I’ve long had an interest in one of the relatively few Nazi super-weapons that actually lived up to its billing (and then some): The A-4/V-2 rocket.
Myself, about the V-2:
9/27/2009

The one really monumental triumph of Nazi-era technology, the V-2 rocket is badly tainted by the atrocities associated with its production and deployment.
It has been said that one slave worker died for every V-2 completed and that more people were killed making it than were killed by it.

Still, it was quite a remarkable device; a true ballistic missile, the first human made object to reach into space, and the direct ancestor of the Saturn rockets that put men on the Moon.

British historian Bill Gunston had perhaps the best summary of this phenomenal leap forward:

“(V-2 was) not merely ahead of all other missiles but father out in front than any single weapon has ever been in all history…
…probably the most futuristic weapon in history in that in structure, aerodynamics, propulsion, guidance, troop deployment, logistics, and the problems posed to the defense, it reached out into totally uncharted regions and found workable answers. This is not to suggest that it was cost/effective or even of real value to Nazi German. It did not stave off that country’s defeat; by diverting resources it may even have hastened it. But it was the outstanding example of a weapon to which there was absolutely no answer.”
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World’s Rockets and Missiles, 1977

It is only in the 21st century that we have deployed systems that would have been capable of intercepting the V-2. At the time, it might as well have been a thunderbolt from on high.

Oddly enough, the V-2 gets short shrift from what I call the Germanophile Technology Cult (History Channel, military hobbyists, etc.). They would rather focus on experimental or speculative aircraft and tanks that were never operational and that often had unmentioned allied counterparts anyway.
When you look at the V-2, you have to stare the ugly facts right in the face. This isn’t nearly as much fun as fantasizing about supersonice Nazi rocket aces in 1946.
Speaking of unmentioned counterparts, everyone who has read a model plane catalog knows about the German rocket fighter, the ME-163. But how many of you knew that the US had a rocket -powered fighter during World War 2? Northrop XP-79. This was not only a rocket, it was a flying wing, it had a magnesium structure, and the pilot lay flat on his stomach in the nose. If this were a German project, the Hitler History Channel would probably devote a whole week of programming to it.