Army Research Center in Mittersill
The Mittersill Army Research Center was established in 1939. It was exclusively subordinate to the army and was actually a working group of all cable car companies of the former German Empire .
The Army Research Center was located “on the Lend”, a once swampy area that was filled in and a siding was provided from Mittersill station via a bridge over the Salzach . The test site had several large warehouses with siding. Today's Lendhof is a building of the former Army Research Center. In 1943 the existing test facility for cable car systems in Hochfilzen was closed and relocated to Mittersill.
task
The purpose of the test center was the development and testing of new equipment that could be used for military purposes, especially cable cars. So the first one was in the Army Experimental Station Mittersill Steyr - Diesel engine tested for functionality and performance.
Established plants
An 80 m high steel cable car pillar was erected on the Lend and an equally high wooden cable car pillar about 1,400 m further west in the direction of Hollersbach. The latter was a construction that was hollow on the inside to allow a weather-protected ascent. About 3500 kg of nails were needed to build this pillar. Both supports were connected with a wire rope. The system served to clarify the question of which loads can be transported over a wide river and how quickly with the help of a cable car. In 1955 the cable car supports were dismantled.
In Felbertal hillside railways were built and a cable car to below the St. Pölten hut built. Another cable car was built from Matrei in East Tyrol to the Zirbenkreuz below the Felber Tauern Pass , which was supposed to function as a north-south supply route over the Felbertauern if all other connecting routes were interrupted. However, the construction of the section connecting the two cable cars did not take place. Traces of these systems are still present in the Felbertal today.
Cable cars developed and tested in Mittersill were built and put into operation once across the Rhine during the Second World War and another time in Finland .
Research staff
The research staff consisted of highly qualified scientists who could work here undisturbed by the party, Gestapo and SS. This also made it possible for a resistance group to be formed, which could operate at night with the help of equipment and vehicles available at the Army Research Center. Towards the end of the war, weapons and material that had been earmarked for a tank battle at the Thurn Pass were disposed of, which thwarted the SS plans for extermination.
literature
- Mittersill in Past and Present , pp. 344 to 346, HG Marktgemeinde Mittersill, edited and designed by Michael Forcher, Mittersill, 1985
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 47 ° 16 ′ 58.8 ″ N , 12 ° 28 ′ 30 ″ E