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The Nazi Scheme to Bombard New York City With Rockets and Other Unfinished Military Plans

Khalid Elhassan January 16, 2020 32 min

South Vietnam - United States — American troops in South Vietnam. USA Today

4. Flying Over the Atlantic in a Silver Bird

To reach America, German scientist Eugen Sanger proposed a Racketenflugzeug – a rocket airplane. Known as Silbervogel, or Silver Bird, the proposed aircraft was to be propelled at 1200 miles per hour off railroad tracks from a rocket powered sled, then fly to a height of 90 miles. There, at the edge of space, the Silbervogel would use a series of roller-coaster-like “skips”, entering and exiting the upper atmosphere en route to the Big Apple.

Silbervogel launch ramp. Papercraft Square

Upon reaching its destination, the Silbervogel would detonate a bomb packed with radioactive sand, to devastate New York City with a radiation cloud. It sounds cartoonish, straight out of one of those old time comics, but the theory was actually sound, and it just might have worked. Luckily for NYC, the Nazis were defeated before either the space plane or the villainous plan became a reality.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.