Lehesten is a town in the

Thuringian Forest The Thuringian Forest (''Thüringer Wald'' in German language, German ) is a mountain range in the southern parts of the Germany, German state of Thuringia, running northwest to southeast. Skirting from its southerly source in foothills to a gorg ...

, 20 km southeast of

Saalfeld Saalfeld () is a town in Germany, capital of the Saalfeld-Rudolstadt district of Thuringia. It is best known internationally as the ancestral seat of the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha branch of the Saxon House of Wettin. Geography The town is situated ...

World War II V-2 facility

After an August 1944 explosion at the

Redl-Zipf The Redl-Zipf V-2 rocket facilities of World War II, V-2 rocket facility (code name ''Schlier'') located in central Austria between Vöcklabruck and Vöcklamarkt and established in September 1943 began operation for V-2 rocket motor testing after ...

V-2 liquid oxygen plant at

Schlier Schlier is a town in the district of Ravensburg in Baden-Württemberg in Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Al ...

stopped production, the third

V-2 The V2 (), with the technical name '' Aggregat-4'' (A4), was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the Second World War in Nazi Germany as a " ven ...

liquid oxygen plant (5000 tons/month) was built at a slate quarry at Lehesten at the Thuringia-Bavarian border near Nordhausen (acceptance testing of combustion chamber was also performed at the Lehesten plant). Dr Martin Schilling (the head of testing at Peenemünde) located the Lehesten site, and 400 engineers were moved from

Peenemünde Peenemünde (, ) is a municipality on the Baltic Sea island of Usedom in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in north-eastern Germany. It is part of the ''Amt (country subdivision), Amt'' (collective municipality) of Used ...

to Lehesten, which eventually had 16 liquid oxygen production plants.

References

Towns in Thuringia V-weapon subterranea Saalfeld-Rudolstadt V-2 missile launch sites {{SaalfeldRudolstadt-geo-stub