"Zwei Dinge erfüllen das Gemüt mit immer neuer und zunehmender Bewunderung und Ehrfurcht, je öfter und anhaltender sich das Nachdenken damit beschäftigt: Der gestirnte Himmel über mir und das moralische Gesetz in mir."
"Two things never fail to fill the mind with ever more admiration and awe, the more often and steadily the thoughts are consumed with it: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me."
- Immanuel Kant
From the northeastern island of Usedom, which is divided between Germany and Poland. The northwestern tip of the island is the site where the National Socialists developed the feared V2 "Vengeance" rocket, the response to the wide-spread civilian destruction that the British amassed on German cities during World War II.
There came a time then when the wholesale targeting of civilians in London and Antwerp became a glorious feat to be achieved, a great departure from the traditional rules of war. I'm trying to fathom what that breaking point must have been like, standing before a facsimile reproduction of a letter from October 3, 1942.
For the longest time, Allied forces had no clue that V2 rockets were being developed at Peenemünde, as it was disguised as a scientific research facility, not military development. Foreign slave labor, mostly Polish, was used extensively here, the advantage being that foreigners would not understand the secret documents. It was a harrowing existence. The workers were told "For you, the only way out of here will be through the chimney." As in the incinerator. But eventually, two Polish slave workers succeeded in providing maps and sketches to Polish intelligence. Similar information reached British forces in 1943. The site was openly attacked in an air raid in August 1943.
A toy-sized model of the test site. Even I feel tall here.