Camp Reinsehlen
The camp Reinsehlen is an approximately 100 hectare large and almost tree-free area near the Lower Saxon village of Reinsehlen near Schneverdingen , which is known for its large sandy grassland . In the 20th century, the site has had an eventful history as a military airfield , refugee camp and military training area . The name suffix Camp is derived from the fact that the area served as a base camp for tank exercises by British and Canadian forces in the Lüneburg Heath from 1950 to 1994 .
geography
On the open grounds of the Camp Reinsehlen with its nutrient-poor and dry sandy soils have poor grassland - habitats developed. It found many endangered plant species, such as thrift , the petrorhagia and Breckland Thyme . The predominant plant species is the sheep fescue . Various species of birds such as woodlark , skylark and meadow pipit breed on the grassy areas . The vegetation is kept short by grazing a flock of heather sheep .
In 1995 the Lower Saxony State Office for Ecology, a predecessor of the Lower Saxony State Office for Water Management, Coastal and Nature Conservation , classified the site as deserving of priority due to numerous endangered and endangered plants; it is the largest contiguous sandy grassland in Lower Saxony.
Military airfield 1938–1945
Emergence
In 1938, the German claimed Air Force as part of the upgrade of the air force , the area in Reinsehlen to establish an air base . Since the seizure of power in 1933 and the subsequent armament of the Wehrmacht , military installations were built in many places. This also affected the structurally weak region of the Lüneburg Heath with its sparse settlement and its barren, agriculturally unprofitable soils. The military established itself in many places here, especially with large-scale military training areas .
An area of 250 hectares was designated for the establishment of the air base near Reinsehlen. For this purpose, the farmers of the surrounding farms had to cede land without compensation, but were later allowed to graze their flocks of heather sheep on the grassy areas of the airfield in order to keep the vegetation low. It was only in the 1950s that farmers received small amounts of money from the state for their land. A slightly hilly and sandy terrain was selected for the airfield, which was partly covered with heather, but also with oak and birch forests. In the central area there was a depression with the headwaters of the Fintau brook . When construction began in 1938, the site was first leveled and plowed deep . Since the quality of the sandy soil with a layer of local stone for the lawn vegetation of the future airfield was too poor, peat and manure were fertilized on a large scale .
The airfield was opened up by access roads. It was connected to Reichsstraße 3, today's B 3 . A concrete ring road was built on the site itself, and numerous barracked buildings were built for flight operations, such as flight control, crew quarters, a casino, and a hospital. For camouflage purposes, the barracks were given pointed roofs and covered with thatch . Compared to enemy aerial reconnaissance , the area should give the impression of a heath village. Also emerged ammunition bunkers and underground storage tanks . The largest building was the Kdf -Halle as a barrack with around 850 meters of floor space, which served as an event hall and cinema. The delivery of materials for the construction of the systems, as well as the later delivery to the airfield, took place via a field railway, which connected the area with the Heidebahn passing by .
business
The airfield served as a training and operational airfield. He had the cover name Posemuckel , which was also used in radio communications. The first landing of an airplane took place on September 13, 1939 shortly after the start of the Second World War . During the war, several anti-aircraft and searchlight positions, including a control and observation post, were set up to protect the airfield against air attacks in the area .
Various air force units used the space for flight training for soldiers and testing of new weapon systems. The stationed units flew aircraft such as the Heinkel He 111 bomber , the Ju 52 transport aircraft and the Focke Wulff 190 fighter aircraft . The aircraft were also used to practice bomb-dropping with concrete exercise bombs on heather areas near the airfield. Forced laborers from the East and Soviet and Polish prisoners of war were also housed on the site . Their labor was used for the continuous expansion of the military facilities and road structures, also in the area. This is evidenced by an unfinished route leading past the Höpen elevation for a road that was not completed at the time.
End of war
In the end of the war from 1945, the first new types of jet aircraft were stationed at the airfield , such as the first jet-powered bomber Arado 234 . During this time, the airfield also served as a parking area for numerous Ju-88 bombers, which remained permanently on the ground due to a lack of fuel and a lack of crews. Apart from a few low-flying attacks , the airfield has never been bombed on a large scale, although the British knew it from their aerial reconnaissance. On April 7, 1945, an American bomber fleet of over 1,000 aircraft flew into Germany in order to destroy the remaining military targets before the arrival of American ground troops. The Reinsehlen airfield was also on the attack list, which, however, could not be located due to the closed cloud cover. Immediately before the arrival of British troops, there was an attempt to dig an anti-tank ditch to protect the airfield. In addition, farmers plowed deep furrows into the airfield on instructions to make it unusable. Due to a lack of weapons and personnel, a planned defense of the airfield could not take place, it was handed over to the advancing British troops on April 17, 1945 without a fight. A few hours earlier, German soldiers had set the parked aircraft on fire.
Inventory 1945
In April 1945 the Royal Canadian Air Force moved into the airfield, which withdrew again at the end of winter 1946. The occupation forces made the military facilities unusable by blowing up the bombs and remains of ammunition. They also destroyed the concrete roads on the site.
An inventory of the airfield facility by the mayor of Schneverdingen immediately after the Second World War showed the following facilities and buildings:
- 100 hectares runway
- Built-up area of 60 hectares
- 800 meters of railroad tracks
- 6 ammunition bunkers
- 3 underground tank systems
- 11 barracks for administration, guests, staff, KdF , fire brigade, agriculture, motor vehicles, canteen, coal
- 20 barracks as accommodation
- Aircraft hangar
- Aircraft hangar
- Various sheds
Refugee camp 1946–1950
Emergence
In February 1946, the British military government announced the arrival of larger transports with refugees and displaced persons from the eastern German regions who had to be accommodated in the Soltau district . In the post-war period there was a great lack of housing for the population due to the large number of refugees from the east of the former Greater German Reich and the homeless residents of cities as a result of the Allied bombing attacks. The British made the vacant buildings of the Reinsehlen airfield with around 60 barracks and numerous ancillary buildings available to accommodate the arriving people in the Soltau district. Some of the barracks were large and up to 42 meters long. About half of the barracks had stone foundations, the rest of the barracks, which stood on wooden stakes, later had problems with rotten posts. The barracks of the emerging refugee camp were largely empty due to previous looting and were equipped by the local administration with the still scarce material such as stoves, beds and furniture.
business
In March 1946, the first 200 refugees from the transit camp Uelzen-Bohldamm arrived in Reinsehlen and moved into the camp. In May 1946 around 1,500 displaced persons arrived in a special train, most of whom were elderly people from Silesia who had previously been housed in a camp in Poland. This resulted in enormous overcrowding in the barracks. Because of the prevailing lack of essentials, the term village of 1000 worries was popularly coined for the camp . Even during the war there was a water supply for the water supply and a sewage system for disposal , which pumped the sewage to the sewage fields about two kilometers away . These facilities were found to be beneficial for use as a warehouse.
During the four-year existence of the refugee camp from 1946 to 1950, an average of around 1,500 people lived there, and it was one of the largest facilities of its kind in northern Germany . The residents lived there rent free. Small contingents of up to 50 people who had to be accommodated regularly arrived every month. Most of the camp residents came from Silesia, the rest came from East Prussia , the Baltic States , Volhynia , Galicia and the Sudetenland . About two-thirds of the camp residents were welfare recipients . There were only about 200 able-bodied men who were mainly involved in agriculture and forestry. The lawn of the former airfield was plowed up in the spring of 1946 and served as arable and garden land for growing crops in order to provide food for the camp residents.
In the course of time, the camp residents established small businesses within the area, such as oven-making, basketry and carpentry. Another money-making activity was picking berries and mushrooms. There was a school in the camp for around 350 children. A church was set up in a large hall that was also used for cinema screenings. The camp was administered by the district of Soltau. The camp residents elected a camp manager and a camp council to represent them.
hospital
When the refugee camp was set up in 1946, an infirmary with around 150 beds was built in the former officers' barracks. For the arriving 1,500 displaced persons, medical care was urgently required due to deficiency and infectious diseases they had brought with them. Common illnesses in the camp in confined spaces were typhoid , pulmonary TBC and jaundice . Until 1950, nursing was in the hands of around 20 nuns who had been expelled from Silesia. After the evacuation of the refugee camp in 1950, the infirmary continued to exist. It became an auxiliary hospital and later part of the Soltau district hospital. After a new hospital was built in Soltau in 1968, the hospital in Reinsehlen was closed. The former buildings are still almost in their original condition and are privately owned. A special feature is the former KdF hall, which was located in the immediate vicinity of the hospital. It was dismantled and rebuilt almost unchanged in Dorfmark , where it now serves as a riding hall .
Clearance
The ownership structure of the airfield was not clear when it was built in 1938 and remained unclear even after the Second World War. The German Air Force had expropriated the land that belonged to some farmers from Reinsehlen without compensation. In 1945, the British occupying forces presented the site with its buildings as an asset of the Wehrmacht , which they confiscated. They initially left it to the German authorities to accommodate refugees, but later wanted to use it as a military training camp. As early as the summer of 1949, the British began to claim individual parts of the camp for their own purposes. In September 1949 they sent the German authorities an evacuation order, according to which the camp should be evacuated within two months. After intervention by the Lower Saxony Minister for Refugee Affairs Heinrich Albertz , the eviction date was postponed by one year to the end of 1950. First of all, decent living space should be found for the residents and no move to another barrack camp should take place. That is why the state government made funds available for house building. The majority of the camp residents with almost 800 people settled in Hambühren . There, ammunition bunkers on the site of a former ammunition storage facility were converted into houses by the inhabitants of the camp . Around 200 people moved to the Hittfeld train station in Emmelndorf , where a new housing estate was built. Around 200 camp residents moved to the neighboring community of Schneverdingen .
Military training area 1950–1994
After the evacuation of the refugee camp in 1950, the British and Canadian armed forces use the area under the name Camp Reinsehlen as a starting point and base camp for tank exercises in the Lüneburg Heath . The Canadians withdrew after a short time, but troops from the British Rhine Army stayed there for over 40 years. The soldiers came with their military equipment from all locations in the British occupation zone and even from Great Britain. The tanks and tracked vehicles were mainly transported by rail via the camp's siding, but also via the train stations in the area. The arrival and departure also took place on the street via Bundesstraße 3, from which a connection led to the camp. The soldiers were initially housed in tents and later in Nissen huts , which were set up in large numbers on the open space of the former airfield site.
According to the Soltau-Lüneburg Agreement drafted in 1959 and entered into force in 1963, the camp was located on the red areas in the Soltau-Lüneburg area, where military exercises were constantly held. In 1967 Elizabeth II visited the camp for the 50th anniversary of the Royal Tank Regiment , which was stationed in Soltau ; a troop parade with 270 armored vehicles and 800 soldiers took place on the former airfield and a specially built parade ground . In the 1980s, the British built a large tank washing facility . As a result of German reunification and the resulting expiry of the Soltau-Lüneburg Agreement, which regulated military use in the Lüneburg Heath , the British armed forces left Camp Reinsehlen in 1994. Numerous protests by the population underlined the desire for an end to military use of the heath .
Current condition
After the withdrawal of the British troops in 1994, extensive renaturation measures began on the site and the nearby tank training areas in the Osterheide in order to eliminate the sometimes extreme destruction in nature. During the search for military-related environmental pollution, 11 suspected areas were identified on the camp site, in which increased levels of pollutants were measured in two places. It was suspected that fuel and lubricants might have gotten into the ground. After the city of Schneverdingen acquired most of the camp's land from the federal government in 1997, the military buildings and facilities on the site were partially removed. The last of the 100 or so Nissen huts that is open to the public is now in the open-air museum on Kiekeberg . Most of the numerous barracks on the site no longer exist either.
There were various considerations for a civil reuse. A group of artists from Schneverdingen suggested the establishment of a peace park as part of the Expo 2000 project . It should have a peace museum and become a venue for peace researchers. This plan, as well as considerations for an industrial area, failed because, since reunification and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the former GDR , many military facilities that were no longer needed had been available as industrial areas. Today the Alfred Toepfer Academy for Nature Conservation has a seat in a former military administration building on the site. A hotel was built on the new buildings, and its flat pavilion design blends in with the expansive landscape. The construction of an extension of the hotel complex to include a new seminar building and a new overnight complex began in March 2016. There is a high ropes course in the area of the former tank washing facility . The spacious camp area is occasionally used for large events. At the end of October 1998, the Dalai Lama visited the site to give instruction to around 8,000 people every day for a week on the 100 hectare open space. For this purpose, a 25,000 m² tent city was built within a month. The largest tent, the "temple tent", was 140 meters long and 50 meters wide. Around 10,000 meters of cable and 35,000 floor slabs for 16,000 square meters of carpeting were laid. A total of over 700 volunteers were on duty.
A tour, inaugurated in September 2015, informs the visitor, with the help of various information boards, about the historical stations of Camp Reinsehlen and the current nature conservation relevance as a grassland area.
art
Various art projects have been established on the site. The sculptor and painter Jörg-Werner Schmidt set up a studio in the former horse stable. His first work in 2005 was the picture in- between spaces on the former transformer house in the middle of the open space. To do this, he painted red stripes on the six-meter-high old building facade. In the sun, the surface shimmers from a distance and appears pink to the human eye. In 2007, he also designed the Knickpyramid , which was originally set up near the street - this was given a new location near the former Exzerzierplatz in 2017 as part of the hotel expansion. Other art figures he created, such as slat people , can also be found on the outdoor area. In the two former military repair halls ("red" and "white" hall) there are event and conference rooms of the nearby hotel.
Former studio of the artist Jörg-Werner Schmidt in the camp's former horse stable , since 2011 a conference venue
Art object Bent pyramid by Jörg-Werner Schmidt, erected in 2007
Art object interstices by Jörg-Werner Schmidt as red stripes on the transformer building
Art objects Lattenmenschen by Jörg-Werner Schmidt in the open space, the hotel in the background
A row of chairs by Jörg-Werner Schmidt
Art object PARCOURS by Jeppe Hein
literature
- Werner Köster: The history of the "Camp Reinsehlen", From the Fintau spring to the Magerrasen , 2002, Schneverdingen.
- Messages from the NNA : One carries the other's burden - 12,782 days of the Soltau-Lüneburg Agreement , 4th year / 1993, special issue.
Web links
- Description of Camp Reinsehlen
- Description of the port of operations in Reinsehlen on geschichtsspuren.de
- Description as a base of the British Rhine Army with photos of tents and Nissen huts from the 1960s (English)
- History of Camp Reinsehlen in: Messages from the NNA, 1/2005, pp. 15–17
- Site plan of the buildings at Camp Reinsehlen
- Description of Camp Reinsehlen at Archive Wintermoor
- Aerial view with buildings on the area of Camp Reinsehlen
- Description of the hotel in Camp Reinsehlen with a large map (pdf)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Werner Köster: The story of the "Camp Reinsehlen", From the Fintau spring to the Magerrasen , p. 5.
- ↑ Camp Reinsehlen is closed on the website of the municipality of Hambühren.
- ↑ Photo of a Nissen hut from Camp Reinsehlen
- ↑ In a tent city in the Lüneburg Heath the Dalai Lama teaches the basics of Buddhism in: Berliner Zeitung of October 29, 1998.
Coordinates: 53 ° 8 ′ 48.5 ″ N , 9 ° 49 ′ 4.2 ″ E