Here Zink conflated the capabilities of the Me 163 rocket interceptor and the Me 262 jet fighter, but even so, this excerpt shows the important role that innovations played in the technological imagination and fantasies of the Luftwaffe POWs. The mass deployment of the aircraft was indeed to remain a fantasy. As of August 1944, the first Me 262s were used in a trial formation, and although pilots were enthusiastic about this “fantastic” new plane,³⁸⁰ the aircraft had no impact on the outcome of the war. The Me 262 had too many technical bugs that needed ironing out, and the Allied air forces showed that the plane was by no means invulnerable. The approximately two hundred Me 262s deployed during the war shot down some enemy 150 planes, while suffering 100 losses of their own.³⁸¹

When talking technology, the Luftwaffe POWs were right in their element. They were fascinated by the boost pressure of engines, speeds, onboard weaponry, and all the other innovations in new models of warplanes. They did not see these innovations in any sort of broader context. All they were primarily interested in was the next model and the next fantastic aerial battle. They did not ponder questions such as why Germany was no longer capable of producing 2,500-horsepower engines or why the Allies were much quicker to introduce centimeter-wave radar. But that was only to be expected. Just as engineers in car factories don’t usually consider global warming when designing automotive parts, and technicians in power plants don’t ruminate about the dominance of a few large companies in the energy sector, aerial warfare specialists did not relate their own equipment and expertise to a greater political, strategic, or moral context. Instrumental reason, fascinated by technology, is utterly indifferent to such contexts. This is part and parcel of the basic unsullied faith in technology and progress characteristic of the first half of the twentieth century. Utopian visions of what people could do dominated people’s thoughts. So it hardly appeared unlikely to them that a “miracle weapon” would decide the outcome of World War II.

MIRACLE WEAPONS

After the German military’s defeat at Stalingrad, Nazi propaganda tried to encourage Germans’ hopes for ultimate victory in World War II with hints that revenge would soon be at hand.³⁸² In early 1943, German POWs first began mentioning rumors about a whole new category of weapons. In March of that year, a U-boat W/T operator prophesied:

The FÜHRER has said that it’s only to be used in the final struggle of the German people, when every ship is important, then they’ll use [it]. But so long as we [engage] in honourable warfare it won’t be used.³⁸³

In such excerpts, Hitler played the role of Germany’s savior, who would produce a last-minute super-weapon as decisive as it was terrible. For the speaker in this case, it was no doubt comforting to believe his country had a secret weapon up its sleeve. The second in command of the blockade runner MS Regensburg reported on April 11, 1943, that the official commentator for the supreme military command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) Otto Dietmar had said that “GERMANY would introduce a weapon against which even the strongest enemy troop concentrations would be useless.”³⁸⁴ The POW, navy First Lieutenant Wolf Jeschonnek, didn’t know any specifics, but speculated that the weapon in question must be an explosive device or bomb of extraordinary power. Once the bomb was detonated, the POW assured his listeners, everything would be “flattened.” Jeschonnek also expressed confidence that when the “new apparatus” was used, “the war will be over.” The miracle weapon he claimed had such a range that it would “smash everything up.”³⁸⁵