La Destruction des Usines Souterraines de la Zones d’Occupation en Autriche.

This work documents the post-war demolition of clandestine underground industrial installations in Austria by French military engineers, who employed explosives and other engineering methods to dismantle former Nazi production facilities. The sites examined include Schwaz, where an extensive medieval silver mine was converted into an underground aircraft component factory staffed by prisoners of war and forced labourers; Kematen in the Tyrol, where a purpose-built tunnel complex supported Messerschmitt aircraft production; and Hohenems, another strategically concealed manufacturing installation in the Austrian Alps. By the spring of 1947, these subterranean factories had been systematically destroyed as part of the Allied programme to eliminate Germany’s surviving war-industrial infrastructure.Beyond recording the technical aspects of the demolition operations, the work provides a valuable historical record of these little-studied underground production complexes. It combines a detailed narrative of the engineering campaign with an exceptional collection of contemporary photographs, architectural drawings, and site plans, making it an important primary source for the study of Nazi dispersal policies, wartime forced labour, and the post-war Allied dismantling of Germany’s military-industrial capacity.