Fort Riistersiel
The Fort Rüstersiel (Fort I) was as part of the fortress plan Wilhelmshaven's an element to protect the Prussian naval base in Wilhelmshaven . It is located in the Rüstersiel district near the Maade . It is the best preserved fort of the Wilhelmshaven fortifications.
construction
From southwest to northeast, the fort has a total length of 420 meters and a width of 265 meters. The graft of the system is up to 70 meters wide. The wall of the facility is up to 6 meters high. There are still remains of casemates and bunkers built in brick on the north-north-western long side. To the north there was a connection to the outer fort of Altona via Möwenstrasse .
history
construction
The Maadeforts Rüstersiel, Mariensiel and Schaar were advertised on August 4, 1876 in the Wilhelmshavener Zeitung . Construction work began shortly thereafter. General von Voigt-Rhetz , the responsible department head of the War Ministry, convinced himself on June 24, 1878 about the progress of the construction work. Construction work ended on November 4, 1880. In order to be able to flood the area around the forts in the event of an attack, the wooden sluices were rebuilt as stone planks.
Fortification Road
A fortification road connected Fort Rustersiel with Fort Heppens , the road was laid out on Neuer Groder Weg and equipped with an ammunition train. After the Second World War, the southern route of the fortification street was renamed Freiligrathstraße and Rustersieler Straße . The forts Schaar and Mariensiel could be reached via another newly built circumferential road, which was also equipped with field railway tracks. The street ran on today's streets An der Vogelwarte, Dodoweg, Kurt-Schumacher-Straße.
use
According to the Versailles Treaty , the Maadeforts were allowed to remain, but not expanded or adapted to the state of the art. From 1918 on, Fort Rüstersiel served as an ammunition store. Directly outside the ditch between Rustersieler Straße (then Amtsverbandsstraße) and the Peripheral Road, a spa park was created by the bathing club, which was named "Delepark" after the landlady Adele Tiesler. The park's trees, like those of the fort, were felled for fuel after the Second World War . The fort's casemates were blown up by the British in 1948. There were considerations to use the demilitarized area as a recreation area or animal park. The site has been largely rebuilt since 1966 and has been the seat of the Institute for Bird Research "Vogelwarte Helgoland" since then . The site has been under landscape protection since 1968 .
Armament and occupancy
Initially, the fort was armed with two 15 cm L / 22 cannons, ten 15 cm ring cannons and eleven 12 cm cannons and 9 cm cannons. Later the fort was armored with 6 to 15 cm flat-track guns. In Rüstersiel the III. Stamm-Seebataillon housed, which replaced the East Asian Kiautschou before the First World War .
Web links
- Fort Rustersiel on www.festungsbauten.de
- Fort Rustersiel at www.luftschutzbunker-wilhelmshaven.de
Coordinates: 53 ° 33 ′ 50.8 " N , 8 ° 6 ′ 25.2" E
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Werner Brune: Wilhelmshavener Heimatlexikon KR . Ed .: Werner Brune. tape 2 , 1987, pp. 640 .
- ^ Wulf: Archaeological monuments in the independent city of Wilhelmshaven. Material booklets on the prehistory and early history of Lower Saxony . 1996.
- ^ Frank Gosch: fortress construction on the North Sea and Baltic Sea. The history of the German coastal fortifications until 1918 . 1st edition. Mittler, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-8132-0743-9 , pp. 51-64 .
- ^ Wilhelmshavener Heimatlexikon AJ . S. 319 .
- ^ Frank Gosch: fortress construction on the North Sea and Baltic Sea. The history of the German coastal fortifications until 1918 . 1st edition. Mittler, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-8132-0743-9 , pp. 51-64 .