Hitler's Suppressed and Still-Secret Weapons, Science and Technology

What the book covers

Henry Stevens surveys German weapons and technology projects of the Second World War that, he argues, were more advanced than the standard histories admit, and some of which he believes are still kept secret. The book ranges from documented projects to much more speculative claims: field-propulsion research, disc-shaped aircraft, and the so-called "foo fighters" reported by Allied aircrews. Stevens reads German and built much of the book on German-language documents and sources that he translated into English, which set it apart from earlier English-language books on the subject when it was published in 2007. A reviewer on the Interesting Books Reviewed channel describes it as one of the better-referenced books in the genre, including material on "red mercury" and on the energy problems any such craft would have faced.

The history behind it

Some of the background is well documented. Nazi Germany did develop weapons ahead of their time, which its propaganda called Wunderwaffen ("wonder weapons"): the V-1 flying bomb, the V-2 ballistic missile, the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter and the rocket-powered Me 163. After the war the Allies competed to recruit German scientists and seize their research; under Operation Paperclip, the United States brought more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers and technicians to America, including the V-2's designer Wernher von Braun, who later led the development of NASA's Saturn V rocket. Many files from this period stayed classified for decades.

In 1944 and 1945, Allied aircrews over Germany reported strange lights following their planes, which they called "foo fighters"; their origin was never explained. Around 1950, after the first wave of American "flying saucer" reports, several people in Europe claimed to have worked on German disc-shaped aircraft during the war, and these claims grew into a large literature of books about Nazi flying discs and secret bases. Mainstream historians have found no documentary evidence that any such craft flew.

Why it is on this shelf

The book has not been banned. It is listed in our UFOs and secret aircraft section because it is a standard work in the hidden-history literature on wartime German technology, a subject that Stevens and others argue has been suppressed. It is still in print.

About the author

Henry Stevens is an American researcher who has written several books on German wartime technology, including Hitler's Flying Saucers and Dark Star: The Hidden History of German Secret Bases, Flying Discs and U-Boats (2011), which explores claims of German bases in Greenland, near the Strait of Gibraltar and in Antarctica.

If you're interested in this subject

See the other books in UFOs and secret aircraft, including The Rainbow Conspiracy. For the documented history, read alongside a standard account of the V-weapons and of Operation Paperclip.

Questions

Is this book banned?

No. It is in print and available from booksellers.

Did Nazi Germany build flying saucers?

There is no documentary evidence that it did. Germany did build advanced jets and rockets, and claims about disc-shaped craft began appearing after the war. Books like this one argue the evidence has been suppressed.