The German's had two rocket production centers, Peenemunde, the most well known, located on the Baltic coast and Nordhausen located in the Harz Mountains.

Robert Schnulle, LTC(Ret)

I had just left A Battery for Headquarters Battery, the war was over and we were occupying rural German villages at the time.

The Buzz Bomb plant was at Nordhausen and it was also a concentration camp since they used the inmates to do the work in the factory. A lot of displaced people died and were cremated there. I don't know if there were intentional killings but the inmates were worked so hard and fed so little that a lot of them died. The factory was in a mine carved out of a hill and was very modern. When I went there it was like they had just shut down for the day, the lights were on and there were V-2's on a modern assembly line in various stages of completion. Some of the tunnels were at least two stories tall. The V-2,s were also made at Nordhausen but I never did see where. It was a large complex. Aerial bombing would have had little effect on this plant. I do not know if it was ever bombed. There were still inmates there when we got there and a lot of evidence that many people had died in the ovens.

When we went to the plant we stopped at the G-2 section of either an army or division that was in charge of the plant. They informed us that the plant was "Top Secret" and we would not be permitted to go in. To compensate us for our disappointing long trip they gave us some 35mm film. When we left the headquarters we decided that we would go out to the plant and see if we could see anything from the entrance. At the entrance (or one of the entrances) Doc Kelley whipped out his camera to take a picture. The armed soldier guarding the entrance came toward us immediately. I thought that we were in trouble. The guard said "Captain, you won't get a good picture from out here, why don't you go inside and set your camera down to steady it?" Doc did just that and three or four of us went inside. We were quite excited about photographing a top secret installation and joked about sending copies to the G-2.

Bob Schnulle

One entrance to Underground weapons factory, Das Mittlewerk, near Nordhausen, Germany

Mittelwerk GmbH: The German company  that produced the weapons

Vengeance Weapons

Vergeltungswaffen, V-1

Links to  V-2 sites

The Americans captured Peenemunde and Nordhausen and all of the remaining V-2's and V-2 parts, then destroyed both places with explosives to keep them out of the hands of the advancing Russian troops. Over 300 train car loads of spare V-2 parts were sent to the United States.

DeLoyd Cooper is the Historian for the 275th Armored Field Artillery Battalion Association.
Copyright © 2000 DeLoyd Cooper. All rights reserved.                                  
Revised: October 14, 2006