to open next chapter. - NASA's History Office

What Is Peenemünde?
ment, headed by Dornberger and von Braun, left Usedom Island on 17 February
1945. They evacuated to the areas of Nordhausen, Bleicherode, Sonderhausen,
Lehesten, Witzenhausen, Worbis, and Bad Sachsa. The primary archives with the
results of thirteen years of research and work were hidden in the tunnels of Mittelwerk
and nearby potassium mines.The main group of Peenemünde directors was
sent to the Bavarian Alps. On 4 May, the troops of the Second Byelorussian Army
Group entered the area of Peenemünde. On 2 May 1945, the Peenemünde directors
went out toward the Americans and surrendered willingly. On the blindingly
sunny day of 2 May 1945, when my comrades and I were jubilantly signing our
names on the still-smoldering Reichstag walls, the Americans captured some of the
most valuable spoils of the war: more than four hundred of the main scientifictechnical
employees of Peenemünde; documentation and reports; more than one
hundred missiles ready to be shipped to the front that had been stored at
Mittelwerk and on spur tracks; and combat launchers, along with the military
personnel who were trained to operate the missiles!
The next stage in the history of rocket technology had begun. It could rightly
be called the Soviet-American stage. German specialists participated in the work
of this stage in the USSR and in the United States.
Some old hands from Peenemünde who were still alive in 1992, along with a
few admirers of the Hitler era in modern Germany, decided to commemorate the
fiftieth anniversary of the first successful launch of the A-4 on 3 October 1942. For
this occasion they planned a large festival in the Peenemünde area with the participation
of foreign guests.The celebration was advertised as the “50th Anniversary
of the Space Age.”The British public strongly protested the commemoration, and
Chancellor Kohl had to intervene. Mass demonstrations were prohibited, and the
regional minister who had encouraged this festival was forced to retire.The British
acted graciously.The event coincidentally took place twenty-four hours before the
real anniversary of the Space Age—the thirty-fifth anniversary of the October 4
launch of the first artificial satellite! Meanwhile, Russia’s new reform-minded
authorities ignored the 35th anniversary of the launch of the first artificial satellite,
and moreover did not interfere in the British-German brouhaha.
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