Redl-Zipf

The Redl-Zipf V-2 rocket facility (code name Schlier) in central Austria between Vöcklabruck and Vöcklamarkt was for V-2 rocket motor testing[1] after Raxwerke test equipment had been moved from Friedrichshafen. 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 forced labor of the Schlier-Redl-Zipf[1]:207 subcamp of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp and included a liquid oxygen generation plant in a nearby tunnel. After an August 1944 explosion at the liquid oxygen plant stopped Schlier production, the third V-2 liquid oxygen plant (5000 tons/month)[2] was built at a slate quarry at Lehesten[1] near the Mittelwerk (turbopump/chamber compatibility testing for Mittelwerk production was also performed at the Lehesten facility).[2] Karl Heimberg, who had worked at Peenemünde Test Stand 7, was transferred to "Vorwerk Sued" at Redl-Zipf and then, for the period from late 1944-early April 1945, to Lehesten (he later returned to Peenemünde with Walter Riedel III to burn design office files and participated in the post-war Operation Backfire.)

The Operation Bernhard forced labor team at Sachsenhausen concentration camp 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. A 1985 documentary was produced about the forced labor,[3] and the 1992 conference for Braunau Contemporary History Days commemorated the "Unwanted Heritage" of forced labor at the region's concentration camps.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Neufeld, Michael J (1995). The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era. New York: The Free Press. p. 207.
  2. 1 2 Ordway, Frederick I, III; Sharpe, Mitchell R (1979). The Rocket Team. Apogee Books Space Series 36. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. p. 99. ISBN 1-894959-00-0.
  3. ↑ Frodon, Jean-Michel; Harrison, Anna. Cinema and the Shoah: an art confronts the tragedy of the twentieth century. p. 263. Retrieved 17 December 2010.

Coordinates: 48°02′22″N 13°30′17″E / 48.03944°N 13.50472°E / 48.03944; 13.50472

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