The underground V-2 factory in the Kohnstein ridge near Nordhausen in the Harz Mountains, and the concentration camp that supplied its labour. Roughly twenty thousand people died in its construction and operation. On one day in March 1945, following SS suspicions of sabotage on the production line, guards hanged fifty-two prisoners in Gallery 41, a dozen at a time from a beam raised by an electric crane, with those next in line made to watch.
The site is the moral centre of The Hunt for Zero Point, which devotes a chapter to walking the tunnels and refuses to let the technology hunt pass over what was done there. It also anchors the book’s institutional argument, since the V-2 programme is where Hans Kammler acquired the authority he later extended over all German air weapons.
Connections
Hans Kammler · The Hunt for Zero Point · Operation Paperclip · Wernher von Braun