Redl-Zipf
The Redl-Zipf 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[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 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 from the Schlier-Redl-Zipf[1]: 207 subcamp of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. The construction added a large number of tunnels and supporting structures and included a liquid oxygen generation plant in one of the tunnels.[2]
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 indicated the cause of the explosion was a liquid oxygen leak and an open carbide lamp 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. 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[3] 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)[4] at a slate quarry at Lehesten[1] near the Mittelwerk (turbopump/chamber compatibility testing for Mittelwerk production was also performed at the Lehesten facility).[4]
Karl Heimberg, who had worked at Peenemünde Test Stand 7, 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 III to burn design office files and participated in the post-war Operation Backfire).[5]
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.
References
- ^ a b c 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. ISBN 9780029228951.
- ^ Piszkiewicz, Dennis (15 November 2006). The Nazi Rocketeers: Dreams of Space and Crimes of War. Stackpole Books. ISBN 9780811733878 – via Google Books.
- ^ SCHLIER.Der geschichtliche Hintergrund des letzten erhaltenen „V2“ Triebwerksprüfstandes. (Kurzfassung Stand 5. April 2010)
- ^ a b 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.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "Peenemünde Interviews". www.nasm.si.edu. Archived from the original on 17 October 2003. Retrieved 30 June 2022.
48°02′22″N 13°30′17″E / 48.03944°N 13.50472°E
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