Peenemünde, The Baltic Coast & Wartime Berlin

Itinerary

• Day 1

  Local departure by coach or Door-to-Door service, then to Holland for an overnight stay.

• Day 2

  We travel across western Germany to the Baltic coast to our hotel in Greifswald for three nights.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 3 - Peenemunde

  We start at Peenemunde, an island on the coast here where the Germany rocket development programme began to build the ‘Vengeance’ weapons. We see the superb Peenemunde museum, look around the area where the camps and worksites were, visit the graves of those killed in the bombing of this area and look at the development of the V1 and V2 here.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 4 - Prora - ‘Strength Through Joy’ programme

  At Prora we go right onto the Baltic coast on the Rügen Island and look at the massive complex built between 1936 and 1939, so that ordinary Germans who were members of the National Socialist Party could go on holiday. Part of the Nazi ‘Strength Through Joy’ programme, there are eight huge identical buildings, classic examples of Nazi architecture from this period. A new visitors' centre helps explain the story and the human cost behind such a project.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 5 - Hitler’s Capital

  We travel down into Berlin and start in the heart of Hitler’s Capital, at the site of the Hitler Bunker. We take time to visit the Holocaust Memorial and then look at the desperate struggle in 1945 for the Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag. We then travel to our Berlin hotel for three nights.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 6 - Vossen-Wünsdorf

  Today we visit Vossen-Wünsdorf, the massive German Army headquarters south of Berlin. Here we see unique ‘rocket-shaped’ air raid shelters, get a guided tour of the headquarters site, visit the military museum and, as Wünsdorf is also a ‘book town’, there will be time to explore this side of the site too.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 7 - Berlin; Potsdam & Gleis 17

  Returning to Berlin we begin on the Unter Den Linden and see Bebelplatz where the book burning took place in 1936 before visiting the nearby German Historical Museum. We then look at the subject of opposition to the Nazi Regiment during WW2 and see the memorial to Stauffenberg at the Benderblock, also visiting the museum. After lunch we then see the Berlin War Cemetery and in Potsdam we visit the Cecilienhof, a palace built for Germany’s last Kaiser and where the Potsdam Conference took place in 1945. We end the day at 'Gleis 17', a railway station where Jews were deported from Berlin, now a Holocaust Memorial.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 8

  We leave Berlin and travel to Belgium for an overnight stay.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 9

  Return home

  Meals - Breakfast

9 Day Itinerary

• Day 1

  Local departure by coach or Door-to-Door service, then to Holland for an overnight stay.

• Day 2

  We travel across western Germany to the Baltic coast to our hotel in Greifswald for three nights.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 3 - Peenemunde V-Weapons

  We start at Peenemunde, an island on the Baltic coast where the Germany rocket development programme began to build the ‘Vengeance’ weapons in WW2. We see the superb Peenemunde museum, look around the area where the camps and worksites were, take a guided tour of the V-weapon launch sites (now part of a nature reserve and normally closed to public access). We also visit the graves of those killed in the bombing of this area.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 4 - Prora - ‘Strength Through Joy’ programme

  At Prora we go right onto the Baltic coast on the Rügen Island and look at the massive complex built between 1936 and 1939, so that ordinary Germans who were members of the National Socialist Party could go on holiday. Part of the Nazi ‘Strength Through Joy’ programme, there are eight huge identical buildings, classic examples of Nazi architecture from this period. A new visitors' centre helps explain the story and the human cost behind such a project.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 5 - The Holocaust: Ravensbrück & Berlin

  We travel down to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp to look at the story of the Holocaust. This was the only women's camp, and was where British SOE agents were taken, including Violette Szabo GC, who was murdered here in 1945. We see the Visitor's Centre, the museum, and take time to visit the site of the camp. From here we travel to Berlin, where we look at the Holocaust in the city seeing the memorial to the Jews who were deported to camps, at Gleis 17, and then the Holocaust Memorial near the Brandenburg Gate. We then continue to our hotel in Berlin for three nights.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 6 - Zossen Wehrmacht HQ & Seelow Heights

  Today we visit Zossen-Wünsdorf, the massive German Army headquarters south of Berlin. Here we see unique ‘rocket-shaped’ air raid shelters, get a guided tour of the underground headquarters site, visit the military museum and, as Wünsdorf is also a ‘book town’, there will be time to explore this side of the site too. We then travel to Seelow to look at the fighting on the Seelow Heights in 1945, visiting the Russian Memorial and the area where the Soviet attacks were made.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 7 - Berlin: Hitler's Captial

  This morning we take a short walking tour in central Berlin, seeing signs of the street fighting in 1945, the key sites here on the Unter den Linden, and the Babelplatz where the Nazi book-burning took place in 1936. Lunchtime in the Alexanderplatz area, and in the afternoon we visit the site of the Luftwaffe Headquarters, visit the Topography of Terror looking at the crimes of the Nazi Regiment, see the Anhalter Bahnhof area, once the largest railway station in Europe, and then take time to look at the fighting in 1945 around the Reichstag and Tiergarten, including the Russian Memorial.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 8

  We leave Berlin and travel to Belgium for an overnight stay.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 9

  Return home.

  Meals - Breakfast

Accommodation

You will stay for three nights at the 4-star Mercure Hotel Greifswald am Gorzberg, located in the south of Greifswald followed by three nights in Berlin at the Vienna House Easy Berlin or City Hotel Berlin East, or similar.

Overnight stays in Holland and Belgium will be in city-style hotels.