The Redl-Zipf V-2 rocket facility (

code name A code name, 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 industrial c ...

''Schlier'') located in central

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

between

Vöcklabruck Vöcklabruck () is the administrative center of the Vöcklabruck district, Austria. It is located in the western part of Upper Austria, close to the A1 Autobahn as well as the B1 highway. Vöcklabruck's name derives from the River Vöckla which r ...

and Vöcklamarkt and established in September 1943 began operation for V-2 rocket motor testing after

Raxwerke Raxwerke or Rax-Werke was a facility of the Wiener Neustädter Lokomotivfabrik at Wiener Neustadt in Lower Austria. During World War II, the company also produced lamps for Panzer tanks and anti-aircraft guns. Two Raxwerke plants employed sever ...

test equipment had been moved from

Friedrichshafen Friedrichshafen ( or ; Low Alemannic: ''Hafe'' or ''Fridrichshafe'') is a city on the northern shoreline of Lake Constance (the ''Bodensee'') in Southern Germany, near the borders of both Switzerland and Austria. It is the district capital (''K ...

. The facility tested V-2 combustion chambers' compatibility with turbopumps since the rocket did not have a controller for reducing the turbopumping of propellant into the chamber if pressure became too high. The World War II facility used as a starting base the cellars and storage tunnels of an old brewery. Construction of the facility was under the command of SS-Obergruppenführer Hans Kammler who was responsible for Nazi civil engineering projects and its top secret weapons programs and used

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, violence including death, or other forms of e ...

from the Schlier-Redl-Zipf subcamp of the

Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 further ...

. The construction added a large number of tunnels and supporting structures and included a

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an a ...

generation plant in one of the tunnels. A large explosion on February 29, 1944 killed 14 people, destroyed several installations, and halted production of liquid oxygen at the facility for almost two months. A report to

Albert Speer Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as the Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production, Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of ...

indicated the cause of the explosion was a liquid oxygen leak and an open

carbide lamp Carbide lamps, or acetylene gas lamps, are simple lamps that produce and burn acetylene (C2H2) which is created by the reaction of calcium carbide (CaC2) with water (molecule), water (H2O). Acetylene gas lamps were used to illuminate buildings ...

carried by the plant foreman. Another serious explosion at 12:29 PM on August 28, 1944 killed 27 people and caused significant damage to the facility. Among the 27 casualties was Ilse Oberth (1924-1944), the youngest daughter of rocket pioneer

Hermann Julius Oberth Hermann Julius Oberth (; 25 June 1894 – 28 December 1989) was an Austro-Hungarian-born German physicist and engineer. He is considered one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics, along with Robert Esnault-Pelterie, Konstantin Tsi ...

. Ilse Oberth worked at the facility as a rocket technician and had arrived four months earlier on April 28, 1944. All of those killed in the explosion were given a state funeral and are interred at the Vöcklabruck-Schöndorf cemetery. After the August 1944 explosion, liquid oxygen production at the Schlier plant stopped once again which led to the establishment of a third V-2 liquid oxygen plant (5000 tons/month) at a slate quarry at

Lehesten Lehesten is a town in the Thuringian Forest, 20 km southeast of Saalfeld. World War II V-2 facility After an August 194explosion at the Redl-Zipf V-2 liquid oxygen plant at Schlier stopped production, the third V-2 liquid oxygen plant ...

near the

Mittelwerk Mittelwerk (; German for "Central Works") was a German World War II factory built underground in the Kohnstein to avoid Allied bombing. It used slave labor from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp to produce V-2 ballistic missiles, V-1 flying ...

(turbopump/chamber compatibility testing for Mittelwerk production was also performed at the Lehesten facility).

Karl Heimberg Karl may refer to: People * Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name * Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne * Karl Marx, German philosopher and political writer * Karl of Austria, last Austrian ...

, who had worked at

Peenemünde Peenemünde (, en, " Peene iverMouth") is a municipality on the Baltic Sea island of Usedom in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is part of the ''Amt'' (collective municipality) of Usedom-Nord. The co ...

Test Stand 7 , partof = Army Research Center Peenemünde,Nazi Germany , location = Usedom island , coordinates = , image = Peenemunde-165515.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = 23 June 1943 RAF reconnaissance ...

, was transferred to "''Vorwerk Süd''" at Redl-Zipf and then, for the period from late 1944-early April 1945, to Lehesten (he later returned to Peenemünde with

Walter Riedel Walter J H "Papa" Riedel ("Riedel I") was a German engineer who was the head of the Design Office of the Army Research Centre Peenemünde and the chief designer of the A4 ( V-2) ballistic rocket. The crater Riedel on the Moon was co-named for ...

III to burn design office files and participated in the

post-war In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period ...

Operation Backfire). The Operation Bernhard forced labor team at

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoner ...

for producing counterfeit British money was transferred to the Schlier-Redl-Zipf subcamp until the beginning of May 1945, when the team of prisoners was ordered to transfer to the Ebensee concentration camp.

References

{{Authority control German V-2 rocket facilities V-weapon subterranea History of Upper Austria Austria in World War II