So, in the Weekly Low-Hanging Fruit thread, I raised the possibility of doing some slightly different - ie, not scheisseposting or mockery - discussions on this subreddit about WWII, since there's a pretty decent knowledge base among SWS subscribers about that conflict.

I was told to just start one by /u/somenbjorn, so I suppose this is it. ITT we discuss - or search for - examples of German WWII technology that was genuinely innovative or long-lasting. We've all heard the nonsense about "muh Nazi NASA" or Western tank designers copying the Big Cats and some such, but let's keep this stuff grounded.

To kick off, I have two examples:

• The first is one I've talked about quite frequently on this sub, and that's the DRB Class 52. The 52 was the culmination of the War Locomotives program. This was the brainchild of Richard Paul Wagner, who had been involved with German rail in WWI. He found that engines were frequently broken down, didn't have the right parts, and that there was such a dizzying array of locomotives maintenance was a nightmare. So, he decided to rationalize everything - his vision was of as few classes as possible, with as few special sub-classes as possible, with the maximum number of standardized parts. The DRB Class 52 was created by taking the prior DRB Class 50, and simplifying it as much as possible. The design was built in Poland, Germany (where the various rail manufacturers were consolidated into a single state-controlled entity) and the Protectorate.

• Over six thousand 52s were built by war's end, along with another few hundred immediately after, making it the most numerous of the War Locomotives. After the war, Eastern Bloc nations took them as reparations and continued to use them. Due to their simplicity and reliability, many remained in service far longer than expected. Poland did not retire theirs until the early 1990s. All in all, the DRB Class 52 represented a break with the usual Nazi laissez-faire attitude to war development and production. The success of the War Locomotive program is perhaps evidence of how much more dangerous Nazi Germany could have been, had it had more competent organizers like RP Wagner.

• The second is the Gerat 06, which was Mauser's attempt to create a competitor for the StG 44 replacement. Ludwig Vorgrimmler, one of the designers, continued designing rifles in the same spirit, working for the French government before winding up at CETME in Spain, where he developed the Modelo 58 assault rifle, which was adopted by the Spanish Army as its service rifle. Later, the newly-formed Bundeswehr would be looking for a service rifle, and selected the Modelo 58, to be built under license as the Automatic Rifle G3 in Germany by Heckler & Koch and Rheinmetall. H&K developed the rifle further, into the iconic MP-5 sub-machine gun, the HK33 rifle, and the HK31 machine gun. ForgottenWeapons.com has a presentation by Ian McCollum on the rifles, which you can watch here.

Technically speaking, Nazi Germany was also the first country to put a man-made object into space, even if only briefly, with a test of the Aggregate-4 rocket in 1943.

Anyone have any other examples of German WWII innovation or technology that was a genuine advance on what had come before, or which provided a foundation for successful postwar development?