Schöller & Beckman

In the old and enterprising town of Mürzzuslag the companies that existed there, when Germany added Austria to it's teritory in 1935, where soon geared up to take full advantage of it's existing labour force. Millions of Reichsmarks loans where injected into production facilities all over Austria. The factory of Schöller & Beckman still exists today. Under the name "Südwerk" an armour sheet production and assably hall's for armoured vehicles where initiated. Armour production started in the Ternitz plant. but was transferd to "Südwerkes" in September 1940. Besides the 2322 251 hulls that where costructed there, other armoured cars, tanks and parts where manufactured.

Factory in Mürzzuslag
Housing build for the workers in the period.

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War time production

Pictures of production of the SdKfz 251 are scarce. Probably becauce no-one bothered, or no-one recognized them yet. Production was scattered all over Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. The pictures that I did find are very interresing, but not pin pointed to a location.

 
These 2 shots are from the same stand point, but slightly different in time. Maybe they are frames from a movie. In this huge factory hall there are a 251/B or /A and a 250 seeming strangely out of place in this tidy plant. Than again, the panzer nearest seems oddly old with it's mg turret on the front deck.

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These 4 pictures came from the website sdkfz251.com. They seem to be late in the war, and the pile of bodies with the numberplate on one of them could support that. Re-use was essential under these conditions. The interior pictures of these production hall's match the size of the Schöller & Beckmann plant.

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Main | | last revised: October 11 2017