Finch II

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Fink II at the end of the war in 1945. In the foreground a capsized submarine.

Fink II was the code name of the submarine bunker located on the Rüsch Canal on Finkenwerder , which was built from 1941 to 1944 on the premises of the Deutsche Werft . In 1945 it was blown up. Today the Fink II submarine bunker is located there .

The bunker

construction

The Fink II wet bunker was planned in 1940. Its construction began on the site of the Deutsche Werft in March 1941. It initially consisted of two wet boxes, each of which could hold three submarines. A short time later, in the summer of 1941, two more boxes were built on the orders of the OKM . When the bunker was about to be completed in 1942, the construction management (a consortium of Wayss & Freytag and Beton- und Monierbau AG) received the order to add a fifth box. As a result, the entire construction period was extended considerably: the construction work on the Fink II bunker could only be considered completed in 1944.

Since a submarine bunker needs a harbor basin, the Rüsch Canal had to be expanded considerably. The bunker itself was built on land, and the new Rüsch Canal was only dug after its completion.

Since, as already mentioned, three boats fit into each box, the bunker now had a capacity for 15 submarines. A total of 130,000 m³ of reinforced concrete with a weight of 263,000 tons was used. With a length of 151 m, width of 153 m and a ceiling thickness (at the thickest point) of 3.6 m, it is much larger than the submarine bunker Elbe II and the submarine bunker Kilian in Keel (42.3 m length). However, it is much smaller than the Valentin submarine bunker , which with a length of 426 m is considered the largest bunker in Germany and the second largest in the world.

function

The Fink II bunker was planned as a shipyard and was primarily a repair and assembly bunker. Remaining work on ships built in other shipyards, equipment work and - especially towards the end of the war - repairs were carried out there. However, new submarines were built there: So here 114 submarines were launched, most of the Type VII C . From 1941 onwards, forced laborers, prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates were increasingly called in to work. On the bunker there were 3 anti-aircraft guns (flak) caliber 37 mm to defend against aircraft attacking at low altitude.

During the air raids, the bunker was used by civilians as an air raid shelter.

Bombing raids

Fink II immediately after the demolition

1945 attacked allies the Hamburg port facility on. A first American attack had no consequences. However, an English attack caused severe damage.

“In the night of April 8th to 9th 1945, the RAF Bomber Command dropped 1,491 tons of bombs on the port facilities of Hamburg with 440 aircraft. Thereby u. a. U 2509 , U 2514 and U 3512 as well as 6 merchant ships with 8531 GRT sunk and the already damaged new boat U 2550 destroyed on the slipway . ". According to other sources, the submarines mentioned sank themselves.

"Am 9. 4. The bunker is Fink II by a wing consisting of 40 aircraft of the RAF attacked (groups Nos. 5 and 17 and Lancaster of No. 617 squadron ). Bombs of the ' Grand Slam ' and ' Tallboy ' types are used. "

The bombs punched six holes in the three-meter-thick ceiling.

“Five planes are lost. As a result of the explosive effect of a direct hit, a hoist with the boats U 677 and U 982 in it sinks inside the bunker. "

The bunker was used as an air raid shelter by around 3,000 people during this attack because of its high security potential. Of these civilians, 58 died and over 120 were seriously and slightly injured. Nine days after the air attack, on April 18, three weeks before the end of the war, the last launch took place (the submarine U 2371 ).

post war period

View to the west of the bunker ...
... the Elbe in the north
Memorial plaque (element of the bunker ruin monument )

On October 17, 1945, the British blew up the bunker. The detonation caused inner retaining walls and parts of the roof, which was still intact, to collapse. A complete removal was not possible, however, the side walls of the bunker and the dividing walls of the boxes were initially retained. Further measures were carried out at the beginning of the 1960s: the bunker ruins were removed up to a height of +5.70 m above sea ​​level and the chambers filled in. The ruins were still visible until the Deutsche Werft was closed in 1973. The bunker was completely filled in in the 1980s. In 1996 the area for the Rüschpark with a viewing hill was increased. The ruins could no longer be seen.

The memorial bunker ruin

Today, the former Fink II submarine bunker has been redesigned as a contemporary monument. After it turned out to be too costly to dispose of the remains of the bunker, the Realization Company (ReGe) commissioned with the construction of the Airbus runway decided in 2004 to launch an urban planning competition. The winning design comes from the two Hamburg architects Anja Bremer and Beate Kirsch ("Kirsch + Bremer Artandarchitecture"). The bunker ruin memorial was opened on August 26, 2006 as a memorial and memorial to National Socialist victims together with the Rüschpark. The monument complex makes the dimensions of the site comprehensible with black gravel stones and is equipped with artistic elements and several information boards.

Web links

Commons : Fink II  - collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Jan Heitmann : Boats under concrete. The Hamburg submarine bunker. (Series of publications by Hamburger Unterwelten eV, Vol. 1) Elbe-Spree-Verlag Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-931129-32-3 .
  • Ronald Rossig: Hamburg's bunker. Dark worlds of the Hanseatic city. Ch. Links Verlag Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86153-799-1 , p. 44 f.
  • Till Briegleb : Fink II . Catalog.
  • Realisierungsgesellschaft Finkenwerder mbH (ed.): Fink 2. Ideas for the former submarine bunker Fink II Rüsch peninsula Finkenwerder in Hamburg. Interdisciplinary review process 2004.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Homepage wlb Stuttgart: Seekrieg , accessed on July 21, 2010
  2. ↑ designed by "Kirsch + Bremer Artandarchitecture" ( details )
  3. ^ Detlef Garbe , Kerstin Klingel: Memorials in Hamburg. A guide to places of remembrance of the years 1933 to 1945. Updated new edition, completely revised new edition. Neuengamme u. a., Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-929728-18-7 , p. 17; also as a PDF file: Memorial sites in Hamburg accessed on December 31, 2009.

Coordinates: 53 ° 32 ′ 29 ″  N , 9 ° 51 ′ 16 ″  E