Caproni works Torbole
The Caproni works in Torbole were an underground armaments plant on Lake Garda that was in operation from late spring 1944 until the end of the war in 1945. Parts of the company founded by Gianni Caproni had been outsourced in the Adige-Gardasee tunnel, which was not yet completed at the time . Components were produced here for the Me 163 , Me 262 , V1 and V2, which were propagated as miracle weapons by National Socialist propaganda .
history
prehistory
With the armistice of Cassibile on September 8, 1943 and the German occupation of Italy , Italian economic production began to be subordinate to German interests. On September 13, the Reich Minister for Armaments and War Production Albert Speer received the relevant powers from Hitler to bring the economic power of occupied Italy to the German war economy . In this sense, the machinery to be used for the production of war goods and other installations in Italy should be dismantled and rebuilt in production facilities in the German Reich for the entire duration of the war. For this purpose, a separate Italian department for armaments and war production had been created under General Commissioner Major General Hans Leyers , who was directly under Speer.
The arms manufacturer Caproni wanted to protect his company from the increasing air raids by the Allies and to avoid the risk of relocation to the German Reich. His goal was to continue production in bomb-proof production facilities in Italy. His factory director in Gardolo near Trento pointed out to him the possibility of using the Etsch -Gardasee flood tunnel , which was pierced but not completed in 1939, as an underground production facility. At the end of October and the beginning of November 1943, some engineers from Caproni undertook an on-site inspection of the tunnel in Torbole. During the inspection, the penetrating tunnel water turned out to be the biggest problem for the project. Engineer Antonio de Pizzini was able to prevail at the subsequent meeting. In spite of everything, he did not rule out implementation, provided that the necessary technical means were made available. In the following meeting with Gianni Caproni at the company headquarters in Milan , he shared de Pizzini's view, whereupon both of them presented the matter to General Mayor Leyers in Como . The latter agreed to the project and also agreed to the support of the Organization Todt (abbreviation OT), Task Force Italy in Trento and its construction management in Riva . At the same time, Leyers stated that production had to start after 9 months, de Pizzini had calculated a construction time of 12 months.
Construction of the Caproni works
The OT willingly provided building materials and transportation. Work on the system was carried out around the clock, using the workers from the Federici-Galluppi company, who had previously worked on the construction site of the Etsch-Gardaseetunnel. The construction management was under de Pizzini, who was then entrusted with the plant management as well as the Caproni workshop in nearby Riva. In addition to the expansion of the approximately 2 km long tunnel, which was only partially fully excavated, additional ancillary rooms had been built in the tunnel and in the supply tunnel to the left of the tunnel entrance. The transformers required for production were housed in the two largest of these six rooms . These were fed by a secondary line that was branched off from a 20,000 volt main line on the flank of Monte Altissimo di Nago . Another room was intended for the diesel-powered emergency power generator , while the fans for air conditioning the tunnel were located in a fourth vault . Two other smaller rooms served as spare parts stores for the fans and other machines. These rooms had all been sprayed with concrete and had a 2 × 3 m large and 1 m thick reinforced concrete passage to the supply gallery and main tunnel.
The Italian subsidiary of the Swiss company Sika was commissioned to seal the tunnel walls, which succeeded in sealing most of the tunnel walls with special concrete. A reinforced concrete partition was placed around the tunnel tube along the entire length of the tunnel and the water that ran off it, which penetrated despite the special treatment, was diverted into two lateral channels, which in turn led it to a central channel through which the water was directed into the lake. Additional wooden cladding should prevent concrete parts of the 2 cm thick partition wall from falling down. The production required an air temperature between 18 ° and 20 ° and a humidity below 50% in order to prevent oxidation of the materials to be processed. For this purpose, ventilation pipes for air conditioning were laid along the entire tunnel ceiling.
The factory was divided into a production, administration and subsequent storage area. The latter was about 50 m after the tunnel entrance on a slightly raised 100 m long wooden platform on which the offices of the German staff who were responsible for the exit control were also located. The factory supervision was subordinate to an SS-Standartenführer . The offices were originally partly outside the tunnel. After the first air raid on December 7, 1944, which was followed by eight more attacks by the end of the war, all offices had been moved to the tunnel. In the event of an air raid alarm, the entrance was closed with a 1 m thick wooden beam gate. Small mine chambers had been created to the side of the gate, with which the entrance could be blown up if necessary. Like the main tunnel, the supply tunnel could also be closed with a wooden door that could move on rails. In addition, this entrance was additionally protected with sandbags as splinter protection.
In front of the tunnel, a landing stage had been built, as it was initially assumed that the machines for the production would be delivered from the Caproni factories in Milan, Brescia , Ponte San Pietro and from the Officine Reggiane by train to Desenzano and Peschiera and from there by Transport ship to tunnel. Instead, they were taken to Mori on the Brenner Railway and from there to Torbole with the help of trucks.
production
Seven months after work on the tunnel began, the Caproni works in Torbole, code name Delphin , were ready for production in late spring 1944. Around 1,300 workers, most of whom came from the Caproni factories in Taliedo near Milan and Ponte San Pietro, were employed here. They were housed in a barrack camp in Linfano on the other side of the mouth of the Sarca . The wooden barracks were camouflaged with camouflage paint and camouflage nets from enemy reconnaissance . A part of the barracks served the Germans as a warehouse for confiscated material. Workers from the area and Russian forced laborers were also employed in Torbole, albeit not in production. As a Messerschmitt supplier, the Caproni works in Torbole produced components for the Me 163 and Me 262. For the Me 163, the blades of the Walter HWK 109-509 engine were produced, while the templates for the horizontal stabilizer were produced for the Me 262 . Welding and drilling templates were also produced for the Fieseler Fi 103 (V1) and A4 (V2), for the latter also the thruster . The manufactured parts were transported to Mori by truck and loaded onto the Brenner railway. Shortly before Easter 1945, one of these rail transports was destroyed in an Allied air raid on the Brenner Railway.
End of war
In April 1945, with the withdrawal of the Germans, more and more workers began to stay away from their jobs. When Torbole was captured by the 10th US Mountain Division , in which amphibious vehicles were also used, the Americans advanced to the tunnel entrance in search of the last German resistance pockets with a DUKW . The Americans subsequently occupied the entire area. Shortly after the end of the war, American General Omar N. Bradley , who had set up in the Villa Pariani Quartier in Malcesine , visited the former production facility. During the visit he also met de Pizzini, who was still in Torbole. During his time as plant manager, the latter had also had contacts with Willy Messerschmitt and Wernher von Braun and was accused of collaboration by the Resistancea . On intervention by Bradley, who had the production plant dismantled and transported to the USA, de Pizzini was able to evade a court martial and fled to Argentina after he had refused Bradley's offer to go to the United States . In 1950 the last parts of the Caproni works were dismantled. After the completion of the Etsch-Gardaseetunnel in 1959, only the supply tunnel and the adjoining rooms indicate the former Caproni works.
literature
- Giorgio Danilo Cocconcelli: Tunnel factories. Le officine aeronautiche Caproni e FIAT nell'Alto Garda 1943–1945 , Apostolo Giorgo, Milan 2002 ISBN 978-88-87261-11-0 .
- Giuliana Gelmi, Donato Riccadonna, Gloria Valenti: I ghe ciameva lingere de galeria. Storia degli uomini che hanno costruito la galleria Adige-Garda: 1939–1959 , Museo Alto Garda, Riva del Garda 2013 ISBN 978-88-6686-040-2 .
- Lutz Klinkhammer : L'occupazione tedesca in Italia 1943-1945 , Bollati Borinheri, Turin 1993 ISBN 978-88-339-0773-4 .
- Graziano Riccadonna: Anni di guerra: Nago e Torbole 1940-1945 , Gruppo culturale Nago-Torbole, Arco 1995.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lutz Klinkhammer: L'occupazione tedesca in Italia 1943-1945 pp 70-80
- ↑ Giorgio Danilo Cocconcelli: factories tunnel. Le officine aeronautiche Caproni e FIAT nell'Alto Garda 1943-1945 pp. 202–205
- ↑ Giorgio Danilo Cocconcelli: factories tunnel. Le officine aeronautiche Caproni e FIAT nell'Alto Garda 1943-1945 pp. 207–211
- ^ Graziano Riccadonna: Anni di guerra: Nago e Torbole 1940-1945 p. 70
- ↑ Giorgio Danilo Cocconcelli: factories tunnel. Le officine aeronautiche Caproni e FIAT nell'Alto Garda 1943-1945 pp. 215-218
- ↑ Giorgio Danilo Cocconcelli: factories tunnel. Le officine aeronautiche Caproni e FIAT nell'Alto Garda 1943-1945 p. 219
- ↑ Giorgio Danilo Cocconcelli: factories tunnel. Le officine aeronautiche Caproni e FIAT nell'Alto Garda 1943-1945 p. 67
- ↑ Giorgio Danilo Cocconcelli: factories tunnel. Le officine aeronautiche Caproni e FIAT nell'Alto Garda 1943-1945 pp. 224–240
- ↑ Graziano Riccadonna: Anni di guerra: Nago e Torbole 1940-1945 pp. 67-74
- ↑ Giorgio Danilo Cocconcelli: factories tunnel. Le officine aeronautiche Caproni e FIAT nell'Alto Garda 1943-1945 pp. 241–242
Coordinates: 45 ° 51 ′ 39.8 " N , 10 ° 52 ′ 34.7" E