Eschwege Air Base

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Eschwege Air Base was a military facility of the Wehrmacht Air Force near the North Hessian city ​​of Eschwege, which was built in the course of rearmament in the Third Reich in 1935/36 . Today the area is used as a commercial area. It is still called the “airfield” by the locals. The facility should not be confused with the Stauffenbühl airfield , which was set up for glider pilots south of Eschwege after the war .

history

construction

When the Nazi regime began to establish an air force, initially in secret, and the Reich Aviation Ministry carried out initial site surveys in Hesse, the city administration did everything in its power to maintain an air force garrison and thus boost the local economy. The city also actively supported the Air Force in acquiring land. The rather unproductive “shepherd's lawn” on the Werra , intended as an airfield, was not a problem, but additional land was needed immediately next to it for the barracks and workshop buildings. This was accomplished by incorporating the neighboring village of Niederhone into Eschwege, transferring agricultural land from the local state domain to the owner of the required land, the farmer Bierschenk, as compensation and then dissolving the domain entirely.

Construction began on October 1, 1935, and just six months later work had progressed so far that the air base could be officially opened on March 30, 1936. The layout of the square was determined by its location between the Werra and Wehre rivers as well as the lines of rail and road running immediately south in an east-west direction . This explains the complex of barracks and technical area, which is unusually compact by Air Force standards.

In use 1937–1945

Construction of the Eschwege air park began in autumn 1936. On March 15, 1937, Group II of Combat Squadron 254 was set up in Eschwege . The group stayed until April 1, 1938 and then moved to Gießen and on November 1, 1938 to Gütersloh . The next flying unit in Eschwege was the elucidation group (H) 23, which with Hs 126 - high-deck , initially still using the outdated He 45 and He-46 was equipped. The first and second squadrons were set up , with the core of the new squadrons coming from Grossenhain ; the 3rd squadron followed in January 1939. The group left Eschwege on August 26, 1939 to be used in the raid on Poland that began a few days later with Air Fleet 3 .

At the same time as the air force units, NSFK Group 8 (center) under the leadership of Elmar von Eschwege had their headquarters on the square.

The air park as such was moved to the front as Feldluftpark 3 / XII in 1939. An air force field yard replacement department remained in Eschwege during the war, with part of the air base being made available to the field yard by AGO Flugzeugwerke . The company operated a warehouse for up to 185 forced laborers on the premises of the air base . Another part of the system served as a telecommunication device collection and dismantling point for Luftgaukommandos XII and XIII.

It was not until the end of March 1945 that Luftwaffe combat units returned to Eschwege with the staff and parts of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd squadron of Night Battle Group 2 with their Ju 87 D.

In the course of the war, the Eschwege air base was repeatedly the target of air raids, but the damage was limited. The first British bombing raid took place on the night of July 18-19, 1940. On April 19, 1944 56 American flew B 17 - Bomber ( "Flying Fortresses") from the north via Göttingen an attack on the air base and aircraft maintenance; they were attacked by German fighters over Fretterode , around 15 km north of Eschwege, and lost five aircraft and 48 dead or missing persons. In another attack on September 28, 1944, the USAAF lost 30 bombers. On February 22, 1945, there was a final air raid on the air base and the Eschwege railway station.

Use by USAAF 1945

On April 3, 1945, the Tuesday after Easter , American troops occupied the place. On April 6th, the IX Engineering Command of the 825th Engineering Aviation Brigade began clearing landmines and debris, and on April 7th the airfield was reported as ready for combat aircraft. The place was named "Advanced Landing Ground R-11 Eschwege". From April 10 to September 21, 1945 he was occupied by parts of the 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group and the 10th Reconnaissance Group with P-38 Lightning and P-51 Mustang . Then it was used by the Air Technical Service Command of the USAAF until the end of 1945 for the dismantling and scrapping of machines and material of the Air Force.

DP camp 1946–1949

After the withdrawal of the American troops, a DP camp was set up on the former air base in January 1946 . The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) has been given oversight . For the " Displaced Persons (DP)" quartered in the camp , it became a transit station for their departure to Palestine , Great Britain , Canada , Australia , South America or the USA. Initially, around 1770 Jewish, and mostly young, people lived in the Eschwege camp, and they quickly created a well-organized and lively community, as the establishment of a kindergarten with 50 children in April 1947 suggests. The primary school had only about 30 students at the time. Religious life was maintained in several synagogues . There was also a mikveh , a ritual immersion bath. There was a Jewish elementary school ( Talmud - Torah school), a cheder to prepare the boys for their bar mitzvah , a yeshiva and a “Bet Ya'akov” religious school for girls in the camp for religious and school education . There was also a sports club, a cinema, an auditorium with 500 seats, a theater group and a newspaper, Our Hope . A kibbutz was also set up in which young people prepared to emigrate to Palestine. The vocational school run by World ORT im Lage played an important role in their training, and by the end of 1947 had a total of 220 students and conducted special courses for the kibbutzniks. Training fields were u. A. Electrical engineering, radio engineering, dental engineering, automotive engineering and tailoring. An orphanage for almost 300 children between the ages of one and sixteen, most of them from Poland, was set up in Wolfsbrunnen Castle in nearby Schwebda . At the height of its occupancy on October 19, 1946, there were 3,355 Jews in the Eschwege camp. It was closed on April 26, 1949.

Civil use from 1949 to the present day

The technical areas were converted into an industrial and commercial area after the DP camp was closed. Only one small American unit, which operated a radio reconnaissance station in Altefeld around 20 km further south, still used a small area of ​​the former air base in the 1950s.

The former accommodations are now apartments, and the former staff building now houses the tax office. Most of the former air base, including the airfield on the former “shepherd's lawn”, is now used by medium-sized industrial, logistics and service companies.

literature

  • Dieter E. Kesper: "Our Hope", Die Zeitung Survivors of the Holocaust in the Eschweg camp in 1946. Eschwege, 1996

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ "Eschwege," Fliegerhorst "camp for forced laborers". Topography of National Socialism in Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  2. ^ Eschwege military cemetery ( memento from June 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ IX Engineer Command ETO Airfields, Airfield Layout
  4. ↑ Maurer Maurer: Air Force Combat Units of World War II. Office of Air Force History, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 1983, ISBN 0-89201-092-4 .
  5. ^ David C. Johnson: US Army Air Forces Continental Airfields (ETO), D-Day to VE Day. Research Division, USAF Historical Research Center, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 1988.
  6. ↑ USAFHRA Document Search - Eschwege
  7. ↑ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Holocaust Enzyclopedia - Eschwege
  8. ^ LOCATION and the Displaced Person Camps: Eschwege

Web links

Coordinates: 51 ° 11 ′ 49 ″  N , 10 ° 1 ′ 30 ″  E