Redl-Zipf

Geschichte

The Redl-Zipf V-2 rocket facility (code name Schlier) in central Austria between Vöcklabruck and Vöcklamarkt was for V-2 rocket motor testing 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 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) was built at a slate quarry at Lehesten near the Mittelwerk (turbopump/chamber compatibility testing for Mittelwerk production was also performed at the Lehesten facility). 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.)