Peenemünde and the total war
Home /Background /Historical reminders /Peenemünde

The Peenemünde research centre

In 1936, work started, on an island on the Baltic coast (Üsedom), on a gigantic, ultra-modern research centre: Peenemünde. Soon two teams were working there:

The Luftwaffe (Air Force) developed jet planes and, from 1942 onwards,
the Fi 103 flying bomb (V1).

The Heer (Army), under the technical supervision of von Braun,
devoted itself to the development of a big strategic missile, the A4 (V2) rocket.
The latter was devised as a terrorist weapon – in the etymological sense – designed to strike
civilian populations, and in particular the inhabitants of London.

From 1942, when the course of the war was being reversed, the A4 (V2) rocket became, in the eyes of the Nazi leaders, a "miracle weapon". An initial, completely successful prototype launch took place in Peenemünde on 3rd October, and mass production was begun, although the missile was far from being ready, and trials resulted in successive failures.

The programme benefited from vast human and financial resources. A parallel could be drawn with the "Manhattan programme" to develop the atom bomb in the United States.

An A4 (V2) rocket lifts off in Peenemünde (1943).

The Luftwaffe quickly developed its Fi 103 flying bomb (V1), which was much simpler and much less costly to produce than the A4 (V2). In this case too, mass production was started before the development was finished…

In France, the Todt Organisation was given the task of building, along the Channel coast from the Cotentin to the Pas-de-Calais, a vast series of structures designed to launch the flying bombs and rockets against England:

giant bunkers for the rockets,
enormous blockhaus buildings,
and standardised launch bases for the flying
bomb.

These were the Sonderbauten (special constructions ).

In the spring of 1943, the people in charge of the rocket programme in Peenemünde appealed to the SS to make up for the lack of manpower: the first group of prisoners, taken from the concentration camps, arrived in June.

It took a long time for the British intelligence services to understand the nature of the threat from the new weapons developed in Peenemünde. The most clearsighted was Doctor R. V. Jones, who, on 16th June 1943, identified a rocket on an aerial photo of Peenemünde. On 18th August, the RAF bombed the research centre heavily; a few days later, the Allies attacked the launch sites being constructed in France.