Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/08/18

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Subject: [Leica] WWII V2 rockets
From: "Oliver Bryk" <oliverbryk@home.com>
Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 09:23:32 -0700

Pascal wrote:

"Those interested in WW II and German V2 rocket developments in particular
may find a recent update on my web pages useful. I put up images and
comments on two of the most spectacular hardened rocket sites in Northern
France."

It is perhaps not widely known that the V2 rockets (and other advanced
aeronautical developments) were manufactured under unbelievably inhumane
conditions by concentration camp inmates in an underground factory in the
Harz mountains, called "Dora". Among the forced laborers were many French. A
website at www.lacoupole.com documents some of these horrors.
There is also a dramatic exhibit at the "Deutsches Museum" (the world famous
museum of science and technology) in Munich. The exhibit, at the base of an
A4/V2, includes documentary photographs made by Walter Frentz, a German
military photographer. I purchased an illustrated publication of pictures,
"slave labor in the rocket tunnels" by Yves Le Maner & Andre' Sellier from
La Coupole.
In 1945 the US removed as many A4s as possible before turning the site over
to the Soviets.
Oliver Bryk