| Type: | Stadt |
| Image Coa: | Wappen Lehesten.png |
| Coordinates: | 50.4756°N 11.4481°W |
| Image Plan: | Lehesten in SLF.png |
| State: | Thüringen |
| District: | Saalfeld-Rudolstadt |
| Verwaltungsgemeinschaft: | Schiefergebirge |
| Elevation: | 640 |
| Area: | 35.96 |
| Postal Code: | 07349 |
| Area Code: | 036653 |
| Licence: | SLF |
| Gemeindeschlüssel: | 16 0 73 046 |
| Divisions: | 3 |
| Website: | www.lehesten.de |
| Mayor: | Nicole Vockeroth[1] |
| Leader Term: | 2021 - 27 |
Lehesten is a town in the Thuringian Forest, 20 km southeast of Saalfeld.
After an August 1944 explosion at the Redl-Zipf V-2 liquid oxygen plant at Schlier stopped production, the third V-2 liquid oxygen plant (5000 tons/month) was built at a slate quarry at Lehesten at the Thuringia-Bavarian border[2] near Nordhausen (acceptance testing of combustion chamber was also performed at the Lehesten plant).[3] Dr Martin Schilling (the head of testing at Peenemünde)[4] located the Lehesten site,[3] and 400 engineers were moved from Peenemünde to Lehesten, which eventually had 16 liquid oxygen production plants.[5]