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. Two Raxwerke plants employed several thousand forced laborers from the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp[1] [2] (on 20 June 1943 Mauthausen delivered ~500 prisoners to the Rax-Werke).
Part of the Eastern Works (V-2 facilities in the Vienna-Freidrichshafen area),[3] the 30 meter-high Serbs hall at the Raxwerke was selected for V-2 manufacturing.[4]
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.[5] 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.[6]
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).[7]