Nordhausen KZ tunnels – V 2 factory

Nordhausen is a town on the southern side of the Harz Mountains. Mittelwerke / DORA concentration camp and underground rocket factory is outside the town, about 6 km to the NW of the town, in the area between Woffleben and Niedersachswerfen.  Before 1936 there were old and unprofitable gypsum mining operations in the Kohnstein (a small mountain.) Tunnelling in the mountain was commenced, with two parallel tunnels A and B, initially for storage of strategic fuel reserves and chemical weapons.  The two main tunnels penetrated right through from the southern side of the hill (where the public access site is) to the northern side (where there is no access, and where gypsum extraction continues above the tunnels.) Standard gauge rail lines ran along both northern and southern sides of the hill, and each of the two tunnels was wide enough to accommodate two parallel standard gauge tracks.

At first, concentration camp inmates from Buchenwald were used as slave labour to drive the main or inter-connecting tunnels, and initially they lived and slept and died in these tunnels as they were driven.  Later the prisoners built their own exterior concentration camp, of which little now survives beyond an old cinema and crematorium building, although a large area, about a quarter of the entire camp, remains clear as a memorial.

Nordhausen / Dora Modern entrance sign	Dora Site of Dora Workers Camp	Nordhausen Entrance tunnel, Blown up by the Soviets	Nordhausen New entrance tunnel formed to gain access to complex picture by Wilm-Peter Wölfl
Nordhausen 3D Site Map - Picture by Wilm-Peter Wölfl	Nordhausen Discussion in front of 3D Site map	Nordhausen Interior view of Blown up tunnel entrance	Norhausen V2 Missile Engine
Nordhausen Main Tunnel - Picture by Wilm-Peter Wölfl	Nordhausen Main Tunnel - Picture by Wilm-Peter Wölfl	Nordhausen Side Tunnel now flooded	Nordhaussen Rocket Motor Parts
Nordhausen Rocket Motor Parts	Nordhausen Sub divided side tunnel	Nordhausen Side Tunnel with WC

During the latter part of WWII the prisoners were forced to manufacture V1 and V2 rockets and piles of rocket fragments including propellant tanks, nose cones, and gyroscopes are recognisable.  Even the side-tunnels connecting A and B are of impressive dimensions.  The original southern entrances to A and B have been deliberately blocked by dynamiting, but a new access tunnel is now in use for visitors.  Even the small part of the originally far more extensive tunnel network is on an impressive scale. Parts of the main and side tunnels further N are either blocked off by roof falls, or partially flooded, and as they run below the gypsum company's land
they are 'off-limits.'  They are said not to contain anything of additional interest anyway.

There is an excellent sales stall in the former cinema, where books are on sale and harrowing videos can be viewed of the condition of the camp and some of its few surviving inmates as found on liberation.  As the town of Nordhausen was largely destroyed in WWII by bombing, most of the wooden camp buildings were removed for materials for repairing the town buildings.