Reddit reviews Hitler's Scientists: Science, War, and the Devil's Pact

Suicide attacks by plane occurred long before 9/11, e.g. during World War II Japanese Kamikaze pilots would aim their planes at American warships.

And the concept of suicide plane attacks was considered by the Germans, too, during World War II as they became increasingly desperate as the tide of the war turned against them. Here's some information from Hitler's Scientists : Science, War, and the Devil's Pact:

> The ultimate weapon of desperation in the air was the design for an aircraft which assmed the death of the combatant in a suicide mission (Selbstopferung). The notion was originally devised as a result of volunteers expresing their willingness to crash their planes on to the landing craft of an Allied invasion fleet approaching the shores of Nazi Europe...Wernher von Braun was also asociated with the scheme having designed a rocket plane which involved a suicide pilot in the early stages of the war.

...

> As Germany ran out of fuel in the final months and weeks, the regime designed a type of armoured glider which was supposed to ram a raiding bomber or fire at it from close quarters. Either way, suicide was implicit in the tactic. The tactical concept was for the pilot to fly the heavy explosive payload close to an enemy bomber formation, to detonate the charge and bale out. 'Because parachuting during the approach to the enemy was theoretically possible but practically excluded, one cold label this a "suicide bomb".'

I was reading a book called Hitler's Scientists. In it von Braun is quoted as saying something to the effect of: "I don't care if it is Uncle Sam or Uncle Stalin, so long as he is a rich uncle."

You can't explore science at the speed he wanted to without deep pocketbooks. Glad he ended up on our side.