Raxwerke

For a list of Allied attacks on the area, see Wiener Neustadt World War II bombings.

Raxwerke or Rax-Werke was a facility of the Wiener Neustädter Lokomotivfabrik at Wiener Neustadt in Lower Austria. During World War II, the company also produced lamps for Panzer tanks and anti-aircraft guns.^[1] Two Raxwerke plants employed several thousand forced laborers from the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp^[2][3] (on 20 June 1943 Mauthausen delivered ~500 prisoners to the Rax-Werke).^[4]: 189

"Serbenhalle" (i.e. Serbian hall)

Operations

Part of the Eastern Works (V-2 facilities in the Vienna-Freidrichshafen area),^[5] the 30 meter-high Serbs hall at the Raxwerke was selected for V-2 manufacturing.^[6]

A few V-2 center sections had been assembled by the Raxwerke when, on 2 November 1943, the US Fifteenth Air Force targeted the nearby Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke (WNF) plant in Operation Crossbow and hit the Raxwerke.^[7] Rax test equipment was subsequently moved to the site of the Redl-Zipf brewery in central Austria (code name Schlier) where V-2 test stands were built.^[4][specify]

Werner Dahm was sent from Peenemünde Army Research Center in Germany to the Raxwerke for the construction of an engine test stand for the Wasserfall anti-aircraft missile (construction was never completed).^[8]

See also

• V-2 rocket facilities of World War II