Author: Frank Baranowski, hardcover 24 x 17 cm, 608 pages, 273 illustrations, including 260 photographs. About the book: At a time when warfare and armament in the entire German Empire were showing the first signs of decay, the impending collapse of the front lines was becoming evident, and targeted airstrikes by the Allies were severely crippling the control centers of the armaments industry, there were last-minute efforts to relocate important armaments companies, particularly in the aircraft industry, to the South Harz region. Unlike the armament factories in the Greater Hanover area and the surrounding urban centers, this development had started relatively late. The foundations for this had already been laid by the Reichswehr in the early 1930s with its efforts to establish a tightly-knit network of suppliers for emergency situations, despite the restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.