History
Hermann Röchling (Roechlin) was a German industrialist and head of the Röchling Group, a major steel and armaments company that supported Germany’s war industry during World War II. Röchling strongly supported the German war effort and maintained close ties with the Nazi government. His company was involved in developing specialized military equipment, including the Röchling bunker-penetrating shell and the V-3 supergun . After World War II, Röchling was tried by a French military tribunal for war-related activities and sentenced to prison, though he was later released due to health reasons.
Hermann Röchling was a World War One veteran. After the war he returned to the steel and weapon industry. Het met Hitler in 1933 and was a fanatic antisemitic and joined the Nazi Party NSDAP in 1935. He was appointed to Reich’s Armament Advisory Board (Rustungsbeirat) and was appointed a military economist by Hermann Göring. The Röchling company used forced laborers during the war and tolerated, and encouraged, harsh punishments and brutal conditions .
Engineer August Cönders and the V3 Cannon
August Cönders (Coenders), an engineer at Röchling worked for Stahlwerke Becker (Steel factory) during the First World War where he built a 20 mm anti-aircraft gun, after the war he worked in the UK and in France and with the Oerlikon factory in Switzerland before he ended up in the Röchling factories before and during World War Two. He was involved in creating shells and several firearms like the Röchling Volksgewehr, Volkssturmkarabiner and other submachine guns.
August Cönders designed specific shells, long, lean shells like a rocket to demolish well protected concrete bunkers and bomb enemy positions. Besides the longer rocket he developed the smaller rocket used in the V3 cannon (Vergeltungswaffe 3 – Vengeance weapon 3). A prototype gun developed to bomb Londen on a daily base firing rockets over the 30 kilometers wide English channel, reaching a total distance over 160 kilometers, 100 miles from Mimoyecques, France to London, England.