August 1944, the Opelwerk Brandenburg was devastated by an RAF air raid. Until the end of the war, about 2,500 Blitz 3.6 trucks were built by order of Minister of Armaments Albert Speer at the Mannheim plant of the rival Daimler-Benz company, while production of its own Mercedes-Benz L3000 model had to be discontinued. After the war, the facilities in Brandenburg were completely dismantled at the behest of the Soviet Military Administration, while Daimler-Benz in Mannheim resumed building the Blitz 3.6 under the designation L 701 until 1949. The last 467 medium trucks were again assembled by Opel in Rüsselsheim until production finally discontinued in 1954 without a successor. Nazi war crimes It is claimed that Opel used forced labor to build the Blitz. The degree of control that General Motors in the US had over Opel at the time is subject to debate, but by production numbers alone, it is evident that Opel was heavily involved in production of trucks and other equipment for the Nazi war machine. The Opel Blitz was one of the vehicles (along with Renault, Saurer and Magirus based vehicles) used by Germans in The Holocaust as a gas van to kill with carbon monoxide. Post-war After the end of the war, with the Brandenburg plant dismantled and transported to the Soviet Union, and 47% of the buildings in Rüsselsheim destroyed, former Opel employees began to rebuild the Rüsselsheim plant. The first postwar Blitz was completed on 15 July 1946 in the presence of United States Army General Geoffrey Keyes and other local leaders and press reporters. The first post-war designed Blitz in 1952 and had the same cabin as the Chevrolet Advance Design, albeit with a different front end and coupled with the pre-war chassis, alongside a more economical Opel engine. The new 1.75 ton truck was offered with a van and pickup body. The new model retained the pre-war chassis with the straight-six petrol engine. Opel remained the market leader for light trucks despite strong competition especially by the newly designed 1955 Mercedes-Benz L 319 model and the Ford FK series, as well as Hanomag and Borgward vans. A coach version was built by the Karl Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke from 1953 to 1956. The 1.75 to model was a very popular fire engine (LF8-TS), typically equipped with an engine driven pump mounted at the front bumper and a second, portable pump in the back