Bunker Fuchsbau

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The Fuchsbau is a bunker facility south of Fürstenwalde / Spree in the Rauenschen Mountains in Brandenburg with an eventful history, which was mainly used for military purposes. It was the location of the Waffen-SS until 1945, the location of the NVA from 1965 to 1990 and the location of the 5th Air Force Division of the Bundeswehr until it was decommissioned in December 1994 . The bunker was sealed from 1995 to 2005 and has been a listed technical monument since 2006 . The Fuchsbau bunker system is operated as a museum by a group of volunteers under the name of the “Fuchsbau Bunker Museum” .

Pressure door lock system entrance area

description

Use by the NVA air force

This bunker system was the central command post 14 (ZGS-14) of the LSK / LV command of the NVA - Air Force . It comprised a usable area of ​​over 9,000 m² with more than 200 work rooms, 650 m corridors and a crew of up to 350 men. Thus it was one of the largest bunker systems in the GDR.

Use by the Bundeswehr

The Bundeswehr took over the bunker area from the NVA on October 3, 1990. Part of the 5th Air Force Division was housed there. After investments of around 10.8 million D-Marks, the bunker was considered future-proof. But despite this modernization, the bunker was decommissioned in December 1994 and sealed in 1995. For the first time since 1609, Fürstenwalde / Spree was no longer a garrison town.

The burrow as a historical monument

Today the bunker is a technical witness (the entire enclosed area is under monument protection), among other things, for the development of communications technology (which of course was not developed there, but was used), air traffic control and air situation displays. There are weekly guided tours there. The current air situation over the bunker system (radius approx. 250 km), the demonstration of the air situation at that time (archive material 1988) and active telephone and telex connections are shown to the visitors.

The Fuchsbau bunker facility is now privately owned by a Fürstenwald family who, together with the team of the bunker facility, take care of the maintenance and the necessary renovations with a lot of effort and time.

construction

Management room (OPS) with air situation display
DV system with disk storage in the foreground
Pneumatic tube control center
Combat section on-duty air traffic control messages and (DNF)

The "Fuchsbau" bunker system consists of several parts (waterworks, old building, new building and other underground complexes).

Old building (TO 02)

The so-called old building was built over a tunnel system that dates from the time of lignite mining . From 1941 the tunnels were explored by the Waffen SS . In the course of 1942, the expansion of 900 prisoners per twelve-hour shift of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp - Fuchsbau subcamp was carried out under the project management of the secret " Office for Wave Propagation ". The work was done in open and partly closed construction. Unnecessary tunnel connections were blown up. From 1944, the communication tasks of the main command office of the SS and OKW Zossen were carried out from the Fuchsbau (camouflage name "Hegewald"). After 1945 the Red Army made several unsuccessful attempts at explosions and in 1957 the old building was explored on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior (MdI) of the GDR (project name: "Spider"). The expansion of the communications technology was completed by 1965. The old building essentially consists of three parallel tunnels in an exact east-west orientation, which are connected to one another by four cross tunnels. The new building can be reached via a slightly ascending corridor .

New building (TO 01)

The new building is a three-story construction with a rectangular floor plan, which was built using the open construction method. The resulting depth of around 20 m to the top of the site would have provided sufficient protection from bombing, but it was filled up over the huge mass cooler of another 12 to 14 m, so a separate layer of shattering was dispensed with. The amazing ceiling height of 9 m in the actual command room (command post) was not achieved on the entire surface of the second basement. The access to the "third" floor was from the circumferential corridor of the first basement. The new building is consistently designed as a cubic structure and is designed in its core as a three-story leadership hall.

Connecting structure

There is an underground connecting structure (connector) between the new building and the old building, the staircases and rooms of which partly extend to the surface of the earth. In terms of construction, this connecting structure is not a bunker and although it is largely underground, it does not offer any effective protection against bombing.

Waterworks

Eight of the deep wells and the associated underwater pumps are distributed across the bunker area and are brought together in an external waterworks (RekoWw).

Other structures

There are many other functional structures on the approximately 40-hectare area of ​​the individual technical monument, which are usually connected to one another underground with piping systems.

Due to the lignite mining until around 1936 and shortly after the Second World War, as well as tunnel collapses after many years, not a few water-bearing layers have been destroyed, so that a triple underground water disposal system pervades the entire area up to and including the troop camps during military use.

Individual structures include: workshops (TO-19, TO-08), cold water station (KWS), entrance structures and buildings, emergency exits, KBC observation tower, waterworks (TO-16), boiler house, transformer stations, STOF complex (high-pressure steam relaxation Station), accommodation building (U-3, LBU 42–45 and “Grünes Gewölbe”), various extinguishing water cisterns and others.

Timetable

  • 1942 Command and intelligence department of the SD of the Waffen SS
  • 1944 SS news exchange "Fuchsbau" (camouflage name "Hegewald")
  • 1945 to 1957 no use
  • 1957 Preparation of the use of the old building by the MdI of the GDR ("Spider" project)
  • 1965 Commissioning with joint use as the central command post of the LSK / LV command of the NVA air defense and telecommunication node of the post office (designation transmission point - ÜSt.2 and camouflage designation for the command center: test center)
  • 1978 Commissioning as ZGS-14 (camouflage designation object "FBZ Raduga")
  • 1990 Takeover by the German Armed Forces as a command post for Air Defense Sector 5 of the 5th Air Force Division
  • 1994 decommissioned
  • 1995 Sealing as "mining lock"
  • 2005 October opening via the load entrance
  • 2006 monument protection for the entire enclosed bunker area (approx. 40 ha) and use exclusively as a technical individual monument serving the general public; Development and publication of your own homepage
  • 2006 Under protection, weekly guided tours by the Fuchsbau Interest Group according to eV on the basis of the previous and further section-by-section technical reconstruction of the operator
  • 2007 Over 100 guided tours through the facility and other security and reconstruction work in the enclosed area and especially in the bunker complex (IG gem. EV and operator)
  • 2008 Burglary and vandalism in the building; Overcoming the damage through broad support from the general public; Establishment of our own and special monitoring and protection system for the building and on the area under monument protection
  • 2008 Over a thousand visitors a year with an upward trend ensure operating costs. Thousands of hours of voluntary work by the association members serve to maintain, operate and further reconstruct. Essential departments in the building have their full function again. (For example, partial ATZ (installation of the first control unit for manual switching) and telex operation to the "public" for visitors during the guided tours (FS))
  • 2008 Large projectors for displaying the air situation (again 3 × 4 × 4 m), temperature insulating cushions on the visitor chairs in the FS, automatic outside lighting in front of the head building, functioning clock system in the building

Web links

Commons : Bunker Fuchsbau  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 19 '22.6 "  N , 14 ° 3' 26.7"  E