Exhibition and publication project in collaboration with the Peenemünde Historical Technical Museum

Exhibition

February 2, 2023 to March 31, 2024 at the Peenemünde Historical Technical Museum

Publication

Published at Quintus Verlag

About the project

The Peenemünde test sites, where the German Army and Air Force unmanned long-range weapons with new kinds of propulsion systems, were a large-scale research facility with laboratory and office buildings, workshops, manufacturing facilities, rail network, roads, harbors, airfields, supply and disposal facilities, housing developments and camps. After the Wehrmacht had abandoned Peenemünde at the end of the war, the Red Army occupied the facilities and continued to use them for a short time. The remaining facilities were blown up. What was still usable
was used to rebuild destroyed towns in the region, the rest disappeared into the greenery.
The exhibition presents 47 large-format pictures by the photographer Lorenz Kienzle, who depicts the condition of the ruined landscape of Peenemünde in 2018/19 and 2022. They are juxtaposed with photos of the construction and operation of the facilities. On a third level, objects are on display - both structural relics and ground findings from the surroundings of these facilities, such as technical devices, tools, everyday objects or material witnesses of the war. The combination of these exhibits points to the value of the historical landscape of Peenemünde for the understanding of the history of the 20th century and makes visible the lives of the thousands of people who worked here - many of them under coercion and inhumane conditions.