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What Is Peenemünde?
“former” being the key word. Allied aviation had damaged most of the buildings
and laboratories, but they had not been totally destroyed. The firing rigs were
bigger than anything we could have imagined.
Near the rigs, the Germans had built bunkers which had remained in good
condition. From the bunkers they controlled and observed the testing of engines
and rockets. The facilities in total occupied several tens of hectares which were
connected by excellent roads.Tens of kilometers of power, measurement, and signal
cables had been run in cable ducts that the Germans had not had time
to dismantle.
All of the equipment down to the last instrument—even the machine tools in
the large factory whose building was almost untouched—had been dismantled and
removed. What they did not manage to evacuate before the arrival of Marshal
Rokossovskiy’s troops had been rendered useless by SS Sonderkommandos. 2
To a significant degree, General Sokolov had managed to restore the old order
in the residential area of the Zinnowitz resort.Arvid Pallo had already prepared me
for this. Back in Berlin he had warned me that Peenemünde was on par with fashionable
prewar resorts. It was as if there had been no war with all its horrors.
At the Schwabes Hotel restaurant they served a table d’hôte for the entire officer
staff. It was covered with a snow-white tablecloth and each place was set with
numerous utensils, clearly exceeding the number of dishes. The deft waiters
presented the plates with a modest appetizer so that the hotel’s logo was positioned
in front of us just so.
None of the officers dared sit down at the table d’hôte until the general had
entered. Then began a ceremony known to us only from the movies. A line of
waiters in black suits, white shirts, and bow ties, led by the maître d’hôtel, marched
in solemn procession around the table, beginning with the general, and then
proceeded around by rank. In this process the first waiter ladled soup, the second
placed a potato, the third showered the plates with greens, the fourth drizzled on
piquant gravy, and finally the fifth trickled about 30 grams of alcohol into one of
the numerous goblets. Each person diluted his drink with water according to his
own taste. To some extent this entire spectacle revived the protocol that had
reigned at the Schwabes Hotel when distinguished guests had visited
Peenemünde.According to the maître d’hôtel, almost all of the top brass of the Nazi
Reich had stayed there, except for Hitler himself.“But, of course,” added the maître
d’hôtel, “at that time I served the best wines. When Dornberger and von Braun
evacuated Peenemünde, they took all the food and wine stores with them.” We
were introduced to the general in the dining hall and, with honor, upheld the rules
of etiquette prescribed for “high society”, in spite of the provocative smiles and
remarks of the old residents.
2. Sonderkommandos were special detachments of prisoners at Nazi death camps that the SS organized to aid
the killing process.
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