From this place the Fuhrer dominated the Allies.

By Madhvi Ramani
30 June 2017 BBC

The research and development carried out in Peenemünde was not only crucial to the course of WWII, but impacted the future of weapons of mass destruction, as well as space travel.

(...) The small, remote resort was popular with the Prussian royalty, and later, East Germans. But between 1936 and 1945, the Nazis occupied one village for a darker purpose.

Peenemünde looks out across the mouth of the River Peene where it drifts into the Baltic Sea. In 1935, engineer Wernher von Braun pinpointed the village, which offered a 400km testing range off the German coast, as the perfect, secret place to develop and test rockets.

Frantic building work began on the world’s largest and most modern rearmament centre. About 12,000 people worked on the first-ever cruise missiles and fully functioning large-scale rockets at the site, which spanned an area of 25 sq km. The research and development carried out in Peenemünde was not only crucial to the course of the biggest war in history, but impacted the future of weapons of mass destruction, as well as space travel.

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