Hitler's Amerika Bomber - How Germany Almost Reached America 

Germany holds the record for "what if" and "almost" videos.

You know, if Hitler has an obsession with seeing American cities destroyed. He sure as hell would have loved Michael Bay films.

That was a very tall order to expect a plane in the 40s to fly across the Atlantic and back. It would also have to face air defense before it made it to America.

If Hermann Göring was to accompany the first mission, there wouldn't have been enough room for his cake and bread requirements. On a serious note, I love this channel!

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them." - Sir Arthur Harris

The closest production run of the Amerika Bomber was by Revell in 1:72 scale.

Hermon Goering wanted a six engine heavy lift aircraft just in case he decided to attempt an escape at the end of the war. He never thought he'd loose so much weight by the end of the war.

So Goering's boast that "they'll never bomb this place!" referred to the Luftwaffe and the United States. Got it.

It`s such a Germany WW2 sound name. The AMERIKABOMBER!

The V-2 (or A-4) rocket was never designed to reach America. It had nowhere near the range. The A-9 project had America in mind, but never got very far in development.

"BMW engines"? better bring a damn good OBD scanner for that transatlantic flight.

Meanwhile in war thunder~ Me264: I have better flight characteristics than the B-17s, B-24 and lancasters

If it hadn't been for Captain Steven Rogers in 1945, the Walküre would have obliterated the eastern seaboard in just mere minutes.

This Channel is Underrated

Germany might have been able to afford an Amerika Bomber if they didn't waste so much money on the V-2 rocket. The V-2 rocket was more expensive than the Manhattan Project but did very did little damage for the price tag. Great video as always, keep up the good work!

Is the narrator on speed?

So a bomber that was NEVER built "almost" reached America? Do you watch Ancient Aliens often?

Could you please talk a little faster, there is still a fragment of a little paus between the words.

Hitler promised his own military that he would NOT declare war until at least 1946. If he'd only have waited then we might all be eating bratwurst and sauerkraut today.

The front of the one bomber in the video ironically resembled the Boeing B29, along with a view of the cockpit as well. Good Day Everyone!

Just when I think I’ve seen or heard of every cool German plane from ww2 I stumble upon a new one

Downside to long range is they might notice way before you’d even get to the east coast. Pearl Harbour only happened because a small island in the Pacific was caught off guard.

The RAF and the USAAF had enough trouble burning German cities to the ground and they were only 600 miles away and had 1000s of planes.

The BV 238 was also regarded to be used as "America bomber" for some time. But it become destroyed by british air strike just before it started for his first intercontinental flight. Being a flying boat, BV 238 would be refueled on high sea by U-boats. This conception of using bomber flying boats with submarine supply help was operationally used by Japan in II WW and in soviets conceptions in 1960's.

The Me 264 is basically just a young B-29

Intresringly enough, Hitler's personal train was previously named Amerika.

At the same time, America had its own plans for a trans-Atlantic bomber. The B-36 wasn't ready until after the war was over but it became the backbone of the Strategic Air Command at the beginning of the Cold War.

There's actually a really good historical book about this call "Impossible Target"

Almost? The program never came close to even making it off the ground. There is more to flying to America from Germany than building a big plane with a long range.

Love the "Ford Aircraft" logo on the lab coat at 16:33.

In todays day and age, this is the job of an ICBM

A-bomb: $2+ billion B-29: $3+ billion. Amerika bomber: not in this universe...

Love your content but reckon you can end the videos a tad better. They just seem to end promptly without a sense of closure !! Keep up the great work .

This aircraft had actually started to be built in an aircraft factory requisitioned in France. I even think he did a few flights just after the war and was curving dangerously.

I'm pressing X to Doubt on that "Hitler watching cities on fire porn". I'll need a citation for that.

Your channel is amazing. Thanks for the awesome content, man.

To those looking for tangible evidence of this Amerikan airplane, I know where one of the engines exist, and it's massive. For some reason, several rare WW-II German machines and artifacts ended up at LA's Griffith Park train museum in the late 40s and early 50s. I can remember in the late 70s & mid-80s they had a flying Buzz bomb outside rotting away. Also next to a vintage LA Fire ladder truck they had this massive Amerika engine, with a simple plack saying how this engine was captured after WW-II and was to fit on a Massive bomber to drop a nuclear bomb on New York. I'm sure the museum is gone by now so I would check with Griffith Park Museum officials to track down this engine which I think belongs in the Smithsonian.

Fun fact: If anyone here, other than me of course, has watched Konpeki No Kantai, the TA-400 is clearly where they got the inspiration for the Germans' Jormungand (apt name must be said) heavy bomber in that show.

This is almost a german b-29 on the outside

I'm confused, when did the alien spacecraft come into play?

Nazi Germany was nowhere near close to making atomic weapons. It had some concepts down but it would have been years before they could achieve nuclear arms.

What?? The FW-TA 400 was to carry 53,000lbs in bombs? vs 14k for a Lancaster or 16k for a B-29 Superfortress (or 4.8k for a B-17) A FW TA-400 would carry as much bombs as 11 B-17s - across the Atlantic!

EDIT!!!!!!!!!!!! 7:56 I was writing the text below as I listened to your video. I hear you mention Hans Pancherz at this time point . I am not aware of Capetown, but if Hans said so, you should take it very seriously. He was a living legend, only one to have flown the JU 248. When I was Chairman of the Malmö Division of the Swedish Society of Aeronautics ans Astronautics I persuaded onkel Hans to hold a lecture of the JU 248. If things had been different at the wars end, the record books would not say Chuck Yeager, but Hans Pancherz instead. Here is where I started to write parallel to watching the video: Hi! A man I grew up with a man who was the chief test pilot (German: Versuchfliger) of the JU 390. He worked for my father after the war at MFI, Malmö Flygindustri in Sweden. Some of the test flight he made started in Germany, went down to Central Africa and back again (nonstop). As far as I know one of the few uses of it was to fly to South America and back with rare alloy metals. The chief test pilot's name was Flugkapitän Hans Pancherz, he was also an engineer. At the end of the was he was put in charge for the development of all jet and rocket aircraft. It was he who made the Heinkel He 162, Volksjäger, a flyable aircraft after it's problems that killed his predecessor. The flights of JU 390 are not fiction. BTW Flugkapitän Hans Pancherz made the worlds second catapult ejection in a JU 290, not planned. Tail broke in a world record attempt.

Awesome video as always!! I was kind of hoping there might have been a mention of the Horten brother's proposal too.

There was even a Heavy Bomber Version of the Horton-229 conceived, but like the P-1000 Ratte, it never made it off the paper it was drawn on.

He came so close. If only it had been engineered, tested, flown, and had enough fuel in the country to get it to America.

13:17 Doktor Merkwürdigliebe / Dr. Strangelove

Hey dark docs your awesome

Only one plane met the Amerika bomber requirements: the Horten flying wing XVIII six jet engine proposal. It was approved, but the war ended.

Even if the plane had the range to make it here, did Hitler think it would be able to fly on in unopposed? Every fighter plane on the eastern seaboard would be scrambled to intercept. Even if they DID manage to build such a plane, it never would have actually been able to reach its target.

No this is more like it. This is the quality that dark skies can be up to. Congratulations.

Yeay another vid! Keep em coming

Ahhh, WW2 bombing in one of the clips. Most of the bombs dropped blew up dirt in fields.

Even if Germany was successful in producing an Amerika bomber, they would have been shot down in droves because they would have made the trip without fighter escort.

Great work!! The research on this doc must have been tremendous!!

The Third Reich and their too little, too late wonder weapons... Even when they had a V1 and V2

They still had to worry about fighter escort..

When I see "Amerika" instead of "America", I think in the Rammstein song.

When played at .75 speed it almost sounds like professional voice over work by Richard Kiley. Which is a God-send. My dear fellow speaks so quickly and haltingly that it is somewhat distracting.

Germany did reach America. With U-boats. The waters along North America’s eastern coast is littered with ships sunk by U-boats. And with sunken U-boats. Allied countermeasures turned the tide, just as they would have done in the air if needed. A relative few German long range bombers would not have been decisive.

Very informative, keep up the good work.

"Ahh the Luftwaffe, the Washington Generals of the History Channel." ~ Homer J Simpson. 'Lisa the Tree Hugger' Season 12.

Zum einen: Diese ME264 war zwar als Langstreckenbomber geplant und sogar mit 1 Exemplar fertig Gebaut. Diese einzige maschine wurde aber während eines Luftangriffes, zerbomt und eine neue Maschine wurde nicht mehr gebaut. Abgesehen davon, soweit war man damals noch nicht, das ein Flugzeug von Deutschland oder einen anderen Punkt von Europa aus, den Flug bis zu den USA und zurück geschafft hätte. Dazu hätte man eine Base als Zwischenstation zum Auftanken haben müssen, was Deutschland aber nicht hatte. Es gab ja auch noch andere Mitbewerber, die einen sogenannten "America-Bomber" konstruierten, wie z.B. Junkers mit der JU 390 (6-Motor) . Der kühnste Entwurf stammte ja von den Gebrüdern Horten, die einen "Nurflügler" mit gewaltigen Ausmassen auf dem Papier hatten, doch alle diese Entwürfe waren nur "Heisse Luft". Inzwischen war mit in der Raketenentwicklung sehr weit fortgeschritten, so das man ein Raketenprojekt in Angriff nahm, dies war eine 2-stufige Rakete, die man A9 nannte. Auch von dem Österreichischen Konstrukteur Sänger war ein Entwurf auf dem Zeichenbrett fertig, aber zur Produktion solcher Fluggeräte kam es aus Gründen der Kriegslage nicht mehr.

“Sir? The Germans are building a new bomber. Our intelligence reports are confirming the Luftwaffe is building something codenamed ‘AMERIKA’.” “…so a new bomber to hit Ottawa?” “Idk, man. Maybe for Canada? Maybe for Moscow? London again?”

Sounds like this plane flew a bit, maybe, kinda, sorta. That's what a friend told me from his neighbors bother's cousins former roomate.

very epic video thanks

Great job on the research and presentation!!! Keep it coming.

A Focke Wulf Fw 200 V1 „Condor“ flew on the 10. of August 1938 non-stop from Berlin to New York. You make it sound, that this was impossible to fly those distances at that time. Such a plane is currently undergoing restoration in Bremen and Hamburg and will be on display in Berlin.

1:10 “Official plans for a long-range bomber officially didn’t commence...” redundant writing asf

This failure saved Germany from nuclear obliteration.

Hitler obsession of bombong ny puzzle me.when the real threat come from gigantic tank factory in the ural.

learned a lot here...your research, production & narration are always TV/doc broadcast quality

The German's didn't have enough petrol after 1942. The German's never built a Heavy bomber, even this one didn't have nearly the payload of a B-24. The German's didn't have enough rare metals either.

I’ve never heard f this Hitler guy but he seems driven.

From everything I've read, Germany and Japan took opposite extreme wrong approaches to weapons. Germany devoted too much effort into research and development of new designs in aircraft and submarines. Japan spent the war manufacturing essentially the same aircraft, subs and ships they had at the beginning of the war. Both methods failed. Germany never had enough working planes, with the miracle plane coming; Japan was woefully obsolete by 1944. American approach was to develop to a point, then go to manufacture, allowing incremental improvements afterward. The Mustang and B17 are great examples of aircraft from that approach. The Gato and Balao class submarines won the war in the Pacific, in spite of BurOrd's galactic failure in torpedo design. Germany's only hope for a New York bombing would have to have been some variation on the Doolittle raid of Tokyo, except Germany's planes would have no place to go afterward, and would have to plan to ditch at some predetermined U-boat pickup point, assuming a U-boat could survive long enough.

"WE DEFEATED THE WRONG ENEMY!" They killed Patton for speaking the truth

Man I love this channel. Even the name is great.

The Italians put a plan on paper, to refuel a flying boat mid Atlantic from a submarine. Other than undependable weather it was a reasonable plan.

Btw I prefer playing this at 0.75 speed - makes it somehow easier listening

Ah yes, Germany managed to forget about the concept of stealing

6:16 why is that Engineer wearing a FORD School coat?

Goering warned Hitler about making war in 1939,he told Hitler that the Luftwaffe wasnt ready and would not be ready for another 10 years.Georing was a pilot, a decorated one at that ,he knew Germany didnt have the resources yet or the production capacity to take on the allies.But Hitler was very medicated by his doctor and had delusions of possessing more capabilities than he really did.Its a classic case of a war lord not listening to his generals.

Fascinating stuff, but damn slow down and enjoy giving this narration. It would be more enjoyable for us too. Such fascinating historical info doesn’t need to sound like the the fast-as-possible legal disclaimer at the end of a medical commercial.

In the future, please provide references, especially when saying what other people thought about and what they wanted in the future... I can say Napoleon wanted to burn Baghdad, he enjoyed thinking about it, and looked at paintings of it all the time... But, if I can't give a primary reference to such a ridiculous idea, then I am simply a liar...

Oh Amerika bomber did exist and went into service except it goes in the other direction to germany its know as the B-36 convair

14:04 - What the hell is a shoulder mount on a bomber?!

There is a hell of a lot of artistic license taken here.

It is strange to me hearing that BOTH Imperial Japan and Hitler thought if you just hit America hard enough, they would bow out. I can only assume they were mistaking the American populace and their desire to avoid endless European conflict especially after WW1 where they felt all those americans were not authorized to be used for European political fights. if you make it their fight, it might be bad for you. Ostensibly japan attacked pearl to cripple the immediate response to taking the Philippines. The problem is you attacked something that was viewed as homeland and killed 3,000 Americans. They targeted battleship row for the image of it, ironically the image was powerful of the burning battleship row. Yet they were largely of secondary importance to the fleet however they give a lot of momentum behind the sentiment to grind the enemy to dust for doing it. I am confident that there is a high probability that had Japan simply taken the Philippines and let the americans that were there, go and not attacked pearl. Then they would have succeeded in taking the pacific. Perhaps you would have a USN response which would very likely be repelled by a more professional IJN at that moment. Then the American public would have said “why should we authorize that fight??”. We were basically already hot with Germany in the Atlantic. Japan could have “won” WW2 just like they were the clear winners of WW1, taking all the european territories opportunistically.

Great video as always. But I thought the Horten 18 was the only bomber Germany planned to bomb America with. Anyways, please do a video on it and the Horten 229!

16 minutes of "almost"....Almost as in "Not Even Close"

They never really pursued the atom bomb. They considered it “jewish physics.”

The V2 was never an Amerika Rocket .(15.15 into the programme) He must be thinking of the A9/A10 project , This is generally an excellent series

The point of all these designs was as a long range convoy spotter for the UBoat wolfpacks, not to bomb NYC which none had the range even as a one-way attack mission.

Hitler's last words : " Next time........no more " Mr. NICE GUY' " !!!!

In retrospect burning NYC to the ground might have been a good thing.

What on Earth was he thinking? US radar would have seen them coming miles out and there would have been a thousand land based fighters waiting.

I like the Ford logo on the engineer @6:16 corporations don't care which side they work for.

The scheme to arm u-boats with V-2 ballistic missiles was comprehensive enough that the USN studied it in detail several years after the USS United States, an early type of "supercarrier" intended for strategic nuclear strike, was canceled in 1949. The German plan called for the rocket to be towed horizontally behind its mothership submarine, probably at Type IXC long-range boat, housed within a watertight canister. The canister was to have ballast tanks to allow it to be towed submerged as well as compressed air tanks to allow it to float on the surface for final preparation prior to launching. When the target area was reached, somewhere near United States territorial waters, the canister would be turned vertical by means of floodable tanks in its stern. The V-2 would have been fueled with a full load of 75% alcohol before being sealed in its canister, however, the liquid oxygen component would have to be loaded just before firing. This was not a problem for normal land-based V-2 operations because a special tanker truck had been developed to transfer LOX from a railway car to the launching site which held enough oxidizer to both fuel up the V-2 and simultaneously allow for the inevitable "boil-off" loss. Transporting enough LOX within the mothership was seen as completely impractical. Consequently, the plan called for an LOX generating plant to be installed in the u-boat in place of its stern torpedo room. However, the plan was abandoned before the engineering was worked out. In 1955 the USN was interested in deploying a version of the United States Army's Jupiter missile at sea, preferably aboard submarines. The Jupiter was fueled with kerosene/liquid oxygen, which presented the Navy with the same LOX problem that faced the Germans. However, as many American nuclear submarines of the 1950s were much larger than any WWII German u-boat, space and electric power for a LOX generating plant were readily available. The vexing problem was space for the missile itself. Since LOX is only slightly more dense than water a long-range nuclear-armed missile using LOX must necessarily be quite large. The Jupiter was 60 feet high and almost nine feet in diameter, which made it too tall to fit inside any submarine pressure hull then in service or in development. To address this issue the Navy considered an advanced version of the German towed canister solution. They also considered using a greatly enlarged sail to accommodate the excess height -- almost 20 feet -- of the Jupiter in a manner similar to the Soviet Golf-II SSB. Both were rejected when the Polaris missile entered development, a weapon designed specifically for submarine deployment. The Polaris was less than half the height of the Jupiter rocket and was only 54 inches in diameter, yet its range and payload were almost equal to the much larger Army missile. Furthermore, its advanced solid propellant made all the liquid fuel complications disappear at a stroke. Existing Skipjack-class attack subs could be modified to carry sixteen Polaris missiles, whereas the most ambitious plans for a Jupiter submarine fleet foresaw a strike force of only three missiles per boat.

6:14 is that an American flag I see?

Very interesting video, but man this guy talks very fast!