" In The Zone " also contains the longest episode of the book , a lengthy tale of Franz Pökler , a rocket engineer unwittingly set to assist on the S-Gerät 's production . The story details Pökler 's manipulation by an SS officer named Weissmann ( earlier revealed by Enzian to be Blicero ) , who uses annual meetings with Pökler 's daughter Ilse to coerce him into working on the S-Gerät . Pökler becomes increasingly paranoid that Ilse is really a series of impostors sent each year to mollify him . Through this story , we find out sparse details about the S-Gerät , including that it has an approximate weight of forty-five kilograms . Slothrop spends much of Part Three in various disguises , first as an English war correspondent , then as his invented alter-ego Rocketman , wearing an operatic Viking costume with the horns removed from the helmet , making it look like a rocket nose-cone . Rocketman completes various tasks for his own and others ' purposes , including retrieving a large stash of hashish from the centre of the Potsdam Conference . This continues until he leaves the region for northern Germany , continuing his quest for the 00000 , as well as answers to his past . It becomes steadily apparent that Slothrop is connected to Laszlo Jamf through Lyle Bland , a Slothrop family friend who apparently played a role in funding Jamf 's experiments on the infant Slothrop
Potsdam Conference
Potsdam Conference
Gravity's Rainbow