CAIRO — A newly surfaced historical investigation has revealed the startling extent of a secret Egyptian plan, conceived in the early 1960s, to annihilate the State of Israel using ballistic missiles developed by former Nazi scientists. The program, centered on the clandestine “Factory 333,” sought to harness the expertise of ex-Third Reich engineers to arm rockets with chemical, biological, and radiological warheads. The scheme, which posed an existential threat to the Jewish state, was only thwarted by a series of covert Israeli operations that remain controversial to this day.
The revelation centers on the regime of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who rose to power with a fervent ambition to destroy Israel. Following the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, regional hostilities had remained a constant fixture, with the goal of annihilation shared by several neighboring nations. Nasser’s plan, however, set itself apart by going beyond conventional warfare, aiming to eliminate Israel through the use of indigenously built, advanced rockets.
The captured documents and testimonies indicate that Nasser intended to use the expertise of German scientists, many of whom had been involved in the V-2 ballistic missile program for the Third Reich.
Following the close of World War II, large numbers of German scientists and other personnel who were either implicated in war crimes or held membership in outlawed organizations like the SS faced a precarious choice. Many lived in fear of prosecution at the hands of the Allies, and the unsavory “ratlines” active across Europe funneled thousands to South American nations where they could assume new identities. However, the investigation shows that the Middle East, particularly Egypt under the new leadership of Colonel Nasser, provided an equally welcoming sanctuary for dozens of these specialists, placing their expertise at the disposal of a regime explicitly dedicated to the destruction of a sovereign state.
The presence of these scientists in Cairo was the centerpiece of Nasser’s ambitions. The “intelligence of our enemies,” as Nasser stated, referring to Joseph Goebbels’s propaganda men, was a tool he planned to use. The documentation shows that the Egyptian Ministry of Information, in charge of managing the state’s supposed public image, actually hired former Gestapo officers, camp commandants, and Nazi propagandists, and assigned them to departments actively focusing on “Jewish affairs.”
The state-funded anti-Jewish vitriol, which spread across the population, was designed to match the agenda of the former Third Reich, proving to be the literal first wave of attack.
But the most unsettling part of the plan was not the propaganda efforts, but instead the physical tools of the destruction, which were being developed in the shadows. The plan centered around an installation designated as “Factory 333,” a place intended to be the synthesis of Egyptian ambition and the technical prowess of Third Reich engineers. The history of the military studies in Egypt to produce ballistic missiles can be traced to the final days of the kingdom under King Farouk.
When the program fell under the new regime, Nasser confidently sought to turn an whole generation of unguided rocket designs into a strategic arsenal that would capsize Israel’s military advantage and threaten its very annihilation.
The missile program was a direct challenge to the geopolitical landscape of the time. Axioms of war that predated modern deterrence were thrown out the window when, in late 1961, the Egyptian state began a rapid recruitment drive targeting the most brilliant element of the scientific collaboration from the war, engineers who had struggled since 1945 without funding. Several moved to Cairo; they were paid with significant sums and pledged a level of protection that ensured their loyalty would be tied to the realization of Nasser’s plans.
The board of directors of the Egyptian program became a mix of former technicians and designers who had been on Wernher von Braun’s team. Their collective aim was to defy the non-proliferation effort while building a doomsday capability.
On the 23rd of July, 1962, the world watched in shock and alarm at the grandeur of the military parade held in Cairo. For the first time, the fruits of the secret program were displayed on mobile launchers: the “Al Zafir” and “Al Kahir” missiles. The Al Zafir, despite being canceled in favor of another model, was a liquid-fueled projectile with a range of 376 kilometers, while the Al Khair evolved, growing as long as 12 meters.
While these were unguided, the flashiest element of the show, Israel, recognized the imminent threat; those rockets could easily hit its territory. The people they saw those weapons, recognized they were entering a period future of been defined by the capacity to for the total annihilation.
The concern from the leadership in Israel was that these primitive rockets, though unguided, were only the first step. What made the threat to be considered acute, compared to the annihilation that a war of a million while the nation of Israel faced, was the effort to create a guidance system for more precise attacks, as well as the rumblings of the true monstrous payloads in the design phase. The threat confirmed itself through a ‘rogue’ Austrian scientist Dr.
Otto Joklik, who, out of a change of heart, let Israeli intelligence know of the load. It was not just a warhead with a high explosive payload, but featured chemical and biological agents, and various quantities of radioactive waste; the plan was intended to render entire areas of Israel uninhabitable for decades to come.
The intelligence agency, the Mossad, was alarmed by the magnitude of the plan, and its leader, Isser Harel, relayed the news to Israel’s government. They had learned that the Egyptians, through a purchase via a Zurich-based front company, had obtained a supply of radioactive cobalt-60, enough to meet their medical needs 25 times over. The Mossad was convinced this was the key to the doomsday weapons, and urged a covert, calculated campaign to neutral the scientists.
The pressure from foreign affairs, however, was acute: West Germany was the supplier of crucial military arsenal to Israel, notably a large armistice deal for tanks, and they would not be able to contradict them without inciting Berlin’s government.
The decision, which 𝓵𝓮𝓪𝓴𝓮𝓭 over the apparent war rooms of Israel, arrived at a compromise. The Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, authorized a quiet and discreet operation of deterrents and intimidations. However, the Mossad chief, Isser Harel, interpreted this mandate very liberally, and he full green-lit Operation Damocles.
In September 1962, a 49-year-old German lawyer and arms dealer, Heinz Krug, vanished without a trace in Munich. Krug had been coming and going regarding a fabrication contract for Egypt. One account states he was taken to Israel for interrogation, the other, that he was killed on the spot, by the commando responsible, the German based military hero in the world, it is more known from WWII.
The body of evidence points to the campaign, which successfully used a network of one-time SS and German officers, to target the German scientists in a string of directed actions. Cairo’s office of Dr. Wolfgang Pilz, a key scientist, was on the receiving end of a parcel bomb that blinded the man’s secretary.
A parcel to the rocket factory killed 5 Egyptian technicians, and a letter bomb was sent to a number, but ultimately dud with a warning. A series of targeted assassinations failed, but the chilling effect was that the scientists began to reconsider their participation, with several leaving Egypt for safe houses in Europe.
The assassination campaign had its limits though, as a failed attempt in Switzerland led to the arrest of two Mossad operatives, who had been after the families of the harshness and the top German boss there. With the plot 𝓮𝔁𝓹𝓸𝓼𝓮𝓭, the world was stormed, leading to a huge diplomatic fallout; The pressure to end the operation was enormous, and Ben-Gurion was forced to order a complete stop. The case also forced Issel Harel, who also had led the Eichmann capture, to resign from the agency.
In the end, the operation yielded its desired effect. Through targeted coercion, the infrastructure of the Egyptian missile program had collapsed by 1964. The scientists had left, leaving the ambitious project a shell without a brain.
Egypt’s cherished plans, to rain down, a mortar onto the Israel, had been effectively neutralized. In a final, desperate sale of frustration, Egypt turned to the Soviet Union in 1967, and procured ‘Scud’ B rockets. But the sinister plans of building missile batteries with radioactive material were never able to take its shape, but they will change the way prescription of threats in the Middle East forever.
s of the dangers of the most secret operations in the history of the state.
