About the book: 2013 / The career of professional rocket scientist Dieter Hutzel began on the German island of Usedom in the Baltic Sea in the town of Peenemünde, where completely new types of weapons were created. As a young rocket scientist, he was recalled from the Eastern Front and by the end of World War II became the chief assistant to the brilliant scientist and technical mastermind of the rocket center, Wernher von Braun. Hutzel was an eyewitness to the development and testing carried out on the island, in particular the improvement of the formidable V-2 rocket (weapon of retaliation), which was called the “miracle weapon of the Third Reich.” The author talks in detail about the activities of the research center, about its employees, about the work of the test stands, about the evacuation of the center and about his mission to hide the most important Peenemünde documents from the advancing Soviet troops.