Once established on the Moon (codenamed Walhalla), the second phase of the Bifrost Protocol would begin. This phase, codenamed Mjölnir after Thor’s mighty hammer, would see the development of Wunderwaffen capable of bombarding Earth and wiping out entire cities. This armament would be used to destroy the major cities belonging to the principal Allied powers — the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France — and leave them with neither the population nor the industrial capacity to resist the third phase of the operation.
Kammler acknowledged that this would be the most critical phase of the Bifrost Protocol. In particular, he was aware that the Walhalla base would be living on borrowed time. Once the Allies became aware of the Walhalla base’s existence, they would surely devote all their vast scientific and manufacturing resources to the task of developing weapons that could reach it and destroy it. Mjölnir would have to achieve its objectives before they could do so.
Return
The final phase of the Bifrost Protocol was codenamed Gungnir after Odin’s deadly spear. With the Allied powers on their knees, the personnel of Walhalla would return to Earth as conquerors, raise up the fallen German nation, and establish an eternal Fourth Reich built upon the principles of the Third.
By March 1945, the Western Allies had crossed the Rhine and the Red Army was pushing westward from Vienna. Kammler knew that the first phase of the Bifrost Protocol had to be put into effect soon, but there was a problem: the massive Haunebu IV saucer, whose carrying capacity was vital to the evacuation plan, was not yet spaceworthy. With his characteristic efficiency, however, Kammler had foreseen this possibility and formulated a contingency plan.
The German Antarctic Expedition of 1938 had laid claim to a vast amount of territory on the continent of Antarctica, naming the territory Neuschwabenland (New Suebia) after one of Germany’s ancient duchies. Although the Allies had ignored the Neuschwabenland territory, Kammler had not. In the closing months of the war, Kammler used the Haunebu craft, along with a fleet of U-boats, to move SS E-IV assets to Neuschwabenland.
The Haunebu IV limped out of Prague ahead of the Soviet advance, reaching Antarctica a few hours later after a flight beset with minor technical problems. When Kammler made the decision to take off, chief saucer engineer Klaus Habermohl was in the city scrounging for materials: he was captured by the Red Army on May 11, showing just how close the Russians came to capturing the craft itself and thwarting Kammler’s whole plan.
Through 1946, Kammler and his remaining followers worked to develop the Antarctic base into a working development and manufacturing facility which would enable them to continue the war. While the Haunebu IV completed its fitting-out, work continued on various other advanced weapons projects as materials and facilities permitted.
Part of Kammler’s plan was to liquidate his rival von Braun and transfer the Peenemünde rocket group to Antarctica along with his other projects, but von Braun was able to escape Kammler’s trap and surrendered to the advancing American forces. It was during his debriefing by American intelligence that he first mentioned Kammler’s plan and the secret base in Antarctica, but it was almost a year before he was believed.
In late December 1946, US Navy Task Force 68 converged on Neuschwabenland from three directions. Commanded by Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, Operation High Jump was a secret mission with the cover of establishing an American research base: with the Cold War just beginning and the Soviet Union using captured German scientists in its race to match America’s nuclear capability, Washington did not want to alert the Kremlin to the existence of yet more Nazi Wunderwaffen and spark a war for control of Antarctica.
After a series of skirmishes in the waters around Antarctica, a force of Haunebu craft attacked Task Force 68. All of Byrd’s aircraft were destroyed and several ships were damaged, but none of the saucers mounted heavy-enough weapons to destroy a surface ship. Seventeen days after the fight began, Byrd withdrew on February 23, 1947, but Operation High Jump had proved that Neuschwabenland was vulnerable and Kammler knew that the Americans would return in greater force. His followers worked through the brutal Antarctic winter to complete the giant saucer, and at some time between March and November of 1947, Operation Einherjar was put into effect: all the personnel and assets at Point 211, as US Intelligence had codenamed the base, were removed to the Moon, and Neuschwabenland was abandoned.
It was December before another American expedition reached Antarctica. Codenamed Operation Windmill, it was ostensibly a geographical survey and training mission and a step toward keeping the previous expedition’s “Little America” base open permanently. Under cover of this mission, the personnel of Operation Windmill searched for the Neuschwabenland base.
An extensive area was surveyed using three helicopters and an amphibious airplane, while a Marine Corps detachment equipped with tracked all-terrain M29 “Weasel” vehicles stood at the ready. The abandoned base was discovered on January 3, 1948, but bad weather delayed investigation for several days. By February 16 it was evident that the Nazis had abandoned Point 211, taking their saucers with them. The task force was recalled, and Operation Windmill was over.
The Nazi Space Program
German scientists were exploring the possibility of space travel long before war broke out, and science fiction had as strong an appeal in Germany as it did in the United States.
In 1925 — two years before Fritz Lang’s seminal Metropolis and nine years before the first Flash Gordon comic strip — a film titled Wunder Der Schöpfung (Wonders of Creation) showed a German scientific team traveling through the universe in a spacecraft that served as the symbol of progress and an age of new technologies; it included the stirring slogan “Now Germany belongs to us, tomorrow the whole solar system.” The film was a huge hit on its first release, perhaps because it promised a brighter tomorrow for the dispirited German people after the humiliating defeat of the Great War.