GoKawiil7 min read
Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
Egypt relied on a group of former Nazi scientists to spearhead its missile program.
In 1962, a key player in the program—Heinz Krug—left his office, never to be seen again.
While Heinz’s ultimate fate is merely conjecture among historians, some accounts state that a brutal assassination may be to blame.
On July 21, 1962, a crowd of journalists gathered in a bleak stretch of desert near Wadi El Natrun, an ancient valley in Egypt. That day Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president and military dictator, was determined to prove to the world that his country was a military superpower. Blasting dust everywhere, four surface-to-surface rockets shot off into the skies one after another and fell into the Mediterranean, shocking the media. Afterward, the Egyptian government celebrated with rallies, fireworks, and a plane that rained candy over Cairo as state-owned radio declared the nation had entered the “missile age” after a long effort to build up its long-range firepower.
The balance of power shifted in the Middle East overnight, sparking an arms race between Egypt and Israel, and exposing shadowy networks of former Nazi intelligence officers and rocket technicians selling their services to the highest bidder. Caught in a fierce crossfire between Israel, Egypt, and West Germany, one Nazi rocket scientist disappeared into thin air—crippling a rocket program and stumping historians for decades.
Egypt Desperately Needed Rockets
According to Michael Neufeld, PhD, former senior curator in the space history department of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, Egypt’s pursuit of Nazi rocket scientists was par for the course in a global arms race taking place at the time.
“Missile technology was spreading around the world after World War II and the Germans were only a small part of that,” Neufeld says. “Egypt wanted to threaten Israel, notably in the wake of the 1956 attack on the Suez Canal by Israel, Britain, and France. The context for Nasser’s interest in missiles is the Arab world's hostility to Israel that ultimately led to the 1967 and 1973 wars.”
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