Trauen Rocket Test Complex, Germany

On 17 September 1944 an RAF reconnaissance sortie imaged the Trauen rocket testing facility near the town of Munster. The facility was the center of the Luftwaffe rocket program, which paralleled the German Army’s V-2 program. Trauen was set up in 1935 to support the work of Prof. Eugen Sänger, who sought to apply rocket technology to manned flight, including sub-orbital spaceplanes. For most of the war, Sänger tested rocket motors, ramjets, fuels and aerodynamics at Trauen. To this day, the facility, now known as the Deutschen Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), is involved with rocket and space research. Some of Trauen's original facilities, including two vertical test stands, are still present. The extensive, deliberate coverage of the complex indicated the facilities were known to the Allies.