Peenemünde/Insel Usedom

We had planned (before it began snowing) to have an overnight trip with some friends of ours - the Ramsay's, the Allan's and Alison and Peter. This time we headed North East, to the Baltic Sea, only a few kilometers from the Polish Border to Insel Usedom. It is about 3 hours north of Berlin. With the snow, I had an idea the trip may be a bit longer than this...

We picked Alexander up from Theatre club and hit the road; As we drove out of Berlin, the temperature dropped and it began snowing again. However, once we cleared Berlin, the roads were quiet and it was late enough that all the snow had been cleared from the highway. It was a great trip up - quiet and fairly quick. We stopped at a little grill in a small dorf on the way for an exceptionally tasty hamburger - there was nothing on the A20 highway from the edge of Berlin until the turnoff!

When we reached Usedom, we headed straight for the Peenemunde museum that contained all the history regarding the rocket technology development (think the V1 and V2 rockets, as well as all the technology that put the Americans and the Russians in space!)

The Peenemünde Historical Technical Information Center.

We arrived with 50 minutes before closing, and I was told that we couldn't enter because "it would take 2 hours to see everything properly!! After a brief discussion (that we had the capacity to see some of the exhibition without slashing our wrists because we missed some..), we paid our money and spent 45 minutes looking at the 2 floors of exhibits. We had to move fairly quickly, but we got around all of the internal and external displays - no problem!

This was the military Testing Site for rockets and weapons for war. It was used during 1936 - 1945. The 1st missile was launched here in October 1942. It was destoyed in 1945 when the Allies found out about it. The museum was then set up in a nearby power station, which had been decommissioned.



There were some very famous rocket engineers working here, their main aim was developing military equipment.



Workers were concentration camp inmates and prisoners of war, and they were put to work to construct the test site areas, and then worked on the manufacturing of the rockets


A model construction of the test site

Some of the old planes

Wanna play chess?

One of the rocket components

Rockets that have been launched in Oz

The "daddy" helicopter

The "baby" helicopter

A naval Ship



A tow-along torpedo.

It was an interesting site - the boys loved seeing all of the rocket components and the outside displays. There was lots of interesting information to read and understanding the importance of the people that worked here on future rocket programs all around the world was very interesting (there were photos of which rocket scientists ended up in which country - Russia, USA, Britian or France!)

We then left the museum and headed for out overnight accommodation at Heringsdorf.