In the 1930s rumors started that Hitler's Germany was working on a "death ray" (Totstrahl) weapon which also showed-up in the Oslo Letter of warning of German scientific war developments. To be sure, Germany had several types of energy weapons during WW2. Most were experimental like the Messerschmitt EM and electrostatic Mittelstoppmotor weapons for stopping aircraft engines in flight and the WNF Fuereball's (a so-called "Foo Fighter") chemical burn electrostatic field weapon. Others were microwave types supervised by Dr. Franz Phillipp in Berlin and witnessed by the Japanese delegation in April 1945 along with U-boat Kapitan Heinz Schaeffer before his last cruise. I.G. Farben and Siemens both worked on medical lasers and the SS had a mysterious KSK cannon mounted on the Haunebu I disc craft that was a crude phaser weapon operating off the triebwerke of the disc, able to burn though 4" of steel. Never operational though. But this parody deals with German X-Ray weapons developed from a device called a Rheotron (US called it a Betatron) that produced synchrotron beams of X-Ray radiation capable of disabling any Allied aircraft up to 30,000 ft at 7 miles range. The RLM (German Air Ministry) controlled development before handing it over to the SS Technical Branch in 1945. I am using designation Rheotron-B b/c the actual designation is not known. This further development was installed in Bunker 2 at the Jonastal S-III underground factory being built in 1945 by 18,000 slave laborers + another 6,000 SS troops, scientists, engineers, and specialists. It was never photographed from the air nor bombed despite its strategic significance as Germany's super production center and Fuhrer bunker II. The weapon worked but was dismantled when Red troops advanced. On April 14, 1945 US troops captured the original Rheotron as well at Grubburg. Postwar, both sides dropped X-Ray weapon research in favor of laser tech as the dominate beam weapon.

*X-mas 1944 when weapon first tested