Kuno AG Werk I

[Full title: Waldwerk Kuno AG Werk I - Die Endmontage der Messerschmitt Me 262 und die Rolle des KZ-Aussenlagers Burgau - Fakten und Hintergründe zur NS-Rüstungsindustrie und Zwangsarbeit im ländlichen Schwaben] Martina Wenni-Auinger, Verlag Martina Wenni-Auinger, Burgau, Germany, 2022, ISBN 978-3-00-072621-7. Illustrated, hardcover, published in German.

Cover image © by Verlag Martina Wenni-Auinger, 2022.

In October 2020, this blog reviewed Alexander Kartschall's truly fascinating and important book Messerschmitt Me 262 - Geheime Produktionsstätten [Messerschmitt Me 262 - Secret Production Facilities]. The review noted, not least, Kartschall's willingness to examine not just the historical, technical and archaeological aspects of the topic, but also the crucially significant (and yet frequently ignored) subject matter of the slave labour system associated with German late war aircraft production.

In her new book Kuno AG Werk I, Martina Wenni-Auinger focuses on one of the aforementioned secret Me 262 production facilities, the forest assembly factory that lends the book its name, located near Burgau in Bavaria. By dedicating the entire book to this one facility, Wenni-Auinger is able to investigate both relevant history and operations in much greater detail, and the book's narrative by necessity seamlessly and meticulously interweaves information on Messerschmitt's company-internal machinations, the construction and operation of the forest facility and the affiliated Burgau concentration camp, the extensive use of slave labour, and many details regarding the Me 262.

Kuno AG Werk I is indeed a well-made and absorbingly detailed publication. Its full title translates to Forest Factory Kuno AG Werk I - the final assembly of the Messerschmitt Me 262 and the role of the auxiliary Burgau concentration camp - facts and background about the national-socialist armament industry and forced labour in rural Swabia. Given that the book's scope transcends the mere technological side of the topic at hand, it also presents extremely distressing and sombre facets. At a format of 30 x 21 cm and with 272 printed pages (containing, thankfully, a generous number of photos and illustrations, both in black/white and colour), it provides plenty of room for a thorough examination into all aspects affiliated with the Kuno facility still researchable today.

The author is a local historian in the very city of Burgau; she served as the head of the Burgau City Archive and of the Museum of the City of Burgau (where she curated an exhibition on the Kuno facility in 2017) and currently is the deputy mayor of Burgau. The book is based on extensive archive research and thus makes abundant use of primary sources. Intriguingly, numerous of the original contemporary documents consulted are also reproduced photographically in the book.

Kuno AG Werk I starts with a description of the late-war situation in Swabia, namely the political and governmental structure and its rather complex interplay with the Messerschmitt firm. The deficiencies, misuse and manipulation encountered in Messerschmitt's company-internal organization as described here are staggering. This introduction is followed by a look at specific efforts to disperse some of Messerschmitt's aircraft production to Burgau, resulting in the establishment of the Kuno Werk I.

But the book's most poignant and significant content is, in my view, the subsequent comprehensive section on the Burgau concentration camp, the facility that provided the slave labour force needed for the assembly of the Messerschmitt jet fighter. In this, Wenni-Auinger sheds light on the establishment and operation of the camp, on its Jewish inmates, on the harrowing conditions encountered by the inmates during excruciatingly long transport journeys to the camp in railroad freight wagons, and on details regarding the concentration camp guards and their utterly brutal conduct towards the slave labour inmates.

These 70-odd pages of the book are crucial, and, unsurprisingly, they are utterly distressing to read. Even the plain act of perusing the sample inmate inflow lists reproduced therein is devastating. Somewhat unusually for a book on the topic of German late-war aircraft production - and thus commendably - the author also attempts to transcend mere numbers and accounts by providing personal biographical details for a number of representative inmates, some of whom suffered agonizing deaths and some of whom survived against all odds.

Having thus established the traumatic reality endured by Kuno Werk I's slave labour workforce, Wenni-Auinger next describes the construction and operation of the factory, the significance of the adjacent Autobahn, and the forest assembly and nearby testing of the Me 262. Thankfully, this also includes a list of the Werknummern of the aircraft completed there. Wherever possible, this list is illustrated; unsurprisingly, this list is, due to the nature of events at the end of the war, vastly incomplete. The book further provides uncounted photos of the jet fighters found at this location, and it also includes an unexpected amount of technical details regarding the aircraft itself.

The narrative is concluded by an account of the arrival of US armed forces at Kuno Werk I as well as a look at the remnants of the factory as they can be found today. The final pages of the book are dedicated to a list of primary and secondary sources as well as abundant footnotes providing various further details, not least regarding the photos included.

In spite of minor nitpicks (some of the photos would have benefitted from an indication of the year they were taken, e.g. on page 208), Kuno AG Werk I is an extremely important effort to complete the history of the Messerschmitt Me 262. Martina Wenni-Auinger must also be commended for the extent of her research and her dedication to provide the reader with a frank and comprehensive account of the staggering human cost associated with the frantic German endeavour to stem the inevitably turning tide of the war by means of advanced aviation technology. Highly recommended.

Der Feldflugplatz Brunnthal

[Full title: Der Feldflugplatz Brunnthal. Ausweich- und Schattenplatz der Luftwaffe 1944-1945] Norbert Loy, Verlag Veit Scherzer, Bayreuth, Germany, 2016, ISBN 978-3-938845-64-6. Illustrated, hardcover, published in German and English.

Cover image © by Norbert Loy/Verlag Veit Scherzer, 2016.

Many years ago, in what now seems like another life, I was romantically involved with a German woman who lived outside of Munich, in a village south of the Hofoldinger forest. I therefore made numerous return trips between Munich and her home on what is now the southbound Bundesautobahn 8 [German federal motorway 8] and once was the Reichsautobahn [Reich motorway] Munich to Salzburg.

None of these trips was ever ordinary to me, for a reason. In spite of the fact that the modern Bundesautobahn has been massively expanded with regard to infrastructure and width when compared to the original configuration of the 1930s and 40s, it still passes the hamlet of Brunnthal in a perfectly straight routeing and, north and south of the hamlet, is still flanked by woods. It is thus easy even today to imagine Luftwaffe aircraft hidden between the trees just beyond the shoulder of the Autobahn and using this very motorway for take-offs and landings. For the fields and the Reichsautobahn around Brunnthal served as an improvised auxiliary airfield during the last, desperate months of the war.

Numerous photos have been printed here and there throughout the years of Luftwaffe bombers, destroyers, nightfighters, and jets either concealed in the forest next to the motorway or on the immediate post-war aircraft scrapyard that Brunnthal airfield became after the cessation of hostilities. Some of these pictures were properly identified. But many weren't, and the story behind them, more often than not, was either told in mere fragments or left to misinformation or even obscurity. It is far easier to bemoan this situation, however, than to actually research the history of the Brunnthal airfield and collect the vast and widely scattered photographic evidence in order to compile a chronicle and properly integrate and connect all these pieces of the puzzle. Thankfully, local historian Norbert Loy has undertaken the effort, and the result is magnificent.

We had to wait for years for this beautiful book to appear. There were glimpses at photos and information in various publications, for decades. David E. Brown had written about some of the aircraft found at Brunnthal on an online specialist discussion forum in 2008, for example. And Norbert Loy himself published a comprehensive article on Brunnthal airfield and its few months of operations in German magazine Jet & Prop 4/2010. The information and photos provided therein were extraordinarily interesting. A footnote at the end of Loy's article announced the forthcoming publication of a full book of the author's findings. Given the article's content, it was clear that this had the potential to become an important and deeply intriguing work.

But years passed, and nothing happened. In fact, an initial announcement of the book subsequently disappeared again, indicating, perhaps, that it actually might never see publication. But in 2016, Loy finally released the results of his comprehensive research, under the title of Der Feldflugplatz Brunnthal. Ausweich- und Schattenplatz der Luftwaffe 1944-1945 [Brunnthal Airfield. Auxiliary And Shadow Field Of The Luftwaffe 1944-1945]. It is quite a massive book, at 392 pages and a format of 23 x 28 x 5 (!) cm, with 40 colour photos, 178 black & white photos, plus uncounted facsimile documents, colour profiles, listings/charts, and maps. Moreover, the book is thankfully published with both German and English text, a decision that should be applauded.

Loy's publication is indispensable for anybody seriously interested in late-war Luftwaffe aircraft and activities. Although new information regarding the Brunnthal airfield occasionally continues to surface (and the book's existence actually serves as one of the catalysts in this regard), Der Feldflugplatz Brunnthal is without question a requisite benchmark publication. Loy has structured the book very methodically. He commences with the establishment of the airfield in may/June 1944 and then details various components of the airfield's operations, such as anti aircraft installations, local aircraft maintenance, or the use of the Autobahn as one of the airstrips. All of this is expanded upon by means of recollections by period eyewitnesses, interspersed throughout the book.

Loy also makes extensive use of US sources regarding the discovery of the airfield and the resulting attacks on it. These operations form a significant and essential part of the narrative and serve to complete the understanding of the airfield's day to day subsistence. Allied wartime aerial reconnaissance photos of Brunnthal are analyzed and captioned in detail, which helps the reader to further visualise the relevant contents of the very detailed text.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the book, at least from the vantage point of this blog's author, is the collection and examination of all available photographic material in order to provide an exhaustive overview of all Luftwaffe aircraft that were located at Brunnthal airfield at the end of the war. This is the book's most substantial and most fascinating section. The mixture of aircraft types assembled at this rather makeshift auxiliary airfield is astounding, regardless of whether these aircraft had still flown active missions or arrived there by way of retreat from Allied troops advancing on other airfields. Quite a number of these aircraft were subsequently intentionally destroyed as Germany surrendered.

Loy identifies 57 different aircraft and attempts to put them into proper context, if possible, using markings, Werknummern, wreckage, and other evidence. There is the enormous Junkers Ju 290 A-7 9V+AB, for example, photos of which have appeared in a variety of past publications. There are various Junkers Ju 88 G-6 and Messerschmitt Bf 110 G-4 nightfighters, due to their equipment among the most modern aircraft in existence at the time. There are large and small transports, such as Siebel Si 204s and Ju 52s, there are Heinkel He 111 and Junkers Ju 88 A bombers, as well as Messerschmitt Me 410s, Junkers Ju 188s, and Junkers Ju 87s. And, perhaps most intriguing, there are numerous Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighters and individual Jumo 004 jet engines.

Many of these aircraft are documented with as many photos as Loy could find, and these photos are fortunately often reproduced across full pages or even double-page spreads. Photo reproduction, on matte paper, is quite good. It must be repeated here, this book's photographic content is spectacular for any student of this topic. The final part of Loy's work provides a glossary of aircraft unit codes, a number of very nice colour profiles, further facsimile documents, flight logs, and colour photos of surviving artefacts recovered on site.

This is truly a book that cannot be recommended highly enough. It is a near inexhaustible source of diligently and internationally researched and appealingly presented material. The author must be commended for the immense effort he put into this publication. Upon seeing the scope of this book, it is easy to understand the delay in its publication. The waiting time was undoubtedly worth it.

Post script: Loy followed the publication of his book with a further article in Jet & Prop 2/2017, this time focusing solely on the Me 262 jet fighters found at Brunnthal at war's end.

Messerschmitt Me 262 - Geheime Produktionsstätten

Alexander Kartschall, Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany, 2020, ISBN 978-3-613-04258-2. Illustrated, hardcover, published in German.

Cover image © by Motorbuch Verlag, 2020.

This is Alexander Kartschall's second book dedicated to the dispersed late-war production of the Luftwaffe's Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter. In 2017, Kartschall, an engineer active in the automotive industry, self-published the formidable, high-quality publication Produktion der Messerschmitt Me 262 – Von Waldwerken und Untertage-Verlagerungen zu Grossbunkern [Messerschmitt Me 262 Production – From Forrest Factories And Underground-Dispersals To Large Bunkers]. This was a deeply intriguing and well-illustrated hardback study of the concerted and concurrently desperate efforts of the Luftwaffe's leadership in 1944/45 to ensure the continued mass production of one of its most advanced aircraft in the face of the utter devastation caused as the war, begun a few years earlier by Germany, inevitably and ferociously returned to its origin.

Kartschall's new book now expands on this already impressive previous work. Messerschmitt Me 262 – Geheime Produktionsstätten [Messerschmitt Me 262 – Secret Production Facilities] is similar in physical scope to its predecessor, with a format of 25 x 18 cm, 240 printed pages, and 150 photos & illustrations, while containing nine major chapters and a number of elucidatory appendices. The narrative commences with a brief recounting of the gestation of the Me 262 jet fighter before delving, in chapter two, into the actual subject matter of the production of an advanced aircraft under increasingly desperate late-war conditions.

The book subsequently briefly details the history of the Messerschmitt aircraft company as a whole to then focus on the manufacturing of the Me 262 in particular. Of considerable interest is chapter five, describing the vast number of production facilities involved in the Me 262 program and their locations. Given this information, it becomes increasingly clear what a colossal undertaking it was to arrange for the dispersing of this enormous network of plants and subcontractors. Chapter six and seven pay testimony to this, followed by the descriptions in chapter eight of the monumental bunker systems both planned and constructed to protect the assembly of the jet fighter from the Allied bombing campaign. Also highlighted in these chapters are logistics and production procedures employed in these facilities.

The book's last chapter is also its most extensive; it provides copious information on the various forest factories which ironically served as the quasi-primitive final production facilities of what was one of the most sophisticated flying machines of its period. As with the rest of the book, this chapter, too, features numerous photos, maps, drawings, and plans. Kartschall's research and layout approach thus makes for incredibly absorbing and appealing reading.

But even all of the above is still not what makes Messerschmitt Me 262 – Geheime Produktionsstätten an absolutely essential publication. One of the most important points of Kartschall's work is that he doesn't skirt around the issue of how Messerschmitt, the Luftwaffe, and Nazi Germany were able to accomplish such enormous efforts in weapons manufacturing, building construction, and dispersal activities. The facilitation of such undertakings under wartime circumstances that became more adverse by the week required the involvement of the SS, concentration camps, and substantial quantities of slave labour. The tasks of simultaneous mass production of the aircraft and construction of bunkers and underground facilities proceeded under appallingly horrid conditions, with no regard whatsoever for human welfare and the value of human life.

Whereas many other publications on late war Luftwaffe subject matters either casually avoid this topic or at best shed limited light on it, the German slave labour system and its staggeringly brutal and tragic consequences on the individuals thus subjugated and abused constitute one of the central themes of Kartschall's publication. This does not just concern the text of Kartschall's book; at the end of the day, nearly every single image in his book is directly affected by it, be it photos of freshly assembled aircraft or aircraft components, pictures of dispersal facilities, tunnels, or bunkers under construction, or the photos and drawing of the camps themselves.

Alexander Kartschall certainly deserves praise for the integration of all of these indispensable facts to provide a documentation as complete as is possible given the scope of these 240 pages. And for doing so in a straightforward, non-ideological manner. Moreover, it is also nice to see Motorbuch Verlag, once among the main publishing houses for any topic linked to historic German aviation, return to form by choosing to release this important and absolutely fascinating book.

REIMAHG-Werk "Lachs"

Markus Gleichmann, Heinrich-Jung-Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Zella-Mehlis/Meiningen, Germany, 2013, ISBN 978-3-943552-05-8. Illustrated, hardcover, published in German, English, Italian, French, Russian, and Dutch.

Cover image © by Heinrich-Jung-Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 2013.

In January 2010, this blog featured an entry discussing various publications examining the REIMAHG underground aircraft plant at the Walpersberg mountain in Thuringia, Germany (see REIMAHG Me 262 Underground Manufacturing Plant At Kahla, 1944/1945). One of the books covered, Düsenjäger über dem Walpersberg by Markus Gleichmann and Karl-Heinz Bock, presented a particularly comprehensive assessment of the manufacturing site, both during its construction and in its current state.

Four years after Düsenjäger über dem Walpersberg, Gleichmann has published a companion volume of sorts: REIMAHG-Werk "Lachs". This book was created together with the Geschichts- und Forschungsverein Walpersberg e.V. [History and Research Association Walpersberg], and it has the distinct feel of an exhibition catalogue, the exhibition in this case potentially being the Association's guided tours of the Walpersberg area.

While Gleichmann's original Düsenjäger über dem Walpersberg was a book of 176 pages, containing 94 photos and 13 maps and drawings, his new book is more of a captioned photo album, comprising 201 illustrations on 118 pages. There are text pages, but they are kept to an absolute minimum. The same applies to the photo captions themselves. Such brevity is a result of the decision to print the text and captions in five languages (German, English, Russian, Italian, and Dutch), thus making the book accessible to a wide variety of interested parties and/or visitors to the site. For anyone with more than a cursory awareness of this topic, however, these brief captions are a bit of a disappointment. Given the nature of the subject matter, every single photo in this book could conceivably be accompanied by an exhaustive description.

The photos themselves (in black & white as well as in colour) are as absorbing as those in Gleichmann's earlier work. Once again, they depict the REIMAHG site during the war, in the course of the immediate aftermath, and today. This includes countless intriguing shots of the incomplete underground facilities inside the mountain (an area currently inaccessible to the ordinary visitor), as well as the surrounding buildings, the inclined aircraft elevator, and the mountaintop runway.

A significant section of REIMAHG-Werk "Lachs" is dedicated to the fact that forced labour was used in harshest conditions in both the construction of the REIMAHG facility and the commencement of actual aircraft assembly/manufacture. It is to Gleichmann's credit that he has chosen to accord so much space to this horrendous aspect of the REIMAHG story. Nonetheless, there likely remains an infinite amount of relevant information yet to be documented and published.

In an effort to assign proper credit, Gleichmann has included an authorship code for all photos reproduced in the book. Unfortunately, this code is printed in a small, rectangular box within the photos themselves (instead of as part of the captions), which, in the case of small photos, is somewhat annoying. There's a key linking each code to the photo source at the end of the book.

There are other nitpicks. In order to fit a photo into the assigned space on page 110, the person in charge of the layout simply stretched the photo horizontally, resulting in amateurishly distorted protagonists and equipment. Such a thing should not happen in a book of otherwise formidable quality. Some of the translations are a bit simplistic, although this is of no great consequence in view of the aforementioned brevity of the text. Lastly, it would have been nice to see a photo of a Ta 152 still in German hands and thus with authentic German markings instead of the haphazardly repainted post-war example in the US.

In spite of such trivial criticism, REIMAHG-Werk "Lachs" is a welcome and highly informative book. Moreover, its content is even more valuable if used as a supplement to Gleichmann's earlier Düsenjäger über dem Walpersberg.

Various Publications: REIMAHG Me 262 Underground Manufacturing Plant At Kahla, 1944/1945

Deckname Lachs - Die Geschichte der unterirdischen Fertigung der Me 262 im Walpersberg bei Kahla 1944/45

Klaus W. Müller & Willy Schilling, Heinrich-Jung-Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Zella-Mehlis/Meiningen, Germany, 1995, ISBN 3-930-588-30-7. Illustrated, hardcover, published in German.

One of the most extraordinary and in equal parts intriguing and drastic German armament industry projects of World War II was the conversion of the Walpersberg mountain in Thuringia, Germany, into an underground jet fighter manufacturing plant with a full mountaintop runway. The plant was to be operated by the REIMAHG works (Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring Werke). Although still vastly uncompleted by war's end, construction work inside and around the mountain was at an advanced state, and the plant became partially operational. Originally intended for the production of Focke-Wulf Fw 190s, Focke-Wulf Ta 152s, and Messerschmitt Me 262s, plans changed in early 1945, and the plant was subsequently intended to focus on manufacturing the jet-powered Me 262 and Horten Ho XVIII.

The runway on top of the Walpersberg mountain, originally 900 meters long but later extended to 1,200 meters, was completed in February 1945 and actually used for RATO-assisted take-offs of freshly assembled Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighters. The aircraft reached the top of the mountain by means of an inclined and open elevator which ran along the mountainside for 200 meters, at an angle of 27 degrees, thus bridging a vertical height of approximately 85 meters.

Klaus W. Müller and Willy Schilling's Deckname Lachs was likely the first specialized study of this massive project to be published for the general Luftwaffe historian. A small hardback book of 88 pages, it is still a very detailed look at the entire history of REIMAHG's Walpersberg undertaking. Deckname Lachs investigates the early discussions about the possible protection of the German military aircraft production from Allied bombing, the actual construction of the tunnels and bunkers of the REIMAHG plant, the slave labor used during the construction work, the facilities of the plant, the plant's runway, and the arrival of the American military at the plant at the end of the war.

The book contains a number of back & white photos and drawings of the REIMAHG plant, the most interesting ones, in my opinion, being those of the runway and the inclined elevator.




REIMAHG - From Sandpit To Armament Factory (History of Hitler's Secret Underground Factory)

Claus Reuter, Publications of the German-Canadian Museum of Applied History, Brunswick, Germany/S. R. Research and Publishing, Ontario, Canada, ISBN 0-96961-7-X. Illustrated, softcover/ring binding, published in English.

Very little information is available about this publication. It has a definite underground feel about it, consisting of 134 small-format pages held together by plastic ring binding. The text is very comprehensive, however, including not only information on the REIMAHG plant project itself but also on the camps which held the labor force used to build the plant, the Me 262 and other aircraft intended to be produced at the plant, the occupation of the plant, and so on.

It is perhaps of significance to point out that the author at times takes a rather critical stance against certain aspects of the Allied bombing campaign. Also, the photo section at the end of this publication is a somewhat mixed blessing. Not only are the photos printed in an inferior quality and at a very small size, many of them are not directly related to the REIMAHG project at all (such as various images of Focke-Wulf Fw 190 prototypes or drawings and photos of technical details of the Me 262).

All in all, a publication which has left me unconvinced. It is rendered valuable primarily due to the fact that the text is in English.




Düsenjäger über dem Walpersberg (Die Geschichte des unterirdischen Flugzeugwerkes "REIMAHG" bei Kahla/Thüringen)

Markus Gleichmann & Karl-Heinz Bock, Heinrich-Jung-Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Zella-Mehlis/Meiningen, Germany, 2009, ISBN 978-3-930588-82-4. Illustrated, hardcover, published in German.

As I am writing this review, Düsenjäger über dem Walpersberg is the newest and most exhaustive of the studies published on the REIMAHG underground aircraft plant. The book is enormously absorbing and complete, both in its text and photo content. The result of years of research by authors Markus Gleichmann and Karl-Heinz Bock, Düsenjäger über dem Walpersberg presents a clearly structured and very detailed history of the plant. Beginning with an overview of the Allied bombing campaign against the German armament production and the subsequent German efforts to move much of such production underground, Gleichmann and Bock then chronicle the various phases of the massive construction project.

The examination of these phases is not limited to technical or logistical aspects. The authors include a detailed chapter on the forced labor workforce utilized to create the pant as well as the camps used to house this workforce and the German guards used to enforce the extreme work regimen. Owing to the chronic lack of manpower due to the war situation, these guard detachments included members of the Hitler Youth, many of whom frequently found themselves emotionally overwhelmed by the task. Needless to say, the conditions under which the workforce had to function were harrowing.

Düsenjäger über dem Walpersberg then looks at the planned aircraft assembly operation as well as at the construction of the tunnels and auxiliary bunkers and buildings of the plant. The book concludes with the discovery of the REIMAHG plant by the Allies, the subsequent Soviet disassembly of the facilities, and the fate of the site in the decades after the war. Due to the inclusion of numerous eyewitness accounts (not least in the section on forced labor and working conditions), the text often conveys far more immediacy than usually found in such studies.

A large amount of photos and drawings further serves to illustrate the various aspects of the REIMAHG project. Pages 110, 117, and 125, for example, provide views of the remarkable mountaintop runway. Unless hampered by the inferior quality of the original source photos, the photo reproduction quality is generally good. The final part of the book is dedicated to series of stunning color photos of the remnants of REIMAHG plant as they appear today. This does not just include images of the ruins of bunkers, buildings, and the inclined elevator, but it also shows the area of the runway (completely overgrown by forest), the uncompleted train lines once intended for the transport of aircraft components, and - most strikingly - various tunnels and assembly halls inside of the mountain.

A very complete, utterly intriguing, and highly recommended book.




Flugplätze der Luftwaffe 1934-1945 - und was davon übrig blieb (Band 3: Thüringen)

Jürgen Zapf, VDM Heinz Nickel, Zweibrücken, Germany, 2003, ISBN 3-925480-80-3. Illustrated, softcover, published in German.

While not strictly a publication solely dedicated to the REIMAHG project, part 3 of Jürgen Zapf's profusely researched and illustrated Flugplätze der Luftwaffe 1934-1945 - und was davon übrig blieb [Airfields Of The Luftwaffe 1934-1945 - And What Remains Of Them Today] series contains a major section (72 pages) on the REIMAHG plant and its mountaintop runway. While the text is to Zapf's usual professional and very detailed standard, it's really the photographic content which makes this publication indispensable for anyone interested in this topic (although the printing quality of the photos could perhaps be a tad better).

Numerous large color and back & white photos show the interior and exterior of the Walpersberg mountain, both as it appeared during the war and as it looks today. As can be seen, the tunnels of the plant still contain lorries (evidence that construction was never completed), electrical aircraft systems parts, and corroded cockpit instruments. The outside is dotted with crumbled bunkers, foundations, and buildings. Of particular interest are the photos which show the area of where the inclined elevator once stood as well as the overgrown runway.