[1] In October 1918, as an artillery lieutenant, Dornberger was captured by United States Marines and spent two years in a French prisoner of war camp, mostly in solitary confinement because of repeated escape attempts.

[5] In April 1930,[6] Dornberger was appointed to the Ballistics Council of the German Army (Reichswehr) Weapons Department as Assistant Examiner to secretly develop[4] a military liquid-fuel[7] rocket suitable for mass-production that would surpass the range of artillery.

[8][9] In the spring of 1932, Dornberger, his commander (Captain Ritter von Horstig), and Col. Karl Emil Becker visited the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR)'s leased Raketenflugplatz (English: "Rocket Flight Field") and subsequently issued a contract for a demonstration launch.

[4][5] On 21 December 1932, Captain Dornberger watched a rocket motor explode at Kummersdorf while Wernher von Braun tried to light it with a flaming gasoline can at the end of a four-meter-long (13 ft) pole.

He also organised a brothel for the German launch crews, with 20 Dutch women at a time forced into prostitution; each group was executed after two weeks in order to maintain security.

By emphasizing the path-breaking nature of their work as well as its singular importance to the war effort, all while playing on the popular fear of the Soviet Union and the disdain for the Western Allies for bombing their cities into rubble, Dornberger composed a powerful message that would certainly appeal to many Peenemünders.

[13] In the early morning of 7 July 1943, Ernst Steinhoff flew[14] von Braun and Major-General Dornberger in his Heinkel He 111 to Hitler's Führerhauptquartier "Wolfsschanze" headquarters and the next day Hitler viewed the film of the successful V-2 test launch (narrated by von Braun) and the scale models of the Watten bunker and launching-troop vehicles:[15] This third day of October, 1942, is the first of a new era in transportation, that of space travel ...I have had to apologize only to two men in my whole life.

[24] In mid-August 1945, after taking part in Operation Backfire, Dornberger was escorted from Cuxhaven to London for interrogation by the British War Crimes Investigation Unit in connection with the use of slave labour in the production of V-2 rockets; he was subsequently transferred and detained for two years at Bridgend in South Wales.