Aartal barracks
The Aartal barracks was a location of the German Armed Forces and the US Army in Herborn - Seelbach in Central Hesse from 1966 to 1993.
history
In March 1962, then Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss decided to build a Bundeswehr site near the central Hessian town of Herborn to protect the Bellersdorf special ammunition dump , where both German and US soldiers were to be housed. The former municipality of Herbornseelbach was then selected as the location .
The first soldiers moved into the new, not yet fully completed barracks in May 1966. They were advance soldiers of the transport battalion for special weapons SW 83 and the Fernspähkompanie 300 . The official site handover took place on September 6, 1967. On September 30, 1993, the Aartal barracks were closed.
Location of the Aartal barracks and the special ammunition depot 5 km away
Stationed troops
The 557th US Army Artillery Group originally came from Camp Gruber, Oklahoma , where it was founded in 1943. Temporarily decommissioned in the United States , it was officially assigned to the Army in July 1952 as Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 557th Field Artillery Missile Battalion. In 1955, the battalion was responsible for corporal missiles (Fort Bliss, Texas) as the 557th Field Artillery Missile Battalion (Corporal). Deactivated in Germany in 1958 and reorganized as the Artillery Group, the unit was stationed in Fort Sill , Oklahoma, in 1963 and 1965 . In December 1965, the 557th US Army Artillery Group was given the task of Special Ammunition Support Command in Germany . The 557th was then in Herbornseelbach until it was dissolved in June 1992.
The history of the 96th Ordnance Company dates back to August 1914 in Fort Hancock, Georgia . During World War II , the unit was deployed in the Pacific. In 1948 she was decommissioned in Hawaii , from 1952 to 1957 she was active on the White Sands Proving Grounds (New Mexico) and in 1959 she was put back into service as a special weapons unit. In 1966 the unit was moved to Germany and assigned to the 548th US Army Artillery Group. It was also decommissioned in June 1992.
The order of the German supply battalion Sw (special weapons) 320 consisted in the depot the troops of the III. Corps to supply the special nuclear ammunition and to ensure the guarding of the camp in the forest near Bellersdorf .
investment
The Aartal barracks consisted of two parts, the German in the west and the American in the east. There is still a large bunker under the barracks today. For the soldiers and their families, a new housing estate consisting of apartment buildings and terraced houses was built between Aartal barracks and Herborn-Seelbach in the 1960s. There was also an American school.
Today the former barracks is used as a commercial and residential area.
Web links
- Traditional association of Aartalkaserne Herbornseelbach. In: www.traditionsverband-aartalkaserne-herbornseelbach.de. Retrieved October 31, 2019 .
- The special weapons warehouse in Bellersdorf and the Aartal barracks in Herbornseelbach. In: www.geschichtsspuren.de. Retrieved October 31, 2019 .
- Bellersdorf - former nuclear weapons site, Germany. In: www.atomwaffena-z.info. Retrieved October 31, 2019 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 42 ′ 31 ″ N , 8 ° 21 ′ 25 ″ E