A Munich fireman checks the charges before the demolition. (Stars and Stripes)
NURNBERG, Dec. 17 — The heart of one of Hitler's major gunpowder factories, near the Bavarian village of Ebenhausen, was blown sky-high today by a U.S. reparations team as MG went ahead with the job of destroying Germany's war potential.
Four buildings of the $60,000,000 Fabrik Ebenhausen were blasted by five tons of dynamite, spelling finis to the career of a nitro-cellulose and powder concern which supplied German armies with explosives from 1870 to 1944.
In four separate explosions the concrete-and-iron structures, formerly used for final processing and storing of powder, were reduced to wreckage.
All machinery in the factory had been moved out and stored in other buildings. The machines, currently valued at about half a million dollars, have been earmarked to go to one of the Western powers as reparations, but no announcement has been made as to which nation will receive them. At peak production the new plant turned out up to 1,500 tons of basic nitro-cellulose monthly, employing 2,000 workers.
The factory continued to produce explosives at top speed until 1944 when Allied bombings brought work to a standstill.
German-manufactured dynamite way used in the destruction job today, and the work — under American supervision — was done by former workers in the Ebenhausen plant.