Peenemünde - The Baltic and Bombs

We had one more place we wanted to visit before crossing the Baltic into Scandinavia.

I hadn’t heard of Peenemünde but Ian knew of it, and suggested it might be worth a detour (a 6 hour detour to be fair).

He was right. But upon arrival finding the park up turned out to be far more difficult than expected.

Peenemünde is a long way from anywhere, and as you arrive, you head straight into an industrial yet remote location. It feels ‘eastern block’ (it's in the former East German part of the country) and is a port on the Baltic. so perhaps in a way it's not surprising that it feels different to most places we visit.     

Having driven round in circles for a while, we had passed and re-passed a couple of friends chatting idly together by the side of the road more than once. Eventually we stopped to look in detail at Google Maps to locate our park-up. 

One of the chaps (this time in his car) saw us again further up the road looking lost. He stopped, wound down his window and in perfect English asked if he could help. Having explained we were looking for the camping site, he apologised for his poor English and cried out follow me! 

He deftly wove through a fairly derelict area, and around a dock, before stopping at a huge decrepit old power plant, winding down his window once more saying “you must visit here, it is excellent”. Fortunately we could reassure him this very building was the very purpose of our visit. At which he hopped back into his car and continued leading us around a maze of industrial detritus and ramshackled buildings until we came to a small stella plattz (camping car area), and next to it a man on a boat with a bar serving cold beer and wine!

We had arrived at the park up! Not the one we were aiming for, but a perfectly good one all the same. In fact closer to the action than the one I had spotted. Our new friend waved as he left “saying visit me in my shop, by the submarine” 

If you haven’t heard of Peenemünde this is what I learnt. A small fishing village on the Baltic sea, Peenemünde became one of the most important WW2 sites, and the birth place of space exploration. 

It was where the German research  and testing of the V(engence) Weapons took place. In time it became the single biggest industrial military complex in Nazi Germany. 

The ballistic rockets and cruise missiles that bombed the UK at the end of the war were developed and tested here - in fact one V2 rocket landed very close (about 70m away) to where we eventually lived in London. 

In 1935, engineer Wernher von Braun (who later went on to lead the NASA space centre after the CIA expunged his Nazi war record) decided this tiny village would be a great place to undertake research into rockets (he had visited there as a child) . Overall, about 12,000 people worked on cruise missile and ballistic rocket development here. The research and development carried out here was not only critical to the war, but also impacted the future of weapons of mass destruction, as well as space travel.

The museum tells the story of rocket development and how concentration camp prisoners mainly from occupied France, Belgium and Netherlands were forced to help with the production of the rocket. They worked under terrible conditions.

17 August, the Royal Air Force carried out Operation Hydra, the largest British action against a single target during WWII. The bombing, although largely unsuccessful, did slow production and the risk of future raids forced a  move underground to Mittelwerk in central Germany.

The museum is housed in the Power Plant buildings, which provide a dramatic backdrop against which the story is told. During the war this station provided electricity to the local area, the research and development areas and fabrication works, including the oxygen factory producing fuel for the rockets. This process alone used 33Mw of energy!

Alongside the museum in the harbour is a Submarine U461, a rusting, but well preserved 1950's Soviet U-Boat. This diesel electric boat served until the 1990's,  armed with nuclear missiles targeted at the West. It's shocking how small it is inside, there’s hardly room to move through the cramped corridors, it’s hot, dark and claustrophobic even without the engines and electrical systems turned on. Let's just say we struggled to wiggle through gaps between the machinery and clamber through the numerous tiny water tight doors... I can’t imagine living here with a crew of around 80 men!

Breathing a sigh of relief as we exited into the fresh air again we headed to the shop to find our friend from the night before in his souvenir shop - so of course we purchased a mug!