Research relay e.g. V.

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The research relay z. b. V. (Research Squadron for the Special Use of the OKW ) was a special unit of the German foreign intelligence service during the Second World War , which primarily dealt with the production of geographic maps for military use, making significant use of aerial photographs . The research team was founded and directed by Otto Schulz-Kampfhenkel .

prehistory

After his first African expedition formed by Schulz-Kampfhenkel 1932 an informal, made up of scientists, pilots and technicians existing Research Group Schulz-Kampfhenkel that the "last frontiers [n] of the earth" should address. On July 31, 1940, Schulz-Kampfhenkel , who was drafted into the Air Force in September 1939, founded an association Forschungsstaffel Schulz-Kampfhenkel e. V. as a “working group for scientific expeditions, natural research and ethnology”, with foreign geographical societies acting as models. The association was founded in coordination with high representatives of the NSDAP and the Reich government .

Dora

At the beginning of 1941, under the code name Dora and with the involvement of members of the research squadron, a more than 100 strong, combat-strong reconnaissance command was set up. This command, which was also intended for military geoscientific missions, operated south of Rommel's Africa Corps in Libya . The tasks included the reconnaissance on the eastern and south-eastern borders of Inner Libya as well as the mapping of the areas concerned.

Foundation of the zbV research team

In the Sonderkommando Dora , which was not disbanded after the return, the research squadron zbV developed from 1943.In this respect, the research squadron was militarily subordinate to the Sonderkommando Dora and thus indirectly to the Foreign Office / Defense of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (from May 1944 the integration of the defense into the Reich Main Security Office ) and to the High command of the Air Force , with a military geoscientific integration into the Reich Research Council .

Use and results of the research relay

By the end of the Second World War, the research squadron, which had grown to a strength of 100 to 150 people, was deployed in various parts of German-occupied Europe to explore the terrain, with geographers , cartographers , geologists , soil scientists and vegetation experts being deployed on an interdisciplinary basis, depending on the requirements . The result was so-called "maps for exploring the terrain" in various scales .

Compared to the previously common military-geographic techniques, the research team increasingly used photogrammetric methods in cartography.

Members of the research team

The scientists who were members of the research team included Heinz Ellenberg , Friedrich Huttenlocher , Erich Oberdorfer , Erich Otremba and Josef Schmithüsen .

Web links

literature

  • Sören Flachowsky, Holger Stoecker (Ed.): From the Amazon to the Eastern Front. The expedition traveler and geographer Otto Schulz-Kampfhenkel (1910-1989) . Böhlau publishing house. Cologne, Vienna, Weimar 2011. ISBN 978-3-412-20765-6 , doi: 10.7788 / boehlau.9783412214302
  • Hermann Häusler: Forschungsstaffel zbV A special unit for the military-geographical assessment of the site in World War II . MILGEO series of publications , issue 21/2007. Editor of the series of publications: Republic of Austria, Federal Minister for National Defense. Editor: Institute for Military Geosciences.
  • Hermann Häusler: Geographers in the Second World War: The "Forschungsstaffel zbV", communications of the Austrian Geographical Society, Vol. 160 (2018), pp. 9–56, doi: 10.1553 / moeg160s9 (open access).

Individual evidence

  1. Häusler (2007), p. 22.
  2. Häusler (2007), p. 19.
  3. Häusler (2007), p. 7, 32 f.
  4. Häusler (2007), p. 185.
  5. Häusler (2007), p. 7.
  6. Häusler (2007), p. 8 f.
  7. Häusler (2007), p. 54.
  8. Häusler (2007), p. 169 ff.