{"id":1556235,"date":"2026-06-05T13:52:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T11:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/bachem-ba-349-natter-vertical-rocket-interceptor\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T13:53:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T11:53:17","slug":"bachem-ba-349-natter-vertical-rocket-interceptor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/bachem-ba-349-natter-vertical-rocket-interceptor\/","title":{"rendered":"Strapped to a Rocket, Thrown Away After"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<p>The morning of 1 March 1945 broke cold and foggy over the Heuberg training ground in Baden-W&uuml;rttemberg. While the men waited for the cloud to lift, a 22-year-old pilot named Lothar Sieber stood in a clearing getting last-minute advice from two engineers, the smell of hydrogen peroxide oxidiser sharp in the winter air. Behind him, on a 24-metre steel gantry, stood the machine he was about to ride: a stubby wooden aircraft the size of a small glider, bolted to four solid rocket boosters, pointed straight up at the sky.<\/p>\n<p>The evening before, Sieber had written his will, leaving everything to his fianc&eacute;e. Sixteen years before Yuri Gagarin, he was about to become the first human being to take off vertically from the ground under rocket power.<\/p>\n<p>He would be dead in under a minute.<\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;border-radius:8px;padding:20px 24px;margin:24px 0\">\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:17px\">Quick Facts<\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:20px;line-height:1.8\">\n<li><strong>Aircraft:<\/strong> Bachem Ba 349 Natter (&ldquo;Viper&rdquo;) &mdash; vertical-launch, semi-disposable rocket interceptor, largely wooden airframe<\/li>\n<li><strong>Propulsion:<\/strong> Walter HWK 109-509 liquid rocket (~1,700 kg thrust) plus four Schmidding solid boosters for launch<\/li>\n<li><strong>Armament:<\/strong> A salvo of about two dozen unguided rockets in the nose, fired in one volley at a bomber<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mission profile:<\/strong> Climb to the bombers in around a minute, fire, then break apart &mdash; pilot and rocket engine recovered by parachute, the rest thrown away<\/li>\n<li><strong>First manned launch:<\/strong> 1 March 1945 near Stetten am kalten Markt &mdash; test pilot Lothar Sieber killed when the canopy tore away at about 100 metres<\/li>\n<li><strong>Combat use:<\/strong> One site readied near Kirchheim unter Teck in April 1945; no Natter ever fired at an enemy aircraft. Survivors at the Deutsches Museum and the Smithsonian<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">An Aircraft Designed to Be Thrown Away<\/h2>\n<p>By the summer of 1944 the Reich&rsquo;s air defence was collapsing. Allied bombers arrived by the thousand; German fighters, fuel and trained pilots did not. The air ministry asked industry for an interceptor that was cheap, made of non-strategic materials, and flyable by minimally trained men. Junkers, Heinkel and Messerschmitt submitted designs. So did a small parts supplier named Erich Bachem &mdash; and the ministry&rsquo;s technical staff, by one account, laughed his wooden rocket out of the room.<\/p>\n<p>Bachem went over their heads, to Heinrich Himmler. The SS chief loved the idea and ordered 150; the embarrassed air ministry added 50 more. The concept the professionals had rejected for half a decade &mdash; it traced back to a 1939 Wernher von Braun proposal &mdash; was suddenly a priority program called Natter: viper.<\/p>\n<p>The genius and the madness were the same thing: the Natter was 80 percent throwaway. Furniture workshops could nail together its rectangular wooden wings &mdash; no flaps, no ailerons. A typical mission would last minutes: blast off a vertical tower, ride the autopilot to the bombers at up to 11,000 metres, aim, empty the nose-mounted battery of unguided rockets into a B-17 box in one volley, then dive away. At low altitude the pilot would trigger explosive bolts; the whole nose section fell off, a braking parachute yanked the rear fuselage backwards, and the pilot was thrown clear to come down on his own parachute. The precious Walter rocket motor descended on the fuselage chute to be reused. Everything else was scrap.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=1921052666  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:Gk11.bf84\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/bachem-ba-349-natter-vertical-launch-1945.jpg\" alt=\"A Bachem Ba 349 Natter climbing vertically off its launch tower in 1945\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">An unmanned Natter climbs off its launch tower during trials, 1945. US National Archives photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Sixty Seconds of Lothar Sieber<\/h2>\n<p>Through the winter of 1944&ndash;45 the program moved at panic speed: glide tests behind a Heinkel 111, then unmanned vertical launches that variously burned on the tower, blew up, or flew beautifully. On 25 February 1945 a Natter with a dummy pilot flew the complete mission sequence, parachutes and all. Himmler wanted a man in the cockpit immediately.<\/p>\n<p>The man was Lothar Sieber &mdash; a gifted Dresden-born pilot who had been demoted for drinking on duty in 1943 and had spent two years flying hazardous special missions to win his rank back. The SS offered him an Oberleutnant&rsquo;s commission for one test flight. The primary pilot had hurt his back in parachute training; Sieber said yes.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;In the course of this war I have already done riskier things. Let me worry about this. I look upon the testing of this device as a self-imposed task that I would like to accomplish and I firmly believe in the successful outcome.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Lothar Sieber<\/strong> &mdash; To designer Erich Bachem before the flight, quoted in Brett Gooden&rsquo;s &ldquo;Projekt Natter: Last of the Wonder Weapons&rdquo;<\/div><\/div>\n\n<p>At a little after 11 a.m. the Walter motor wound up and the four boosters fired, pressing Sieber back with 2.2 g. The Natter rose cleanly &mdash; then, at roughly 100 metres, rolled sharply onto its back. As it vanished into the low cloud, the watchers on the ground saw something dark tumble away from the airframe: the cockpit canopy, with Sieber&rsquo;s headrest attached to it.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;From a strong cloud of smoke that wrapped the whole machine, the Natter slowly rises and departs perpendicularly from its mount &hellip; After a short time, we saw the Natter some kilometers in the distance going vertically downwards after coming out of the clouds again. And with the engine still running it hit the ground.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Karl Mielenhausen<\/strong> &mdash; Natter ground-crew member and eyewitness to the Sieber launch<\/div><\/div>\n\n<p>The most likely explanation is brutally simple: an improperly latched canopy ripped away in the climb, and either the slipstream battering or the whiplash against the wooden bulkhead behind his head knocked Sieber unconscious. The aircraft flew on under autopilot, arced over, and came down vertically at full power. It buried itself five metres deep in a field near Nusplingen, 32 seconds&rsquo; flying time and about seven kilometres from the tower. Sieber was buried there two days later, his father and fianc&eacute;e at the graveside &mdash; promoted, posthumously, exactly as the SS had promised.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"max-width:550px;margin:0 auto 28px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?id=1763299807852929164&#038;theme=light\" style=\"width:100%;height:520px;border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Launch Site That Never Fired<\/h2>\n<p>Astonishingly, the program kept going &mdash; and so did the volunteers. More pilots stepped forward after Sieber&rsquo;s death, but the Reich was running out of everything; at one point test launches stalled for lack of cement to ballast the noses. Of 200 Natters ordered, only 36 were ever built.<\/p>\n<p>The Natter&rsquo;s single brush with operational service came in April 1945, when a handful of combat-ready aircraft were erected on launch poles near Kirchheim unter Teck, east of Stuttgart, waiting for the next bomber stream. The bombers never came into reach &mdash; Allied tanks did. The crews blew up their Natters and retreated. Not one was ever launched in anger.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"max-width:550px;margin:0 auto 28px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?id=2028047753352196473&#038;theme=light\" style=\"width:100%;height:520px;border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<p>As the Reich collapsed, the remaining aircraft and the Bachem team were moved into the Austrian Alps, where US soldiers captured four complete Natters at St. Leonhard in May 1945, along with the drawings and spare parts.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=1171099489  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:f8hx.bf85\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/bachem-ba-349-natter-captured-1945.jpg\" alt=\"A captured Bachem Ba 349 Natter at St. Leonhard, Austria, 1945\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">One of the four complete Natters captured by US troops at St. Leonhard im Pitztal, Austria, May 1945. US National Archives photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<p>Rare period film of those captured machines &mdash; including the rocket armament and launch gear &mdash; survives in this May 1945 footage:<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Tsq3wN8ZVs4\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">First Man Up<\/h2>\n<p>Two Natters survive today. One went to the United States and now belongs to the Smithsonian&rsquo;s National Air and Space Museum. The other stands in the Deutsches Museum in Munich, displayed nose-high on its red boosters &mdash; deliberately presented, its curators say, not as a triumph but as a symbol of engineers willing to strap young men to half-tested rockets for a lost war.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=600642915  decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:f8hx.bf85\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/bachem-natter-deutsches-museum.jpg\" alt=\"The Bachem Ba 349 Natter at the Deutsches Museum in Munich\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The Deutsches Museum&rsquo;s Natter, mounted as if mid-launch with its red Schmidding boosters. Photo: Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<p>And that is the Natter&rsquo;s strange double legacy. As a weapon it was a failure that killed its only operational-profile pilot. As a feat, it stands at the head of a long line: every human who has ever ridden a rocket straight up off a pad &mdash; Gagarin, Shepard, every crew at Baikonur and the Cape &mdash; followed a path first flown, for 32 fatal seconds, by a 22-year-old in a wooden airplane trying to win his lieutenant&rsquo;s bars back.<\/p>\n<p>The full story of the aircraft and Sieber&rsquo;s flight is told in this documentary:<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mizls3O4ZEY\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<p><em>Sources: D.C. Agle, Air &amp; Space \/ Smithsonian Magazine; Brett Gooden, &ldquo;Projekt Natter: Last of the Wonder Weapons&rdquo;; National Air and Space Museum collection records; Deutsches Museum; Wikipedia (Bachem Ba 349, Lothar Sieber).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\">\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/hanna-reitsch-the-test-pilot-who-flew-everything-including-into-berlin\/\">Hanna Reitsch: The Test Pilot Who Flew Everything &mdash; Including Into Berlin<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/eric-winkle-brown-487-aircraft-types-and-2407-carrier-landings\/\">Eric &lsquo;Winkle&rsquo; Brown: 487 Aircraft Types and 2,407 Carrier Landings<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The morning of 1 March 1945 broke cold and foggy over the Heuberg training ground in Baden-W&uuml;rttemberg. While the men waited for the cloud to lift, a 22-year-old pilot named Lothar Sieber stood in a clearing getting last-minute advice from two engineers, the smell of hydrogen peroxide oxidiser sharp in the winter air. Behind him, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":1548918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1556235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bachem Ba 349 Natter: The Disposable Rocket Fighter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Germany\u2019s Ba 349 Natter launched vertically on rockets, fired 24 rockets and threw itself away. 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