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

The deployment of the German weapons system

The attack against Peenemünde caused panic among the Nazi leaders, and several important decisions were taken in the final days of August.

The functions, hitherto grouped together, were dispersed: from then on the trials took place in Blizna, in Poland, and mass production was established in an underground factory to be converted in Thuringe, near Nordhausen.

In France, the big launch bunker designed for the rockets in Éperlecques having been severely damaged, a new launch site was decided on: LA COUPOLE, situated near Saint-Omer.

The most important fact, however, was the subsequent significant involvement of the SS in the rocket programme: the SS controlled the test installations, they ensured the start-up of production and supplied the labour required from the concentration camps.

Aerial photo of LA COUPOLE, after the Allied bombing raids (summer 1944).

One of the galleries in the Mittelwerk underground factory at Dora; view of the V2 assembly line (April 1945).

The conversion work on the underground factory – called Mittelwerk (centre factory) – started on 28th August 1943 with the arrival in Nordhausen of the first group of prisoners from Buchenwald, to join a work Kommando called "Dora".

For six months, the prisoners experienced dramatic living conditions as they transformed a fuel depot into a modern factory: exhausting work, insufficient food, violence from the guards, total absence of hygiene (the prisoners slept in the galleries and were covered with lice). The mortality rate was appalling.

The first rockets came off the line on 1st January 1944. In March 1944, the construction of an external camp temporarily improved the prisoners’ fate. The Dora camp became independent of Buchenwald in October 1944.