Redl-Zipf

Redl-Zipf

TheRedl-ZipfV-2 rocket facility(code nameSchlier) located in centralAustriabetweenVöcklabruckandVöcklamarktand established in September 1943 began operation forV-2rocket motor testingafterRaxwerketest equipment had been moved fromFriedrichshafen.

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 usedforced laborfrom theSchlier-Redl-Zipfsubcamp of theMauthausen-Gusen concentration camp.The construction added a large number of tunnels and supporting structures and included aliquid oxygengeneration 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 toAlbert Speerindicated the cause of the explosion was a liquid oxygen leak and an opencarbide lampcarried 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 pioneerHermann 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 1944explosion, 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 atLehestennear theMittelwerk(turbopump/chamber compatibility testing for Mittelwerk production was also performed at the Lehesten facility).

Karl Heimberg,who had worked atPeenemündeTest Stand 7,was transferred to "Vorwerk Süd"at Redl-Zipf and then, for the period from late 1944 to early April 1945, to Lehesten (he later returned to Peenemünde withWalter RiedelIII to burn design office files and participated in thepost-warOperation Backfire).

TheOperation Bernhardforced labor team atSachsenhausen concentration campfor 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 theEbensee concentration camp.