Still, the belief that the V missiles could change the course of the war took a while to die. Optimistic voices can be heard in the protocols until mid-July 1944,402 and fresh hopes soon arose concerning the V2. Expressions of soldiers’ expectations for that missile were almost word-for-word repetitions of the hopes for its predecessor. Lieutenant Colonel Ocker said in late August of that year: “It’s said, we’ll say, to have fifty times the effect of the ‘V1.’”403 Midshipman Mischke hoped to get transferred “to Canada. I like life too much. If they use the V-2 and we are still here, then we’ll all be killed.”404 Sergeant Kunz of Infantry Regiment 404 was also convinced:
KUNZ: Where is the V-2 said to be operating? If it is operating, the war will end in our favour… When the V-2 is used, then the war will be over, because wherever the V-2 falls, it destroys all life. Everything is destroyed, whether it be tree, shrub or house, it disintegrates into ashes.405
Kunz added that he had witnessed the V2 being tested: “Where the thing has fallen the people were all as though pulverized. It is all as though frozen, that’s what it looks like, and if you touch the man, then he falls to pieces.” On the basis of his “observations,” Kunz concluded that the V2 functioned like a cold bomb that would freeze the enemy. And to back up his wishful thinking about the existence of a German doomsday weapon, Kunz cited a speech by Hitler: “If all should fail, then the most terrible weapon humanity could ever devise will be used. May God forgive me if I use that weapon.”406
Kunz had been captured on October 22, 1944, in fighting around the encircled western German city of Aachen. The V2 had been in use since September 8, but he seemed unaware of this fact. The hopes Germans placed in the V2 remained unfulfilled, and for that reason, even its propaganda value was scant. The surveillance protocols contain very few mentions of the V2 being used.
Most of the soldiers who spoke of retribution weapons did so under the spell of not just a quasi-religious belief in Hitler but also a comparable faith in technology. They did not doubt for a second that Germany would succeed in developing a super-weapon to turn the tide of the war. Hopes of achieving victory against all odds were directly connected to the conviction that German engineers would make the decisive breakthrough. It was rare for POWs to utter doubts that this would be the case. General Wilhelm von Thoma was one of the few Trent Park inmates who engaged in skeptical reflections: “Let a secret weapon make its appearance; it may destroy a few houses, but that’s all—we’ve got nothing else.”407 A bit later in time, responding to a statement by Göring that retribution was nigh, Thoma was completely dismissive. “A couple of snorters will come across to ENGLAND,” he said, and that would be all.408
Just as German soldiers failed to link technology with the way the war was actually progressing, they also largely ignored its deadly character. The concrete effects of weaponry were rarely mentioned. With pilots and crew members, the talk was more about shooting down planes and sinking ships, and targeting enemy “material.”409 “I saw myself how my Staffelkapitän, Hauptmann SUHR, brought down a four-engine aircraft with one shot of his 3cm over LINZ,” reported Sergeant Gromoll. “He targeted from the front. That’s the craziest thing I ever saw.”410 A remark by First Lieutenant Schlösser is nearly identical: “A 3 cm cannon firing an HE shell. If they hit four-engine aircraft they destroy it completely. There’s nothing left.”411 The airmen’s enthusiasm for new weaponry completely blotted out the fact that ten American soldiers lost their lives in the attack. That was typical of the POWs’ general disinterest in the lethal consequences of their actions.
In similar fashion, a bombardier from a Ju 88 proudly described sighting his target through a hole in the clouds over Bristol, England:
