Peenemünde Army Research Center

The Peenemünde Army Research Center, known in German as the Heeresversuchsanstalt Peenemünde or HVP, was founded in 1937 as one of five military proving grounds under the German Army Weapons Office. It stood on the northern peninsula of the Baltic island of Usedom, which the aviation ministry had bought from the town of Wolgast in 1936, and was separate from the neighbouring Luftwaffe test site at Peenemünde West. Major-General Walter Dornberger led the military side of the V-2 rocket programme, and Wernher von Braun was the technical director of the center. Several German guided missiles and rockets of World War II were developed there, including the V-2 rocket (A-4) and the Wasserfall, Schmetterling, Rheintochter, Taifun and Enzian missiles. The site was attacked by the British in Operation Crossbow from August 1943 and fell to the Soviets in May 1945.