find out when you launched over water, so the idea was, why don't we use Blizna, and then we can find out.

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Michael Neufeld: Interestingly enough, the idea originally came from Himmler. Because after the air raid, in the first air raid in August '43, he went to Hitler and said, "We must have been betrayed. You know, we should, we should move production underground, which of course became Mittelwerk, we should move Peenemünde into Poland, and launch them in Poland."

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Michael Neufeld: All that came out of that was just the launching ground at Heidelager, which was, which was officially an SS launching area.

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Karl Heimberg: You probably have heard that Himmler wanted to have that whole Peenemünde under his jurisdiction. And, he tried his darndest to get von Braun in that direction, and von Braun wasn't-- An SS major, "Honoris Causa".

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I have seen von Braun in the SS uniform one time, and that was when Dornberger forced von Braun because Himmler came to visit Peenemünde.

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"You use that uniform!" That was one time that I saw von Braun in that uniform. And Himmler had, maybe you have heard this story, Himmler had talked with von Braun, and had told him, "Look, when you go work together with us, you get more money then you get from the army." You probably heard that story.

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Michael Neufeld: Yeah. He, the only thing that I would like to know about it is more, but the only source we have is von Braun, and he said that in February '44, Himmler called him to headquarters and said, "Why don't you come over to us?", and von Braun refused to do it.

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And then of course the arrest, arrest only came what, 3 weeks later or something like that, when he and Gröttrup, and somebody else, whose name I forget.

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Karl Heimberg: Riedel.
Michael Neufeld: Riedel.
Karl Heimberg: Riedel.
Michael Neufeld: Klaus Riedel?
Karl Heimberg: Klaus Riedel.

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{SPEAKER nme="Michael Neufeld"} Klaus Riedel. Was, were thrown in jail, and were only salvaged by Speer and Dornberger's efforts.
Karl Heimberg: Yeah, right, right.

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Michael Neufeld: But, so, sometime in '43, you, was the one time you saw von Braun sort of forced to wear an SS uniform for Himmler's purposes?
Michael Neufeld: Yup, yup.

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Michael Neufeld: Did you encounter Himmler at that time? From a distance?
Karl Heimberg: No.
Michael Neufeld: You just, he was there? Somewhere? Um--

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Transcription
MICHAEL NEUFELD: So you, you built the Wasserfall test stand, and then I wasn't clear exactly what your job was next, in late '43, -- the test stand was finally finished for Wasserfall engines. You didn't test-- When did you first test a Wasserfall engine? Do you know?

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Was that immediately after you were gone, gone from that job?

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KARL HEIMBURG: That, that, must have been already in '44. I'm not sure. End of '43 or beginning of '44.

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MICHAEL NEUFELD: Do you know anything about the success of that early test with that larger—-
KARL HEIMBURG: We had no major problems, we had problems, but these were not major ones. They had problems which could, could be resolved easily.

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MICHAEL NEUFELD: Yeah, because of course, part of it was that the injector plate was finally fixed for Wasserfall.
KARL HEIMBURG: Yeah, yeah, right, right.

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MICHAEL NEUFELD: But that didn't prove to be as large a prob—-
KARL HEIMBURG: We had two or three designs of the injector plate, and worked them out.

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KARL HEIMBURG: And strictly by how much of a vibration do you get, and took.

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MICHAEL NEUFELD: Do you know whether-whether you ever had much success with the injector plate on the A4-sized engines' tests. I'm not clear on whether they stopped doing that.
KARL HEIMBURG: We, we succeeded in late, in 1944,—-

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Karl Heimberg: with an injector plate for the A4. That we could say, now this is a way how we can do it. We had to cool it. And then it was real quiet, real quiet. We were surprised ourselves.

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KARL HEIMBURG: But that was late, and you know to get that in production, that takes quite some time.

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MICHAEL NEUFELD: I know, in fact, effectively that, trying to reduce a second design for the A4 motor was really sidetracked by the pressing need to mass produce the original design.
KARL HEIMBURG: That's right, that's right.

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MICHAEL NEUFELD: But—-
KARL HEIMBURG: We had too much to do on the test stands any how, so you-you could not make time on the test stand for that problem because you had more pressing problems with the A4 compromise design. The 18, 18 pots, as we called it.

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MICHAEL NEUFELD: So, when you-when you finished the Wasserfall test stand, you immediately went, were assigned in some way to the problem of mass producing the — A4 engine?
KARL HEIMBURG: The difficulties which came, ja, which came up with the mass production, came up with the test stands, the test facilities, and—

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KARL HEIMBURG: —the production, I went to the Mittelwerk only one time, and that was already very late, where I could only say, that is a place where you never would like to work.

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I was there for one day, and that was again on account of Scheufelen. Scheufelen with his anti-aircraft project, you know with the small rockets.

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They were produced at the Mittelwerk, and he launched the first ones even from the Mittelwerk, from the top of the Mittelwerk.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mm-hmm. [[Affirmative]]

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KARL HEIMBURG: And he had asked me once, "Why don't you come?" They had a few problems there too. And I went there.

00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:18.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mm-hmm. That would have been very close to the end of the war?
KARL HEIMBURG: That was very close to the end of the war.

00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:21.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Was that after Peenemünde was evacuated?

00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:35.000
KARL HEIMBURG: That was at the time of the evacuation of Peenemünde. You know, where we went to Lehesten. And just to give you an idea about that too,—-

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:53.000
—we had made up our plans in Lehesten how to build a test stand for a complete rocket. And that had to be approved by Berlin. So I went to Berlin with the drawings and uh,—-

00:26:53.000 --> 00:27:12.000
—I forgot who it was but somebody in a pretty high position looked at it and said, "I like it but, uh, why don't you finish your design? Why don't you complete it first before I give you the money?"

00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:21.000
And then I asked, "Does it look that bad?" And he said, "Worse." I said, "Okay."

00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:23.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Meaning the state of the war.
KARL HEIMBURG: State of the war.

00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:30.000
Then I have only one interest— that the people there do not get drafted in the army.

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:39.240
And he told me, "Okay, I can give you this insurance, that that will not happen." And that was shortly before Christmas '44.

00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:59.000
KARL HEIMBURG: And I know that von Braun came on Christmas to Lehesten. And he wanted to know - how do things stand - and I told him about that visit in, in Berlin. Said— Okay, I have similar feelings.

00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:07.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mhmm. Just hold out, it's pointless now.
KARL HEIMBURG: Ja, it's pointless.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mhmm.
KARL HEIMBURG: Hold still.

00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:17.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Um, but your job was immediately after the test stand completion on Wasserfall. Your first job was at—

00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:29.000
Who were you assigned to? What unit were you assigned to? What test stand were you assigned to? At Peenemünde at the end of '43?
KARL HEIMBURG: Then I was not assigned anymore to any of the test stand, but I was strictly an assistant to Hueter.

00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:44.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mhmm.
KARL HEIMBURG: So all the problems that came up in testing, uh, I had my fingers in - let me express it this way - or had to solve the problem, whatever came up.

00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:54.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Hueter. Uh, I guess we need to get more specific information about the relative positions of people.

00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:59.000
Thiel was killed of course in the air raid—
KARL HEIMBURG: In the air raid, ja.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: —in August '43.

00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:07.000
Which meant that Schilling moved up to his job—
KARL HEIMBURG: Schilling moved up. Right.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: And did Hueter move up at that point?
KARL HEIMBURG: Hueter moved up to—?

00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:15.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: To being in charge of test stands?
KARL HEIMBURG: Well he was in charge of the, the mechanical side of the test stands.

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:26.000
You know you had the mechanical side, you had the instrumentation side, and you had the development side. The development side, that was Heller.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mhmm.

00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:32.000
KARL HEIMBURG: Uh, that is working with different, different fuels.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mhmm.

00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:56.000
KARL HEIMBURG: And where the first tests with uh, hypergolic fuels were made. So that was Heller's job. And uh, the uh, instrumentation side, you may have heard that name, that was Hackh. H-A-C-K-H.

00:29:56.000 --> 00:30:01.590
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mhmm,
KARL HEIMBURG: Uh, he was in charge of instrumentation and uh,—

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:19.000
KARL HEIMBURG: I had mentioned, you know there, as long as you had a failure and you could define the failure, this was fine. Only if you were unable to define the failure-- what was the reason of that failure?

00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:34.000
That was always a problem, and the instrumentation, uh, was actually a criterion. Very often you had to come out with more instrumentation.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mhmm.

00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:46.000
So it's constant struggle to define new ways to, to measure—-
KARL HEIMBURG: Right, right.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: —pressures, temperatures, uh—-
KARL HEIMBURG: Flows.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: —flow rates and flows and so forth.

00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:52.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: In order to get a good idea of what happened—-
KARL HEIMBURG: What happened.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: —in any given test.

00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:58.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: In the mechanical third division then, the mechanical was under Hueter.
KARL HEIMBURG: Under Hueter.

00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:07.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mhmm.
KARL HEIMBURG: And I worked under Hueter. While Schilling had all three divisions, or however you want to call it.

00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:12.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: And, and propulsion system development — in general?
KARL HEIMBURG: Yeah, — in general.

00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:28.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Um, was there anybody between those two levels? Schilling and then— Or was that Hueter, and Heller, and Hackh the next level down—?
KARL HEIMBURG: They were on one level—
MICHAEL NEUFELD: —on the organization chart?
KARL HEIMBURG: —Yeah. Hueter, Hackh and, and Heller.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mmhmm.

00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:37.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: So you were sort of an assistant to H—-
KARL HEIMBURG: To Hans Hueter.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: —to Hans Hueter, at that, that point. Um,—-

00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:44.000
Schilling I know very little about-- Can you describe Schilling?
[SILENCE]

00:31:44.000 --> 00:32:26.000
KARL HEIMBURG: Schilling was originally a physicist, and, as far as I know, he was drafted into position at Peenemünde, but as a civilian. He was an assistant at the Technische Hochschule of Hanover. And, I talked to Hanover, "We need a man of that, and that education. And then he was told, "Okay, you go to Peenemünde by the Hochschule."

00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:41.000
KARL HEIMBURG: This is how HE came to—-
MICHAEL NEUFELD: About what time? Before you or after you?
KARL HEIMBURG: Before me.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mmhmm.
KARL HEIMBURG: Uh, I would guess, I am guessing now, about '40.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mmhmm.

00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:48.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: So he had moved up through the organization—-
KARL HEIMBURG: Yeah.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: —in terms of test stands?

00:32:48.000 --> 00:33:02.020
KARL HEIMBURG: Probably as he was from the beginning, uh, let me say, an assistant of Dr. Thiel.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mmhmm.
KARL HEIMBURG: And, Dr. Thiel was—-

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:23.000
KARL HEIMBURG: —very active, not active, very active. He want to have his fingers everywhere, and had it. And, uh, I see, I see that strictly positively on the side of-- many people complained about him, I could not.

00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:47.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: What, um, what did they complain about? What was-- why was he an abrasive person?
KARL HEIMBURG: He got in everybody's business. [[both laughing]]
KARL HEIMBURG: To some extent, rightfully. [[laughing]]
KARL HEIMBURG: And people didn't want to see that.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mmhmm

00:33:47.000 --> 00:34:14.000
It sounds a bit like von Braun's management concept also, always know what everybody is doing at all levels?
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Yes, you know von Braun had, I want to say it, someday it was presented in a different, in a different way. Von Braun was constantly on the road, he visited that, he visited that, he visited that.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mmhmm

00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:31.000
KARL HEIMBURG: And, with the idea in mind, "when I do that, I always learn something". And when he came back, he came with new thoughts, he said: "Look, you can look at it this way, you can look at it this way, you can look at it this way."

00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:47.000
KARL HEIMBURG: I thought it was very positive, this interference and this was an interference, but very positive because you had to have somebody who had his fingers at everywhere. No matter what.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mmhmm.

00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:55.000
KARL HEIMBURG: In order to learn something, how can we-how can we use that information, or that information or that information?
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mmhmm.

00:34:55.000 --> 00:35:12.000
KARL HEIMBURG: And Thiel had, similar, uh, approaches. Only he was not that often under orders of von Braun.

00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:23.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mmhmm. Well I guess, and he had a narrower range of activities, basically power plant stuff.
KARL HEIMBURG: Yeah.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: That was mostly concentrated right at Peenemünde.
KARL HEIMBURG: Right, right.

00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:42.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Um, yeah, I never ask you what you thought of, what, what, how Thiel was as a personality. You, you liked him?
KARL HEIMBURG: I could, I could work with him not only well, but very well.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mmhmm.
KARL HEIMBURG: Okay, shut it off and I will tell you a story.

00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:58.000
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Umm, so Thiel was a very intelligent man.
KARL HEIMBURG: Very much, very much.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mmhmm, and uh
KARL HEIMBURG: It was the only time, what I told you, that I had a different opinion. [Laughs]

00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:14.070
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mmhmm, mmhmm. Um, I gather that it was a great loss to the project when he was killed in the bomb raid.
KARL HEIMBURG: Yeah. Yeah it was, including his whole family.
MICHAEL NEUFELD: Mmhmm. Um-
KARL HEIMBURG: If he had stayed in his house, nothing would have happened.

00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:25.000
Karl Heimberg: He went into the air raid shelter, and the air raid ditch with his family and all four were killed.
Michael Neufeld: Yeah that's, it's a real tragedy.

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:39.000
Okay, and Heuter finally was, you got along with him very well?
Karl Heimberg: I got along with him very well, right.
Michael Neufeld: What was his background?

00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:57.000
Karl Heimberg: He wa- he was an engineer, so he came from a technical school right and er. So the two of us never had a problem there. [LAUGHS]
Michael Neufeld: Mmhmm.

00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:13.000
Karl Heimberg: You know, constantly some project came up that had to be resolved and er mainly with a mass production then, which we had to resolve.
Michael Neufeld: Mmhm.

00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:31.000
So your job then was you were in Heuters office and it was, constantly you were getting documentation, meetings, whatever, regarding, regarding a problem of putting the engine into production.
Karl Heimberg: Yeah, right.

00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:50.000
Michael Neufeld: In 1940, Mostly in 44,
Karl Heimberg: 44 right.
Michael Neufeld: So your job on a daily basis was you know. Well, maybe I should ask you that question. I mean what, what did that mean on a daily basis for you?

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:59.000
Karl Heimberg: You know there came problems where I worked for a week for two weeks, for four weeks, there were problems, where I worked 24 hours.

00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:09.000
Michael Neufeld: Mmhmm. Would that mean changing design components or material shortages or?

00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:42.000
Karl Heimberg: That came. Material shortages came in too, you know, during the war. All of a sudden the steel plant was bombed out and could not deliver the steel anymore and you came to, a different material and a different material in the combustion chamber, for example, showed we have difficulty here. We have to change the cooling system a little bit because the combustion chamber burnt out. Because the heat conductivity of the material was different than the material before.

00:38:42.000 --> 00:39:13.000
Michael Neufeld: Mmhmm.
Karl Heimberg: So this was for example one problem. Okay lets go at it. We had shops at Peenemunde. You could say we have them to turn a different hole pattern into the combustion chambers, you know, we had these 18 pods and since we had these 18 pods we had zones and when we had too hot a zone, we simply drilled

00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:28.000
a hole under into, into the combustion chamber and from the outside we had these rings. With fuel and we put liquid fuel into the combustion chamber to cool that spot.
Michael Neufeld: Right.

00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:46.000
Film cooling
Karl Heimberg: Film cooling -- Right, right
Michael Neufeld: Along the wall. Erm
Karl Heimberg: So that was just one example.
Michael Neufeld: So you would have to specify a different arrangement of holes for film cooling was that?

00:39:46.000 --> 00:40:08.000
Karl Heimberg: Well we did not specify it. We went right away to the test stand and corrected it onto test stand.
Michael Neufeld: Mhmm. Okay so the you would erm you would get a problem like that and you would say okay.
Karl Heimberg: Go to test stand number eight, and work with the people of test stand number eight. We drill a hole here, we drill a hole here.

00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:29.000
Karl Heimberg: Now lets try it.
Michael Neufeld: But would you have the material for example? Your example, you had to change the quality of steel or something that you used in the thing. Would you immediately have the material in which to test--
Karl Heimberg: No
Michael Neufeld: What the alternative was?
Karl Heimberg: No, the only way was, okay how can we correct that.

00:40:29.000 --> 00:41:01.000
You are right normally you would say, we would go back and would go to the steel plant but there you would have difficulties already with the material and therefore you, tried to solve the problem not as you normally do. You go to the source but you solve it, you solve the final the final product,

00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:11.000
because if you go to the source it takes by far too long, until you come to it and beside that you are already in the manufacturing process. You did not want to hold that up.
Michael Neufeld:

00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:29.000
Mhmm. So you just tried to experiment with the materials until you said this works.
Karl Heimberg: Yeah
Michael Neufeld: Send this down to Mittelwerk with these new specifications. I'm working with this material.
Karl Heimberg: Yes, that's right.
Michael Neufeld: After--

00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:33.000
Karl Heimberg: You'd change the drawing, send it to the Mittelwerk. This is how the combustion chamber should look like. the

00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:54.460
Michael Neufeld: So it was a constant er constantly struggling to produce new production drawings
Karl Heimberg: Yeah
Michael Neufeld: er, of modified parts-
Karl Heimberg: --Let me say, not to produce new drawings but to correct the drawings according to new results which--

00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:00.000
Karl Heimberg: --came up through the new material.

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:09.000
Michael Neufeld: Does that mean you would just produce specialized drawings of individual changes that you would make?
Karl Heimberg: Oh, you took the original drawing.
Michael Neufeld: You took the original drawing?
Karl Heimberg: And changed the original drawing.

00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:24.000
Karl Heimberg: So this is how it looks now.
Michael Neufeld: And then you--
Karl Heimberg: You had your-- your numbers on it, A, B, C, D, E. You use now drawing E. Number so-and-so E.

00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:29.000
Michael Neufeld: Mmhmm, so it's sort of like you produced a new version of the same--
Karl Heimberg: New version. Yeah.

00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:35.000
Michael Neufeld: Uh-huh. You would change the original drawing, then you would produce the blueprint style copy of it.
Karl Heimberg: Right.

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:45.000
Michael Neufeld: And send that off-- you would send that off so that-- was that a-- I am almost at the end of this side.

00:42:45.000 --> 00:43:00.000
Michael Neufeld: Would you then have to be doing that basically-- you work 10, 12 hours a day virtually all the time, just constantly struggling to keep up with individual changes and problems.

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:11.000
Karl Heimberg: I had a living quarters at Koserow. You know, 1943 we were dismissed out of the army, but we had to stay where we were.

00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:16.000
Karl Heimberg: But we were in civilian clothes. And I had a living quarter in Koserow.

00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:24.000
Karl Heimberg: And I had even a car, I could drive to Koserow with a car.

00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:39.000
Karl Heimberg: You know, since we mixed the gasoline with alcohol, we could elongate the amount of Benzine which you got--
Michael Neufeld: Yeah. Of gasoline.
Karl Heimberg: Gasoline. Gasoline. We could elongate it, considerably.

00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:53.000
Karl Heimberg: So I was not depending on the railroad, but still, when you are through sometimes at 10 or 12 o'clock, you did not like to drive now for another 15 miles.

00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:59.000
Michael Neufeld: Koserow was on Usedom, or?
Karl Heimberg: On Usedom, yes.
Michael Neufeld: Farther down.

00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:11.000
Karl Heimberg: And so I had another quarter at Peenemünde. Close by, there were a few buildings where you had, well, sleeping homes.

00:44:11.000 --> 00:44:16.000
Karl Heimberg: Where you could live. And I stayed there usually during the week.

00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:21.190
Karl Heimberg: And only on Sunday I went back to that quarter in Koserow.

00:44:23.000 --> 00:44:31.000
Karl Heimberg: That was a time, and that was not eight hours, that was usually 12-14 hours a day.

00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:35.000
Michael Neufeld: And - if you're lucky you had Sunday off.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:37.000
Karl Heimberg: If you were lucky you had Sunday off.

00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:38.000
Michael Neufeld: Mhm, that was it.

00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:39.000
Karl Heimberg: Yeah.

00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:42.000
Michael Neufeld: You were working continuously, essentially.

00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:45.000
Michael Neufeld: OK, I have to stop because I'm running out of tape.

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.536
[SILENCE]