Kummersdorf

Kummersdorf is the name of an estate near Luckenwalde, around 25 km south of Berlin, in the Brandenburg region of Germany. Until 1945 Kummersdorf hosted the weapon office of the German Army which ran a development centre for future weapons as well as an artillery range.

In 1929 the Army Weapons Office in Berlin wanted rockets for military purposes: in 1931 the test range at Kummersdorf took over the development of liquid fuel rockets type A1, A2 and A3 under the direction of Walter Dornberger. Wernher von Braun was at Kummersdorf from 1932 and developed a liquid fuel rocket in which the propellant was a high percentage of alcohol and liquid oxygen. He used this in his first experimental firing. In 1934 he fired successfully his second rocket, the A2, from the Frisian island of Borkum. On 16 July 1934, Dr Kurt Wahmke and 2 assistants were killed and another assistant injured during a fuel test of a premixed hydrogen peroxide/alcohol propellant when the fuel tank exploded.

During 1936 von Braun's rocketry team working at Kummersdorf investigated installing liquid-fuelled rockets in aircraft. Ernst Heinkel enthusiastically supported their efforts, supplying a He 72 and later two He 112s for the experiments. Late in 1936 Erich Warsitz was seconded by the RLM to Wernher von Braun and Ernst Heinkel, because he had been recognized as one of the most experienced test-pilots of the time, and because he also had an extraordinary fund of technical knowledge.

The facility was too limited for advanced motor and flight testing, so in 1937 the group (now also supported by the Luftwaffe) moved to Neuhardenberg (a large field about 70 kilometres east of Berlin, listed as a reserve airfield in the event of war). On 3 June 1937 the Heinkel He 112 was flown with its piston engine shut down during flight by test pilot Erich Warsitz, at which time it was propelled by von Braun’s rocket power alone. Despite the wheels-up landing and having the fuselage on fire due to an unpredicted area of low aerodynamic pressure drawing alcohol fumes back into the airframe which then ignited, it proved to official circles that an aircraft could be flown satisfactorily with a rearwards-thrust system through the rear.

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