Rocket City: Where the Baltic Sea has touched the Space

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In Peenemünde, the Third Reich once conducted research on its "wonder weapons." Later, the East German NVA turned this secret tip of the island of Usedom into a restricted military zone. Today, scattered across forests and meadows, countless relics remain from the era when humanity took its first steps into the cosmos. Looks like the monster weapons in "Star Wars".

Regarding the North African metropolis of Carthage, Bertolt Brecht once noted that the Carthaginian Empire remained powerful after the first war against Rome and was at least still habitable after the second. But after the third, it had vanished, leaving no trace—save perhaps for rocky debris buried in the desert sands.

Everywhere in the woods are barracks.

There is no desert sand here in Peenemünde, just a stone's throw from the Baltic Sea. Instead, the ruins of the so-called "Station 16" rise from lush green meadows like the skeletons of prehistoric dinosaurs. These are the remnants of ground bunkers built during World War II to store the V1 and V2 rockets manufactured at the Army Research Center. After the war ended, the Soviet Army blew up these behemoths, which were largely constructed from prefabricated parts.

A lost building under trees

Today, these ruins lie just a few kilometers from the bustling tourist hub of Zinnowitz on the fields along the Peenestrom - yet they remain largely unknown to most vacationers.

Warning signs at the edge of the zone

A Village Turned Open-Air Lab

Thirty years ago, there was no way through. The northwestern part of Usedom was a restricted zone for decades. First, the Nazis established their testing grounds for Wernher von Braun’s rockets in Usedom's northernmost community. In 1936, every resident was forced to leave their 600-year-old village.

Concrete rubbish at the Baltic Sea

From then on, the military controlled the area, transforming Peenemünde into a massive open-air laboratory. On March 16, 1942, the first test launch of the liquid-fueled rocket known as "Aggregat 4" took place - the weapon Hitler hoped would turn the tide of the war.

A monument from the socialist times

Powered by a mixture of ethanol and liquid oxygen, the craft exploded right on the launch pad. Three months later, the precursor to the "V1" climbed to nearly 5,000 meters before crashing.

Maybe a russian barrack

Finally, in October 1942, the "leap into space" succeeded. After a five-minute flight, during which 18 combustion chambers burned 125 liters of fuel per second, the 13-ton aircraft passed the altitude of 84.5 kilometers - a mark still often cited today as the boundary of outer space.

The wall, build for Hitlers Space Program

The Price of Progress

The price for this technological breakthrough - which for the Nazis was merely a side effect of their weapons development—was paid by thousands of concentration camp prisoners. Not only in Peenemünde, but primarily at the Mittelbau-Dora camp near Nordhausen, they were subjected to inhumane conditions.

Nature strikes back

No one took notice of the suffering of the prisoners upon whose bones Wernher von Braun - who later worked for NASA - built his rocket dream. More than 10,000 people on Usedom are said to have heard the roar of the first rocket before it plunged into the Bay of Gdańsk shortly after 4:00 PM.

Inside a rotten building

Between Nature Conservation and Hazardous Waste

The 25-square-kilometer site still bears the scars of its past, followed by decades of use by Soviet troops and later the NVA (National People's Army). Throughout all political systems, Peenemünde remained "forbidden land," surrounded by barbed wire and warning signs.

Trees vs. concrete

Some of these signs still stand in the woods today - faded and supplemented by new notices warning against entering the bird sanctuary, which is contaminated with unexploded ordnance. Critical voices in Peenemünde suggest that declaring the area a protected zone was also a way to avoid the immense costs of clearing the military waste.

Wernher von Brauns V2 rocket

A Museum Against Forgetting

Today, history buffs are directed to the museum housed in the old power plant. The path leads past the vacant apartment blocks of former officers, the oxygen plant, and the remains of "Versuchskommando Nord" (Research Command North), a Wehrmacht barracks camp where only the roofs now peek out from the dense undergrowth.

The power station

Roughly 300,000 people visit the museum annually. Yet, as impressive as the models, original parts, and films inside may be, the silent witnesses in the landscape often leave a more lasting impression:

The first man made missile

• Concrete beneath the turf: Debris and bunker remains are found everywhere.
• Burial mounds of technology: Along the bike path toward Wolgast, the ruins of barrel-shaped reinforced concrete sheds protrude from the ground.
• Transience: The ruins have long been overgrown by bushes; trees have bored through the crumbling concrete—a haunting image of the transience of all power.

Background: The Historic Flight On October 3, 1942, the third test model of the "Aggregat 4" flew to an altitude of 84.5 kilometers. This marked the first time a man-made object reached the edge of space.

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