Mittelwerk
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Mittelwerk (; German for "Central Works") was a German
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
factory built underground in the Kohnstein to avoid Allied bombing. It used slave labor from the
Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp Mittelbau-Dora (also Dora-Mittelbau and Nordhausen-Dora) was a Nazi concentration camp located near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany. It was established in late summer 1943 as a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, supplying slave labour f ...
to produce V-2 ballistic missiles,
V-1 flying bomb The V-1 flying bomb ( "Vengeance Weapon 1") was an early cruise missile. Its official Reich Aviation Ministry () name was Fieseler Fi 103 and its suggestive name was (hellhound). It was also known to the Allies as the buzz bomb or doodlebug a ...
s, and other weapons.


Mittelwerk GmbH

On the night of 17/18 August 1943, RAF bombers carried out Operation Hydra against the Peenemünde Army Research Center where V-2 development and production was being carried out. On 19 October 1943, the German limited company Mittelwerk GmbH was issued War Contract No. 0011-5565/43 by
General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...
Emil Leeb, head of the Army Weapons Office, for 12,000 A-4 missiles at 40,000 Reichsmarks each.
Mittelwerk GmbH also headed sites for V-2 rocket development and testing at Schlier (Project Zement) and Lehesten. Beginning in May 1944, Georg Rickhey was the Mittelwerk general manager, Albin Sawatzki was the Mittelwerk technical director over both Arthur Rudolph's Technical Division (with deputy Karl Seidenstuecker) and Hans Lindenberg's 50 engineers of the quality control group located at Ilfeld. Other Mittelwerk/Ilfield engineers included
Magnus von Braun Magnus "Mac" Freiherr von Braun (10 May 1919 – 21 June 2003) was a German chemical engineer, Luftwaffe aviator, rocket scientist and business executive. In his 20s, he worked on Nazi Germany’s guided missile development and production at the ...
in turbopump production, Guenther Haukohl who supervised V-2 production after helping design the assembly line, Eric Ball (assembly line), Hans Fridrich, Hans Palaoro and Rudolph Schlidt. The facility had a communications staff under Captain Dr Kühle, an Administrative Division run by Börner under Mittelwerk board member Otto Karl Bersch, and a Prisoner Labor Supply office (''Brozsat''). Hannelore Bannasch was Sawatzki's secretary. Wernher von Braun, who was involved in the planning of the facility, initially remained in Peenemünde but was in charge of quality control at the Mittelwerk. He worked closely with both Sawatski and Rudolph, and by his own admission visited the Mittelwerk "10 or 15 times" including an extended stay during the hellish construction period in the fall of 1943.


Other projects

In July 1944, Hans Kammler ordered the North Works (''Nordwerke'') to use cross-tunnels 1–20 for a
Junkers Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG (JFM, earlier JCO or JKO in World War I, English language, English: Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works) more commonly Junkers , was a major German aircraft manufacturer, aircraft and aircraft engine manufactu ...
jet and piston engine factory, leaving cross-tunnels 21–46 for Mittelwerk GmbH. During February–April 1945, the Nordhausen plant built Taifun anti-aircraft missiles and Heinkel He 162 jet fighters and put into operation a
liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen, sometimes abbreviated as LOX or LOXygen, is a clear cyan liquid form of dioxygen . It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an application which is ongoing. Physical ...
plant. The plant was the ''Eber'' project and used equipment evacuated from the Watten bunker and elsewhere to build Heylandt liquid oxygen generators; the 15 generators were nearly complete when the site was captured. The Mittelwerk also contained equipment for producing jet fuel, and in an emergency 1944 decentralization program (named ''Geilenbergprogramm'' after Edmund Geilenberg) started the "Cuckoo" project, an underground oil plant to be "carved out of the Himmelsburg" North of the Mittelwerk. In early February 1945, Wernher von Braun and his team moved from Peenemünde to Bleicherode where, under Hans Kammler's orders, he was responsible for weapons production at multiple underground sites, some operational and others still on the drawing board. Most were never completed. For example, plans for
V-2 rocket The V2 (), with the technical name ''Aggregat (rocket family), Aggregat-4'' (A4), was the world's first long-range missile guidance, guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the S ...
plants (the Southern Works near Friedrichshafen and the Eastern
Works Works may refer to: People * Caddy Works (1896–1982), American college sports coach * John D. Works (1847–1928), California senator and judge * Samuel Works (c. 1781–1868), New York politician Albums * ''Works'' (Pink Floyd album), a Pi ...
near
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) were never fulfilled.
V-1 flying bomb The V-1 flying bomb ( "Vengeance Weapon 1") was an early cruise missile. Its official Reich Aviation Ministry () name was Fieseler Fi 103 and its suggestive name was (hellhound). It was also known to the Allies as the buzz bomb or doodlebug a ...
assembly began during October/November 1944 in the South end of tunnel A. At the end of January 1945, 51 V-1s were shipped from a dispersed Fieseler factory in Upper Bavaria (
code name A code name, codename, call sign, or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in ...
Cham) to the Nordhausen plant for completion. After a second V-1 factory at Burg was closed, the Mittelwerk ''Werk II'' in February 1945 was the only factory producing V-1 flying bombs, and a total of 2,275 V-1s were built by Werk II from September 1944 until April 1945. Although there has long been speculation about other "exotic" weaponry being constructed or stored at Mittelwerk, evidence of this is scarce. For example, Richard Overy notes in ''The Bombing War - Europe 1939-1945'' (2013): "There is some evidence that small spherical bombs containing radioactive waste were stored in the Mittelbau-Dora works .. but it is not conclusive."


Evacuation

In late February 1945, the Allied Chiefs of Staff discussed a proposed attack on the Nordhausen plant with a highly flammable petroleum-soap mixture that had been used in the Pacific theatre to deeply penetrate buried strongpoints and scourge them with intense heat. The area was attacked with conventional bombs by
RAF Bomber Command RAF Bomber Command controlled the Royal Air Force's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. Along with the United States Army Air Forces, it played the central role in the Strategic bombing during World War II#Europe, strategic bombing of Germany in W ...
on 3 & 4 April. What were believed to be barracks were attacked on 3 April but they actually contained forced labour workers. The attack of 4 April hit the barracks and the town of Nordhausen. The
Mittelbau-Dora Mittelbau-Dora (also Dora-Mittelbau and Nordhausen-Dora) was a Nazi concentration camp located near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany. It was established in late summer 1943 as a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, supplying slave labour f ...
forced labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...
was evacuated on 4 April, and scientists evacuated to the ''Alpenfestung'' (). Hitler had made an order, the "Demolitions on Reich Territory Decree", which ordered the destruction of any infrastructure that might be of use to the Allies but it was deliberately ignored by
Albert Speer Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production, Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of W ...
and the Nordhausen plant was evacuated without damage.


Aftermath

Having been warned to "expect something a little unusual in the Nordhausen area", and after previously entering the Nordhausen plant from the North through the Junkers Nordwerke, U.S. 3rd Armored Division and 104th Infantry Divisions reached the city of Nordhausen on 11 April 1945 and discovered the dead and sick of the Boelcke Kaserne barracks. Casualties of the V-2 rocket are estimated at 2,541 killed and 5,923 injured. By contrast, of the roughly 60,000 people who passed through Mittelbau-Dora and its subcamps, an estimated 20,000 died either at the camp or at places they were subsequently transported to: 350 were hanged (including 200 for sabotage), many others died from exhaustion, cold, malnutrition or disease. Some were murdered by guards. The total also includes 1,300 to 1,500 prisoners killed by British bombs in early April.


Special Mission V-2

On 22 May 1945, US Army Special Mission V-2 shipped the first trainload of rocket parts for use in projects such as Operation Sandy, Operation Blossom and, at the White Sands Proving Grounds, the Hermes project. The Nordhausen area was to become part of the Soviet zone of occupation, and Soviet Army officers arrived to tour the Nordhausen plant on 26 May 1945. In June 1945, the US Army left the Nordhausen plant as required by JCS Directive 1067/14, with parts, documents (including blueprints for the projected A-9/A-10 intercontinental missile) left for the Soviets. The
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
occupied the Mittelwerk on 5 July 1945 and demolished both of the entrances of the tunnel system in mid-1948.


The Dora War Crimes Trial

The 1947 Dora Trial convicted SS Officers and concentration camp kapos, while 3 scientists of the V-2 rocket program were implicated (2 after the trial) and exonerated of Nazi war crimes at the Mittelwerk. On 19 May 1947, the former head of the Mittelwerk facility, Georg Rickhey, was extradited to Germany from Wright Field in the U.S. and acquitted of war crimes at the Dora Trial. Arthur Rudolph, after immigrating to the U.S. and playing key roles in the Pershing missile and Apollo programs, was forced to renounce his U.S. citizenship and return to Germany; the West German government, citing the statute of limitations, never charged him and eventually granted him citizenship. Wernher von Braun, the Technical Director of a separate facility at Peenemünde Army Research Center, visited the Mittelwerk on 25 January 1944, and a 1991 author alleged he witnessed Mittelwerk and
Buchenwald Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...
war crimes.


Ruins

After a new entrance tunnel had been dug to former rail Tunnel A in 1995, 710 meters of the tunnel system were opened for visitors. Large parts of the system are flooded by ground water, while other parts have collapsed. After the
reunification of Germany German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic and the integration of i ...
the tunnels were frequently looted by treasure seekers who gained access via the private mine in the north of the Kohnstein. Willi Kramer, a German archaeologist and scientist who dived in the tunnel system in 1992 and 1998, estimated that 70 tons of material was stolen. Access through these entrances was not secured until 2004, when the mine went into insolvency.


See also

* Kőbánya cellar system – a former underground quarry and tunnel complex in Hungary which was used as an aircraft assembly factory during World War II * Project Riese * V-2 rocket facilities of World War II


References


External links

{{Authority control Linde plc Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp Oil campaign of World War II Operation Crossbow Operation Paperclip Nazi forced labour V-weapon subterranea World War II sites of Nazi Germany History of Nordhausen