An American soldier inspects rail cars filled with wrecked V-2s which were brought from the underground factory to nearby Kleinbodugen. Before evacuating in the path of the First U.S Army advance, Nazi officials removed and destroyed as machinery as possible. [original caption]

An American soldier inspects rail cars filled with wrecked V-2s which were brought from the underground factory to nearby Kleinbodugen. Before evacuating in the path of the First U.S Army advance, Nazi officials removed and destroyed as machinery as possible. [original caption]

Original caption reads: "Nazi weapons of death made by dying slaves is the grim story of Nordhausen , Reich center for V-bomb production which was captured by troops of the First U. S. Army April 10, 1945. Hundreds of dead and dying lay in the same beds in a nearby slave camp where, according to the liberated, 9,000 lost their lives in 1944. The American officer in charge immediately ordered the leading citizens of Nordhausen to bury the rotting and skeleton-like dead, choosing a burial site on a hillside overlooking the V-bomb factory where the slave workers had been already murdered. The factory, assembly plants for V-1 and V-2 weapons , was a series of deep underground tunnels. Three main tunnels were connected with 42 smaller ones. Until May, 1944, workers were never allowed outside. When the slaves, who labored in 18-hour shifts, became too weak to work, they were loaded into box cars and never seen again."