Disc Aircraft of the Third Reich
(1922-1945 and Beyond)

by ROBERT DALE ARNDT JR.


Rob Arndt:

Contrary to popular belief I do not blindly accept what some of the disc writers have put into print from 1955 forward. Much of the information from Maj. Rudolf Lusar, Renato Vesco, Justo Miranda, Ernst Zündel, David Masters, and William Harbinson have done more damage to the history of Flugscheiben in Germany during the war than of any good trying to present the credible evidence they screwed up.

Here are their mistakes that I corrected in my book:

1) Maj. Rudolf Lusar erred by using 1950s terminology to describe "Projekt Saucer". As we all know the Germans did not use that term and it originated with a reporter who interviewed Kenneth Arnold concerning his sightings. What Maj. Lusar should have stated was "Projekt Flugkreisel" (Flight Gyro), which was Rudolf Schriever's confiscated disc idea. The people involved in that project are all real: Dr. Richard Miethe (who worked for both AVRO Canada postwar on disc a/c as well as the first US discs at Wright Patterson AB), Klaus Otto Habermohl (captured by the Soviets), and Dr. Giuseppe Belluzzo who was employed at Riva del Garda (renamed the Herman Göring Institute) and who designed a round version of the V-1 called the "Turboproietti", short for Turbine Projectile. There is no disputing the authenticity of these three men and their work. What is in error is Lusar's lumping a range of disc technology under one heading which misled many people and caused confusion with other writers.

2) Renato Vesco's credentials are suspect but he did work with the Italian AF and had knowledge of certain German disc projects that he mixed up. From his books it appears that he has tried to cobble together various disc programs and makes the same identification and chronology mistakes as other writers. However, some of his material that deals with Viktor Schauberger's work is accurate.
 
3) Justo Miranda is the Luftwaffe '46 of Europe and he has compiled a fine list of valid German aircraft Projekts. But in his disc material he has made critical mistakes in properly identifying the "Foo Fighter" objects and perpetuating a hoax about the V-7 disc as some form of aerial Flak mine launched off a SAM launcher (Messerschmitt Enzian) with the use of rotors and Pabst ramjets (not available). Otherwise his reports of the Sack A.S.6, Epp Omega Diskus, Coanda Lenticular Disc, and BMW Flügelrads is accurate.

4) Ernst Zündel will not be believed for anything simply because he is a holocaust denier; however, despite his political and moral views his knowledge of German Secret Weapons is as accurate as Ian V. Hogg and he shares some rare valid information on obscure weapons of the Reich that are not discs. His main problem is proper identification of the Flügelrad series and mixing them up with poor, inaccurate artist depictions based on descriptions and Coanda's disc design. He also provides great resource material for the Nazi Antarctic Expedition with a good photographic record but then makes a whole bunch of wild claims separate from the SS Technical Branch and based on conventional disc-fans that didn't work out. He seems to have no knowledge of the occult disc programs at all.

5) David Masters was the first person to try to accurately make a Luftwaffe 1946 book in 1982 with "German Jet Genesis". It was a valiant attempt and highly accurate EXCEPT for his disc entries. He simply copied the mixed up information of Ernst Zündel.

6) William Harbinson wrote a series of fictional novels based on fact and even lists his extensive research in the back of his novels... but he, like many others, seem to be fascinated with Schriever's failed Flugkreisel and the mystery V-7 weapon.

So what is presented is some good evidence for certain German disc programs but completely wrong information on others - not hoaxes and lies, but a perpetuation of wrong dates, peoples, places, and proper identifications.

What I did with my book was search chronologically and match up all the proper names, dates, and places to eliminate most of the bad information. What I found through FOIA documents, BIOS Reports, the record of the 415th NFS, US Army and USAAF/USAF Technical Intelligence Manuals from 1945-47, as well as eyewitness accounts and postwar disc developments by AVRO Canada, Lockheed, Northrop, Boeing, and NASA helped sort out the mistakes and I believe I corrected them all.

Solid evidence exists for the Sack A.S.6, Schauberger Repulsin discoid motors, Focke's Schnellflugzeug patent/project, the mystery V-7 (Miethe Elektrische Luft Turbine, under the Bruno Schwenteit postwar patent), Coanda's Lenticular design, Josef Andreas Epp's Omega Diskus 1/10th scale models as well as his GDR Pirna disc of 1950, Schriever's Flugkreisel, and the BMW Prague facility Flügelrad jet auto-gyros.

The problem most people have is with the SS Technical Branch E-IV and their occult disc programs that date way back to 1922 with the occult Thule and Vril Gesellschafts. Speer, however, in his book "Infiltration" tells of his denial of access to SS war production, materials accumulated, direction of slave work force for weapon construction, and active projects. Even so, the rumored "Flying Tops" and request for more slave laborers to work on their production facility (Jonastal S-III) IS documented by the Armaments Minister.

As far as fakes and hoaxes go, I myself have tried in vain to encourage every website online with bad information to make suitable corrections in their chronologies and identifications... but people want to stick to what they have believed. The SS Schildkröte was exposed on the IFO Library and I personally sent Miranda and Zündel the patent for the V-7 in an attempt to get them to stop ruining legitimate German disc information. I got hate mail from both of them.

I simply want to provide a comprehensive German disc development book that discards the works of others and breaks the discs down into categories - none of which came under the RLM at any time. People can't understand that occult societies, the SS, German individuals, imprisoned aeronautical experts from occupied nations, captured patents, and the desperation of round-the-clock bombing combined to create such a wide range of disc projects in the Reich. Even Hitler was kept ill-informed of the activities of occult societies that avoided his 1941 ban and were kept operating under SS designations by Himmler himself. Göring also had his own private disc project at Peenemünde.

This accumulated knowledge and associated secrecy kept classified and compartmentalized by the US, UK, and even the German Govt. makes people uncomfortable, especially with victor-written history and aeronautical books. I have problems just trying to convince people that the first US stealth official craft wasn’t the F-117 "Hopeless Diamond" design but a Windecker Eagle fitted with RAM. Then tell them the entire F-117 faceting originated in the USSR by a Russian professor! It angers USA-Number-One types who are blinded by false history. Tell them the Germans had a stealth interceptor MBB Lampyridae (Firefly) independently from the F-117 and they get upset too.

So Flugscheiben ARE problematic, as are ALL terrestrial UFOs and their histories.