The V1 Flying Bomb, also known as a 'buzz bomb' or 'doodlebug', was one of the most fear-inducing terror weapons of the Second World War. In the face of relentless Allied bombing of German cities, Hitler created its 'revenge weapons' (Vergeltungswaffen) in an attempt to terrorise British civilians and undermine morale. Nazi propaganda hailed the V1 as a 'wonder weapon' (Wunderwaffe) that might turn the tide of the war.

But alongside the civilians killed and wounded by the V-1 are the forgotten victims of the vengeance weapons, the people who made them. Inside the Harz mountains in Germany, tens of thousands of slave labourers from Mittelbau-Dora and its many sub-camps lost their lives across the V weapons production process. The V-1 is not only a symbol of Nazi attempts to fight the Second World War in innovative ways but of their greatest crime - the Holocaust.

The connection between the V-1 as a weapon of war and as a part of the Holocaust is a key theme of IWM’s new Second World War and Holocaust Galleries opening at IWM London on the 20th of October 2021. The project will see IWM London become the first museum in the world to house dedicated Second World War and Holocaust Galleries under the same roof. Our V-1 flying bomb will be suspended between the two galleries, presenting a striking symbol of how the Holocaust and the Second World War are interconnected.

This is the updated version of a video released in September 2021.

Learn more at IWM London’s newly opened Second World War and Holocaust Galleries: https://bit.ly/iwm-holocaust-galleries

Visit IWM London: https://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-london

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Find out more about the V1: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-te...

Explore the film footage used in this video, and licence it for use: https://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/c/...

Map from Free Vector Maps: http://freevectormaps.com

Creative Commons Attribution:
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1991-076-02A / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1991-061-17 / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1992-068-24A / CC-BY-SA 3.0
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