Breaking Hitler's Things    

Hydro-power plant

   
   Did you ever wonder why the Nazi's never succeeded in making nuclear bombs? It wasn't that Hitler's scientists weren't capable. 

   Five saboteurs (plus four) helped prevent Germany's creation of a super weapon that could have won the war. 

   "The plan was audacious, requiring a midnight parachute jump onto a snow-covered plateau, cross-country skiing in subzero temperatures, and an assault on an isolated, heavily guarded power plant in Norway." - Washington Post. The five-man commando team didn't know just how critical their mission would be. 

   This Norwegian plant was the world's leading commercial supplier of heavy-water, a moderator that scientists were using to develop weapons-grade plutonium. This was Germany's sole source. (Americans used graphite.) 

   When Germany invaded Norway in April 1940, Joachim Ronneberg fled to Britain and joined an espionage unit that Winston Churchill called his "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." By 1942, the Allies knew that Nazis were increasing production at the hydroelectric power plant. 

   Forty-one saboteurs already had died when their gliders crashed in bad weather. Nazis executed the survivors. 

   Ronneberg, then 23, and four commandos he selected, parachuted into Norway in February 1943. They landed in the wrong location, waited out a snowstorm inside a cabin, and unexpectedly met up with four local fighters on a plateau northwest of the plant. 

   To reach their objective, they scrambled down a steep gorge, crossed a frozen river and climbed up the far side, avoiding a guarded bridge. At the changing of the guard, Ronneberg cut a gate chain with heavy-duty metal cutters.

Tomorrow: the rest of the story