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Chapter 17
What Is Peenemünde?
I flew into Peenemünde on 1 June 1945.The wealth of measurement instruments
that I had gathered in Berlin and then delivered to Moscow had prevented me
from visiting this legendary rocket center immediately after the troops of the
Second Byelorussian Army Group had entered there. But every dark cloud has a
silver lining. We managed to organize a special flight of our B-25 Boston from
Berlin to Peenemünde. My traveling companion was Veniamin Smirnov, with
whom I had flown to Germany. In Berlin we had inspected many enterprises and
together we had hunkered down in a ditch, ready to defend ourselves against the
German troops forcing their way out of Berlin.
What fascinating collisions history was suddenly producing! Soviet specialists
with officers’ ranks were leaving Berlin, where only twenty days earlier the document
stipulating the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany had been signed,
to fly to Peenemünde on an American bomber piloted by a man who tested the
first Soviet rocket-powered aircraft, the BI-1.At that time, I still did not realize that
I was flying to the site on the shore of the Baltic Sea that would become the
launching pad for the beginning of the twentieth century’s great missile race.
Dozens of nations from all continents would be drawn into this race, and by the
end of the century almost every army in the world would acquire missile
weaponry in one form or another.
We are proud of our fellow countrymen Tsiolkovskiy, Kondratyuk, and
Tsander for their work on the theory of rocket flight. The Americans posthumously
recognized the theoretical and experimental work of prominent scientist
and inventor Robert Goddard. The Germans and Austrians are proud of the
works of Hermann Oberth and Eugen Sänger.These lone pioneers who dreamed
of interplanetary flight were the inspiration for those who took on the official
responsibility for the practical development of long-range ballistic missiles.
However, the first authentic, operational long-range guided missiles were developed
in Peenemünde not for interplanetary journeys, but first and foremost to
destroy London.
These days, reports about “missile attacks” on the frontlines of small, localized
wars surprises no one. Missile attacks are now common even in numerous interethnic
clashes. I don’t believe I will be mistaken in predicting that lightweight,
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