what i did on my vacation

[John Verity]

I recently visited Peenemunde, where there is a terrific museum about the 
A4 and its troubled history. Splendid, well-researched exhibits, 
scheduled to undergo considerable expansion in the coming months and 
years, that recently were moved from a small bunker building to the 
expansive power generating plant. (Built around 1940 and still in use as 
late as 1991, this plant is one of two original rocket-related buildings 
still standing; the other is a huge oxygen-generating plant that had the 
living you-know-what bombed out of it in 1943. The power plant's control 
room is said to be virtually unchanged from its original installation and 
therefore a gem of industrial archaeology--big Siemens control knobs and 
meters, fat metal power busses moving in parallel from panel to panel, 
and more.) 

   Driving to the museum, one passes through a pine forest. Occasionally, 
one sees some old concrete bunkers or fence posts, signs of the old 
railroad, and not much else. It is a spooky feeling, seeing these bits of 
the old rocket complex poking through the underbrush. Inside the woods, I 
gather, is more, including the remnants, first aerial bombed and then 
further destroyed by Soviet troops, of the actual launch pads and test 
beds. The forest is said to contain unexploded bombs and is therefore off 
limits (people do sneak in, I see on the Web). And phosphorous from 
unexploded British bombs still washes ashore nearby, too, sometimes 
injuring people who mistake it for amber. Down the coast a few kilometers 
are the equally interesting Usedom resorts, with one grand old hotel 
advertising itself as the one where Wernher von Braun used to hang out. 
The original village of Peenemunde is gone, erased by bombs; what's there 
now is typically dismal GDR flats and houses. 
    
    The museum exhibits begin by describing the rocket fever that gripped 
Germany in the 1920s and proceed through the A4's development, the use of 
slave labor, the botched British bombing (killed more prisoner-workers 
than Nazis), and on to NASA, etc. Most descriptive plaques are in (good) 
English as well as German. The overall tone is very intelligent and 
respectful and one that would suit most GR readers: Something both 
fascinating and terrible happened here and we invite you, dear visitor, 
to contemplate it in all its complexity.
 
   And speaking of our beloved book, I was surprised, mildly amused, and 
even pleased to see several copies for sale at the museum shop--somewhat 
thumbed paperbacks of the German translation.

   All of which prompted me to run out and buy a copy of The Rocket and 
The Reich, which I am greatly enjoying.

   I recommend a visit to this place. 



   

John______________________________________________________________
                            J W Verity   TECHNOLOGIC PARTNERS, NYC
                                         212-343-1900 x128