Zwischenahn Air Base

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The Zwischenahn Air Base was an airfield in the Rostrup district of the Lower Saxony municipality of Bad Zwischenahn, initially used for civilian purposes and later for military use . It was located directly on the Zwischenahner Meer and was used from 1937 until the end of the Second World War in 1945.

history

1937 to 1939: foundation and civil use

The Zwischenahn Air Base was officially put into service as the Zwischenahn sea ​​air base on October 1, 1937 and was initially only equipped with a grass runway on land. Initially it only served as a base station for Luftdienstverband 1 of the Reich Aviation Ministry , which had previously been stationed on Norderney . Among other things, this civil association flew target representations with drag disks for anti-aircraft units or air force aircraft over the North Sea . In the summer of 1939, the association received the order to test the Heinkel He 59 for its suitability for the sea emergency service in the North Sea. After these tests were successful, three of these machines were combined with the necessary flight and medical personnel to form Sea Emergency Squadron 1 , which was moved to the Norderney Sea Air Base on August 14, 1939 and formed the nucleus of the German airborne sea rescue service.

1939 to 1945: Takeover by the Luftwaffe and World War II

In 1939, shortly before the start of the Second World War, the airfield was taken over by the Wehrmacht's air force and renamed Seefliegerhorst Zwischenahn . In order to enable larger and heavier aircraft to land, the runways had to be extended, which made an expansion of the airfield area necessary. The air base was expanded to the northwest by 1940. Instead of the grass runway, three intersecting asphalt runways were built in a triangular shape, making the airfield one of the most modern facilities of its time. At the same time, the airfield was connected to the Oldenburg – Leer railway line . Finally, further south, the port of operations for seaplanes was built, which no longer fit on the previous airfield site.

In the winter of 1940/41, the Luftwaffe's Weather Reconnaissance Squadron 1 was relocated from the nearby Oldenburg Air Base to Rostrup, as the Heinkel He 111 machines used by the squadron with their heavy additional tanks had problems taking off from the still unpaved runways in Oldenburg. Until the end of the Second World War, the squadron flew from Rostrup to the Faroe Islands and Iceland . From the summer of 1943 to October 1944, the test command 16 , which was to test the new missile fighter Messerschmitt Me 163 , among other things , was moved from Peenemünde to the air base. After the withdrawal of Erprobungskommando 16 in October 1944, a squadron and the squadron staff of Kampfgeschwader 53 were relocated to Rostrup. This had specially retrofitted He 111, with which the Fieseler Fi 103 cruise missile, now known as the V1 , could be shot down over the North Sea from the air at England. These missions were discontinued on January 14, 1945 due to a lack of fuel and by the end of the war only the weather investigation squadron 1 started their flights from Zwischenahn.

The airfield was attacked four times by US Air Force bomber units . Two attacks in the spring and summer of 1944 caused considerable damage, the second even led to the total loss of the ammunition depot in the north of the airfield, but the air base remained operational. Two more attacks in March 1945 caused so severe damage to the airfield and the runways that the air base was practically useless. In April of that year, Canadian troops moved from Edewechterdamm to Bad Zwischenahn and the air base in Rostrup, which was defended by paratroopers of the Wehrmacht until it was captured on May 1st.

1945 to 2008: Royal Air Force military hospital and Bundeswehr hospital

The end of the Second World War was also the end of the Bad Zwischenahn air base. The airfields were blown up by the occupying forces, as were two of the three runways. The rubble was used, among other things, to build roads. Only the third runway, running parallel to the Zwischenahner Meer, and a hangar were preserved and were used as a makeshift airfield by the Canadian Air Force until 1946.

In 1951 the Royal Air Force took over the former air base from the Canadian troops and from 1952 to 1954 built the RAF Hospital Rostrup with 150 beds on the site directly on the Zwischenahner Meer . In the immediate vicinity, several houses that still exist today were built as quarters for officers and NCOs. In 1958 the British troops withdrew and officially handed over the facility to the German Armed Forces on September 22, 1958, which then put the former military hospital of the Royal Air Force into service as the Bad Zwischenahn military hospital with initially 100 beds. On October 1, 1970, the name was changed to the Bad Zwischenahn Army Hospital, and at the same time it was opened to civil patients. On June 1, 2008, with the relocation of the Bundeswehr hospital to Westerstede , the military use of the area ended after more than 70 years.

Todays use

Apart from parts of the concreted Platzringstrasse and a few scattered buildings, almost nothing has survived from the former air base. Most of the site is now privately owned and is therefore not open to the public. However, there is no longer a military restricted area in Rostrup today. The settlements that were built during the construction of the airfield and later by the British form the core of today's Rostrup settlement area and fundamentally changed the once village character of Rostrup.

In the extreme southern area of ​​the former site there are now the Ammerland vocational schools and the training center for the construction industry, as well as the housing estate built by the British as part of the construction of the hospital. The first Lower Saxony State Garden Show was held in the immediate vicinity in 2002 , from which the Park of the Gardens emerged . The ramp in the former port of operations for seaplanes now serves the DLRG as a base on the Zwischenahner Meer.

In the far north, the Oldenburg / Bad Zwischenahn aviation club has been operating a glider airfield with a grass take-off runway since 1966, which is located a little off the former runways of the air base . To the south of it, the Golf Club am Meer has been running an 18-hole golf course since May 2000 , which takes up the majority of the site and in turn borders the park of the gardens.

The building of the former Bundeswehr hospital is currently located on the remaining area, directly on the Zwischenahner Meer. The site was sold by the Federal Real Estate Agency on August 16, 2012 to private investors who are planning a hotel complex there.

literature

  • Johannes Reinike: Chronicle of the airfield Zwischenahn . 3rd expanded and revised edition. Bad Zwischenahn 1986.
  • Klaus Harms: History of the Zwischenahn airfield . In: Chronicle of the Bad Zwischenahn community . Bad Zwischenahn 1994, p. 453 ff .

Web links

Movies

  • The power egg. Missile fighter Me 163 Komet. (D 2004, directed by Volker Schröder. Production: meeresblau-medien, Bad Zwischenahn).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information on the golf course at www.bad- Zwischenahn-touristik.de. Retrieved April 10, 2018 .
  2. ^ Bundeswehr: Land in Rostrup sold. In: Nordwest-Zeitung. August 18, 2012, accessed January 14, 2013 .
  3. ↑ "In five years with everything through". In: Nordwest-Zeitung. October 4, 2012, accessed January 14, 2013 .

Coordinates: 53 ° 12 ′ 6.4 ″  N , 7 ° 59 ′ 41.5 ″  E