Hitler's 9/11: How Fuhrer planned to fly suicide planes into Manhattan skyscrapers 56 years before Al Qaeda

By TONY RENNELL

PUBLISHED: 00:01 GMT, 13 December 2013 | UPDATED: 07:21 GMT, 13 December 2013

The madman dreamed of the destruction of New York.

In his mind’s eye, he saw an apocalyptic scene of skyscrapers blazing like giant torches, buildings collapsing, and terrified people running in panic, all faith in their impregnability shattered, their gods of capitalism and democracy unable to save them.

This could well be the sort of the demonic vision that drove Osama bin Laden and his 9/11 plotters to the suicide assault on the Twin Towers in 2001. Yet more than half a century before them, another fanatic revelled in that same fantasy — Adolf Hitler.

Though the object of the Fuhrer’s hate was 4,000 miles from Berlin, he demanded that his scientists and engineers find ways to reach it with bombs and wreak the havoc he craved.

The schemes they came up with — including suicide planes that would dive into the heart of Manhattan causing mass death and destruction — are eerily prescient of 9/11.

They never came close to succeeding, but the intensity with which they were pursued over the best part of a decade and even as Hitler’s Reich was collapsing around him is startling.

For years, the Fuhrer trod warily with the United States, anxious not to provoke enmity, happy for Washington to stay out of European politics while his army and the Luftwaffe in the skies enforced his will in Europe. Publicly he stated that Germany had no transatlantic ambitions and was a friend of America.

In private, though, he despised its democratic structures, its belief in personal freedom, its mixed races and its many Jewish bankers — all anathema to Nazi ideology. He also calculated that one day there would have to be a reckoning.

As he saw it, after he had fulfilled his immediate goal of subjugating Western Europe and destroying the Soviet Union, there would be just two super-powers left in the world — Germany and America. A war between them for domination was inevitable, and he was determined to be prepared for it.

As early as 1937, he had been excited when Willy Messerschmitt, aircraft designer extraordinaire, unveiled for Hitler’s eyes only a mock-up of the massive long-range bomber he was developing at his factory in Augsburg in southern Germany.

This four-engine giant, the Me 264, was ostensibly intended to support German submarine operations out in the Atlantic. But it also, Messerschmitt told the excited Fuhrer, had the potential of reaching the U.S. coastline.

Hitler gazed up in wonder and expectation at the full-size (but non-functional) dummy. Make it happen, he ordered — a command easier to give than to carry out.

It was, after all, only 34 years since the Wright brothers had made the world’s first flying machine. The technology had taken off in leaps and bounds since then, constantly producing bigger, faster planes which could stay in the air longer and range further.

But to build one capable of flying non-stop to New York and back with a three-ton payload of bombs on board was to stretch that fast-moving technology to breaking point. Was it even possible?

Messerschmitt’s finest engineers devoted the next few years to experimenting with wing loads, engine power and weight ratios to find out.

Meanwhile, Europe was at war as all-conquering German troops marauded west and east in pursuit of Hitler’s goal of global domination. By 1941, France was beaten, England corralled, the Soviet Union under siege. That showdown with the U.S. was getting nearer.

But the weapon intended to spearhead it, the Me 264, was proving tricky. It needed to be exceptionally lightweight for the distance across the Atlantic but sturdy enough for the load it had to carry and fast enough to defend itself. The aerodynamic equations simply did not add up.

One solution would be to shorten the trip by finding a staging post along the way for refuelling and repairs. To this end, Hitler ordered a naval operation to seize Iceland — half way between the European and American land masses.

This was forestalled, however, when in mid-1941 the U.S. — though still neutral and a non-combatant in the war but aware of which way the wind was blowing — took over the defence of Iceland specifically to deny it to the Germans as a base.

Back to their drawing boards went Messerschmitt’s designers. Their plane would have to go the full distance after all.

FULL STORY: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2522904/Adolf-Hitler-set-Ma...