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Peenemünde: Poles and Hitler’s secret weapon – the V2 rocket

V2 rocket on the launch pad at Peenemünde

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  • 1. Eng. Antoni Kocjan - Eng. Antoni Kocjan, chief of the air reconnaissance service of the Polish AK (Home Army).
  • 2. V2 rocket on launch pad in Peenemünde. - V2 rocket on launch pad in Peenemünde.
  • 3. Transport of a V2 rocket - Transport of a V2 rocket, Peenemünde, June 1942.
  • 4. Rocket at a (false) start - Rocket at a (false) start, Peenemünde, March 1943.
  • 5. Rocket engineer Wernher von Braun (in civilian clothes) - Wernher von Braun with military. First from left: dr. Walter Dornberger, a close associate of von Braun in the V2 program.
  • 6. Forced laborer splitting logs - Forced laborer splitting logs. Peenemünde, January 1940.
  • 7. Forced laborers at work - Forced laborers at work. Peenemünde, January 1940.
  • 8. Workers at the wood sorting - Workers at the wood sorting. Peenemünde.
  • 9. Soviet forced laborers - Soviet forced laborers. Peenemünde.
  • 10. German soldiers supervise forced laborers - German soldiers supervise forced laborers.
  • 11. Fragments of the V2 rocket in the Historical Park in Blizna - Fragments of the V2 rocket in the Historical Park in Blizna.
  • 12. Reconnaissance photo of the research institute Peenemünde - Reconnaissance photo of the Royal Air Force of the research institute Peenemünde, 23rd June 1943.
  • 13. Wernher von Braun at his office, 1964 - Wernher von Braun at his office in the United States Space Center, May 1964.
  • 14. Wernher von Braun in front of the "Saturn V" rocket - Wernher von Braun in front of the "Saturn V" rocket that brought Nils Armstrong to the moon. Space Center in the state of Alabama. Probably in 1969.
  • 15. Walt Disney and Wernher von Braun - Walt Disney and Wernher von Braun made three educational films about the conquest of space in the 1950s.
  • 16. US President J.F. Kennedy and Wernher von Braun  - The President of the United States, J.F. Kennedy, in conversation with Wernher von Braun, May 1963.
  • 17. Karlshagen after the British air raid - Housing estate in Karlshagen near Peenemünde after the British air raid. Here lived the scientists involved in the rocket tests.
  • 18. Replica of the V2 rocke - Replica of the V2 rocket in Peenemünde. The original is located at the Fort Bliss base in Texas, where the engineer, Wernher von Braun, was employed.
  • 19. Historical-Technical Museum Peenemünde - Former terrain of the Army Research Institute and the Peenemünde power plant. Today Historical-Technical Museum.
  • 20. Clothes and objects of forced laborers in Peenemünde - Clothes and objects of forced laborers in Peenemünde.
  • 21. Exhibition in Peenemünde - Exhibition on the history of the V2 rocket at the Historical-Technical Museum Peenemünde (display boards).
  •  22. Historic warning signs - Warning signs from the time of the Army Research Institute on Usedom.
  • 23. Historical-Technical Museum Peenemünde - Main building of the Historical-Technical Museum Peenemünde.
  • Peenemünde und die Polen - Hörspiel von "COSMO Radio po polsku" auf Deutsch - In Zusammenarbeit mit "COSMO Radio po polsku" präsentieren wir Hörspiele zu ausgewählten Themen unseres Portals.

    Peenemünde und die Polen - Hörspiel von "COSMO Radio po polsku" auf Deutsch

    In Zusammenarbeit mit "COSMO Radio po polsku" präsentieren wir Hörspiele zu ausgewählten Themen unseres Portals.
V2 rocket on the launch pad at Peenemünde
V2 rocket on the launch pad at Peenemünde

According to the National Socialist racial doctrine, the workers from Eastern Europe were classified as “subhumans” (“Untermenschen”). They were threatened with punishment, even death, if they made contact with the German population. They were treated far worse than the British and French, were given far smaller food rations, and were quartered in much more basic barracks. Leon Dropek, who arrived in Peenemünde in the summer of 1940 together with around 400 other Poles, described the conditions there as follows: “We were told that we had arrived here voluntarily, in order to work for the welfare and support of the Third Reich. The Poles from Łódź who passed us by gave us no reason to feel optimistic. They were dressed in poor clothing, were emaciated and despondent”.[2]

At first, Dropek was quartered with other labourers in the Peenemünde camp for German workers. “The barracks were arranged in a U shape, were painted white and looked quite ornamental with their red window frames. There were eight beds to a room, there was a shower, a bathroom, mattresses, and heating. The bedclothes could be changed every day. This idyll lasted for six weeks before we were moved to the camp where the Poles lived. Here, 14 men were housed in one room, there were three-tier bunk beds, old mattresses, old, dirty and ragged blankets, no pillows and no water; instead, there was a coal-fired stove. Due to the unhygienic conditions, our bodies were bitten bloody by lice, fleas and bedbugs. Every so often, the rooms were disinfected using agents that were so strong that they made knives, forks, and razors for shaving rust. After disinfection, the barracks were closed for 24 hours. They weren’t bothered where we slept. All they cared about was that we showed up for work the next day. Another night, we were almost poisoned by the disinfectant; we felt dizzy and spat blood. A week later, the bedbugs were back”.[3] 

The research facility at Peenemünde was of extreme strategic importance. After Berlin and Hamburg, it was only the third place to be assigned its own electric S-Bahn (overground train) line. On 15 April 1943, 106 km of railway track were put into operation. There were two railway lines with twelve stops. The trains brought the workers to Peenemünde from the surrounding area every day between 5am and 11pm. The regulations governing transportation were also discriminatory towards Polish forced labourers. They were only permitted to use the last carriage. The directorate of the German Reich Railways (Deutsche Reichsbahn) even issued its own “Guideline for the transportation of prisoners of war and Poles”, which included a reminder, among other things, that Poles should wear a lilac “P” that was to be sewn in a clearly visible place on their clothing. Poles were also only allowed to use the railway on receipt of written permission by the local police, while workers from other countries, such as Belgians, French and Italians, were treated on equal terms with German passengers in the S-Bahn.

The vigorous effort put into planning the research centre meant that the labourers were forced to work on a number of different tasks. From 1936 onwards, a power station, an air separation unit, an airfield for use by the Luftwaffe with the full infrastructure, two ports, several launching pads for rocket tests, testing stands, accommodation complexes for scientists and civilian employees, and multiple forced labour camps were all built on Usedom in the space of just a few years. In Karlshagen, a village 7km away from Peenemünde, there were two concentration camps which were used as a satellite of the Ravensbrück men’s concentration camp.

 

[2] Archive material from the Peenemünde Historical Technical Museum (Historisch-Technisches Museum Peenemünde).

[3] Ibid.