The hustle and bustle of New York City in the 1940s carries on as if it were any normal
day.
The birds are chirping; there isn’t a cloud in the sky.
Suddenly, a large V-like shadow blocks out the sun.
A squadron of giant aircraft with swastikas adorning their wings appears above the Manhattan
skyline.
People scream in horror as the bomb bay doors open, and the Nazi Amerikabombers drop their
payloads across the city.
In an instant, the financial capital of the United States is wiped off the face of the
Earth.
Similar attacks are carried out to the north and south of New York.
The Nazis pinpoint key manufacturing towns and decimated them with their state-of-the-art
Amerikabombers.
This had been Hitler’s obsession for some time now.
Ever since the United States meddled in his affairs in Europe, the Fuhrer has wanted to
send them a message.
Using his new fleet of long-range jets, he has done just this.
Entire cities burn to the ground as the unrelenting barrage of bombs is dropped from the sky.
Then something truly horrific happens.
A lone Amerikabomber flies over Washington D.C.
It drops a single bomb above the Capitol Building.
People look up into the sky, shielding their eyes to see what the odd-shaped aircraft is
doing over their city.
The bomb falls like a lone raindrop on a pleasant summer day.
Just before it hits the ground, the bomb detonates.
There is a bright flash of light.
In an instant, Washington D.C. is incinerated in the fiery explosion of a nuclear bomb.
It only takes hours before the United States surrenders to the genocidal maniac that leads
the Nazi Party.
Adolf Hitler had grand plans for world domination.
Many of which hinged on his Wunderwaffe program.
This was the name given to the Nazis’ most insane weapons, like the sun gun, giant tanks,
and super soldiers.
Almost all of the Wunderwaffe never came to fruition.
However, some, like the Amerikabomber, not only came really close to being produced,
but prototypes were actually built.
We know that Hitler never got the chance to attack the United States directly, but he
and Hermann Göring, his right-hand man and leader of the Nazi Luftwaffe, both believed
that they could construct an aircraft that could fly from Europe to the eastern coast
of the United States and drop bombs on American cities.
As World War II was coming to an end, Adolf Hitler realized he was in big trouble.
At the beginning of the war, there were meetings about creating various Wunderwaffe, but since
the German military was doing so well against their enemies at the time, these projects
were put on the back burner, so more Panzer tanks and weapons that had already been proven
to work could be built.
However, as Hitler saw his dream of world domination crumble before him, he began putting
more pressure on his scientists and engineers to design weapons that could turn the war
around.
When the United States entered the war in Europe, Hitler was so furious that he would
often describe in vivid detail how he wanted to see New York City go up in flames.
He envisioned the skyscrapers as gigantic burning torches that would illuminate the
night sky.
We all know Adolf Hitler was a lunatic, but his bloodlust for the destruction of the United
States towards the end of the war was almost unparalleled.
A few years into the war, ideas for the first Amerikabomber were tossed around by the Nazi
high command.
Goering believed that whatever aircraft was developed needed to be able to fly at least
7,200 miles, which would allow it to cross the Atlantic Ocean with its payload and return
back to German-controlled territories to be refueled for its next mission.
Initially, the Ameirkabomber was planned to fly from the Azores off the coast of Portugal
instead of mainland Europe, which would reduce the distance the aircraft needed to fly in
order to reach the east coast of the U.S.
In fact, Adolf Hitler had even mentioned his desire to do this as early as 1940, only a
year into the war.
It also helped that the Portuguese Prime Minister at the time, António de Oliveira Salazar,
had allowed German U-boats and ships to refuel at the islands.
Hitler saw no reason that Salazar would not allow him to refuel his planes there as well.
And if he did have a problem with it, Hitler was more than happy to invade Portugal and
claim the Azores as his own.
However, as plans were developed further, the Nazis concluded that it’d probably be
best to construct an aircraft that could be flown from Germany or at least mainland Europe.
Several aircraft were considered for the job, but only a handful met all of the specifications
after slight modifications were made.
The reality was the aircraft that could deliver everything Hitler wanted had yet to be invented.
It needed to be state of the art and like nothing that had come before it.
The craziest part is that the Nazis were actually extremely close to making this Wunderwffe
aircraft a reality.
And even though it wasn’t completed until after Hitler’s death, the final Amerikabomber
concept did eventually fly.
The first prototype for the Amerikabomber was the Junkers Ju-390.
It was designed to have 6 BMW 801E 14-cylinder two-row air-cooled radial piston engines that
could give the plane enough thrust to reach 314 miles per hour.
This behemoth of an aircraft would contain a crew of 10 and have a wingspan of over 165
feet.
The cruising speed would be closer to 220 miles per hour, but it would only have a range
of around 5,000 miles.
This wasn’t nearly enough to make it to the United States and back.
Modifications were made to the Ju-390, but it was found that this plane would never be
able to complete the missions that Hitler envisioned.
When loaded with enough bombs to decimate the New York skyline, the Ju-390 would barely
be able to make it across the Atlantic, let alone back home.
Therefore, this aircraft was scrapped pretty early on.
The next prototype for the Amerikabomber was the Messerschmitt ME-264.
This aircraft was smaller than the Ju-390, with a wingspan of only 141 feet.
It was powered by four BMW 801D 14-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engines that gave
it a top speed of 339 miles per hour and a cruising speed of 219 miles per hour.
However, even though the ME-264 was smaller with fewer engines, it had a much longer range.
The ME-264 could travel 9,300 miles without refuelling, which was more than enough to
reach the U.S. coast, drop some bombs, and fly back to Europe.
But due to its smaller size, there were concerns that it would not be able to hold enough explosives
to make the trip worthwhile.
An entire squadron of ME-264s would need to be sent to the east coast of the United States
and simultaneously drop their payloads if they were to destroy New York City.
The problem with this plan was that the ME-264s were not very fast, which made them vulnerable
to American fighter planes that would be launched to intercept and destroy them.
Another consideration for the Amerikabomber was the Heinkel HE-277.
This was the smallest of the three prototypes and didn’t seem very practical once the
Nazi engineers dissected its specifications.
The HE-277 had a wingspan of 131 feet and was powered by four BMW 801E 14-cylinder twin
row-radial engines.
This gave the plane a max speed of 354 miles per hour and a cruising speed of 286 miles
per hour.
The HE-277 would be the fastest out of all the aircraft considered for the Amerikabomber
mission.
However, it only had a range of 3,700 miles meaning that any bombing run of the United
States would be a one-way mission.
After careful consideration, the Nazi high command gave the go-ahead to build prototypes
of the ME-264 and JU-390.
They both flew, but neither would be massed produced or make it to the shores of the Americas.
Even with the initial failures of the Amerikabomber project, the Nazis still had several designs
that may have been able to wipe out New York City for their Fuhrer.
The creation of the V2 and other advanced technology using rocket engines gave Nazi
inventors several ideas.
They designed ballistic missiles and a manned suborbital rocket ship named Silbervogel that
could possibly be used to strike the eastern United States.
These projects never made it off the ground, but it shows the ingenuity and the dedication
Hitler’s engineers had to make their Fuhrer’s dream a reality.
However, there was one concept for the Amerikabomber that was both plausible and absolutely horrific.
The design became known as Project A but was also called Piggy Back.
The basic premise was one of the large planes considered for the Amerikabomber project would
not carry bombs but a smaller aircraft that would be released somewhere over the Atlantic.
The larger aircraft would then turn around and return to Europe while the smaller bomber
continued to the United States to complete its mission.
In this design, the Heinkel He-177, which was already in operation, would be used to
carry a Dornier Do-217 as far as possible before releasing the smaller aircraft to carry
out its mission.
The Do-217 would be equipped with a Lorin-Staustrahltriebwerk ramjet engine that would allow it to travel
well over 300 miles per hour, making it incredibly hard to shoot down.
When the idea was first thought up, the plan was for the crew of the Do-217 to bail out
just before the plane reached New York City.
The crew would then be picked up by a U-boat hiding off the coast of the United States
as the Do-217 flew directly into the NYC skyline.
However, this plan posed all sorts of logistical problems, the main one being that the Nazis
would need to get a U-boat to the coast of the United States without being detected or
destroyed when they surfaced to pick up the plane’s crew.
This plan was eventually abandoned, and the Nazis considered the Piggy Back iteration
of the Amerikabomber impractical.
The craziest part is that in some of the plans for Projekt A, the notes indicate that the
smaller bomber was never meant to be recovered, whic h also could have meant it was supposed
to be used as a kamikaze-like bomber that would deliver its payload by having the pilot
crash the plane into its intended target.
The most promising Amerikabomber design developed by the Nazis was actually the most futuristic.
In 1944 the Horten brothers tried to solve the failures of the Amerikabomber program
for Hitler.
Their design was state-of-the-art and would propel the Nazis into the next frontier of
warfare.
The Hortens proposed taking six Jumo 004B turbojets and embedding them in a fuselage
pod that acted like a giant glider.
They named the futuristic jet the Horten XVIIIA.
The idea was to create an aircraft that could fly higher, faster, and stealthier than the
Allied planes.
The ability to stay out of range of anti-aircraft guns and other fighter planes meant the XVIIIA
would be unstoppable.
This was exactly what Hitler wanted in his Amerikabomber.
The Horten XVIIIA would be a much larger version of the Ho 229 flying-wing jet fighter created
by the Horten brothers.
The problem with Ho 229 was that it was unstable due to a lack of tail stabilizers.
This was pointed out by several engineers working with Göring and Hitler, which led
to Göring insisting that the Hortens work with the Junkers and Messerschmitt engineers
to fix the problem.
By 1945 everyone was working together to make the XVIIIA a reality.
There was no doubt that the design would allow the Horten XVIIIA to fly higher and faster
than any other aircraft on the planet, but that meant nothing if the jet couldn’t be
controlled.
This led to the other engineers suggesting that a tailfin should be added to the XVIIIA
to help with the stabilization problem.
For whatever reason, this was unacceptable to Reimar Horten.
He scrapped the whole idea and went back to the drawing board.
Days later, he came back with a brand new design.
This new aircraft would be dubbed the Ho XVIIIB.
It would hold a crew of three in a huge bubble canopy and be equipped with two HeS 011 turbojets
that would allow the new iteration of the aircraft to travel at 528 miles per hour and
have a ceiling altitude of 52,000 feet.
Better yet, the wings of the craft would be large enough to hold enough fuel for the jet
to fly for 27 hours straight, easily allowing it to travel to New York and back with no
problem.
The Ho XVIIIB would not only hold multiple bombs that could be dropped on the New York
skyline, but it would also have two belly-mounted thirty-millimeter auto cannons for defense.
These seemed unnecessary as the aircraft would be flying too high and fast for any other
aircraft to attack, but Reimar Horten wanted to make sure every precaution was taken with
this iteration of his design.
The Nazi command loved the new concept.
The only problem was that the Allies were overrunning their forces, and within a few
months, the Nazis would surrender.
However, the design of the Ho XVIIIB was genius and met all of the qualifications for the
Amerikabomber program.
Not only that, but the Ho XVIIIB would have worked.
We know this because two years after the war ended, the U.S. aeronautics company Northrop
tested their YB-49 flying wings prototype successfully, an aircraft inspired by the
Ho XVIIIB.
This aircraft had a very similar design to the Ho XVIIIB and could travel 9,000 miles
when fully fueled, showing that the Horten design could have been the Wunderwaffe Amerikabomber
that Hitler had always dreamt of.
It had a wingspan of 52 meters and was powered by six turbojet engines embedded in the wings,
just like the Ho XVIIIA design.
The Nazis would have still needed to construct and work out the kinks of the Ho XVIIIB, but
if they had started the project at the beginning of the war, there is no telling how devastating
the bomber could have been for the United States and Allied forces.
It’s interesting to note that even if the Nazis had completed their Amerikabomber in
some form, it likely would have had very little effect on the war in the end.
The mistakes made by the Nazis, such as letting the British and French forces escape at Dunkirk
and the failure of Operation Barbarossa to invade and control the Soviet Union, cost
the Nazis the war long before they would have ever been able to bomb the United States.
The Nazis might have hoped that by bombing the U.S. using the Amerikabomber, it would
cause them to pull their forces back home and disengage in their campaigns in Europe.
This would have given the Nazis time to regroup and figure out how to take back the territory
they had lost.
However, even this scenario seems unlikely.
If Hitler and the Nazis had been able to successfully defeat the British and Soviets, they would
have had the resources and labor power to make the Amerikabomber a reality.
In this situation, the Nazis would have had no one to oppose their rule in Europe and
would be free to build entire fleets of Amerikabombers that would decimate the eastern coast of the
United States.
Imagine airfields filled with new jet-powered bombers constantly making runs across the
Atlantic and attacking the American east coast.
The United States would have no allies in Europe to help them fight the Nazis and would
also be distracted by the war raging in the Pacific against the Japanese.
If the Nazis controlled all of Europe, it’s very likely that the Amerikabomber would have
had a devastating effect on the United States.
However, this is not how the war played out.
And the Ameirkabomber program ended before it even began.
There is one other terrifying scenario that could have allowed the Amerikabomber to turn
the tide of the war even if the Nazis were losing at the time.
If the Nazis had been able to develop nuclear weapons towards the end of the war, it would
have changed everything.
Regardless of if it looked like the Allies were going to win the war in Europe, Hitler
could have sent his Amerikabombers to New York, Pennsylvania, and other key targets
along the eastern coast of the United States and completely wiped them off the face of
the planet.
A Nazi war machine with nuclear capabilities would have ended up irradiating much of Europe
and the eastern coast of the United States.
Amerikabombers would have been dispatched even if Hitler knew he would end up surrendering
just so he could live out his sick fantasy of watching the New York City skyline burn
like torches.
Ironically, the Wunderwaffe projects like the Amerikabomber may have been one of the
factors that led to the Nazis never developing nuclear weapons.
The time and energy wasted on trying to create unattainable weapons could have been used
to further Nazi nuclear research.
This, along with the sabotage of their heavy water facilities in Norway and the limited
pool of physicists as a result of their racist policies, resulted in the Nazis never developing
nuclear weapons.
So, what would have happened if the Nazis had developed nuclear weapons and the Amerikabomber,
allowing them to strike the east coast of the United States in 1945?
With nuclear bombs at his disposal, Hitler would only need to send two or three bombers
to decimate key manufacturing and economic hubs in the U.S.
However, if he did this, the United States would have retaliated with their own nukes.
By 1945 the U.S. had developed nuclear weapons.
That August, they dropped two bombs on Japan, ending the war in the Pacific.
However, it’s highly probable that if the Amerikabombers dropped nukes on the cities
along the east coast of the United States, the U.S. would retaliate by sending bombers
of their own to release nukes across Nazi-controlled Europe.
The devastation on both continents would be immeasurable.
Millions and millions of people would die in the initial explosions.
Millions more would die as a result of the fires that would spread across the landscape.
Countless people would suffer and eventually succumb to radiation poisoning.
It would truly be an apocalyptic event.
In hindsight, the failure of the Nazis to develop nuclear weapons and the Amerikabomber
may have saved the planet.
There is no telling what the consequences would have been if Hitler had access to long-range
aircraft and nuclear bombs.
The horror is almost too much to even fathom.
If Hitler had access to the Amerikabomers that the Horten brothers developed along with
nuclear weapons, there is a very good chance you would not be watching this video today.
Humanity would have been wiped off the face of the Earth if the United States and Nazi
Germany engaged in a nuclear war.
Alternatively, if the Amerikabomber had worked as Hitler intended it to, there is also a
possibility that we would all be speaking German in a world controlled by a Nazi dictator.
Thankfully that is not how history played out, and we can all sigh a breath of relief
knowing that the possibility of us living in a world ruled by Nazis didn’t come to
pass.
Now watch “How Close Did Nazis Come to Creating the Atomic Bomb?”
Or check out “Hitler's Super Weapons That Terrified the World.”