Harrlstollen

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Harrlstollen
General information about the mine
Mining technology Civil engineering
Information about the mining company
Start of operation approx. 1880, shutdown from 1912, resumption in 1918
End of operation 1923
Funded raw materials
Degradation of Wealdenkohle

Seam name

3

Seam name

4th
Geographical location
Coordinates 52 ° 15 '3.7 "  N , 9 ° 5' 58.6"  E Coordinates: 52 ° 15 '3.7 "  N , 9 ° 5' 58.6"  E
Harrlstollen (Lower Saxony)
Harrlstollen
Location Harrlstollen
Location Glückaufweg, Ahnsen
local community Ahnsen
( NUTS3 ) Schaumburg
country State of Lower Saxony
Country Germany

The Harrlstollen was a hard coal mine near Bad Eilsen .

Coal mining

The mining of coal began on the northeast side of the Harrl near Ahnsen . Starting from a quarry, the tunnel was driven about 300 m to the south. The second tunnel mouth hole was located in the immediate vicinity of the Bad Eilsener Kleinbahn route . There was also a weather shaft in the forest. However, two tunnel mouth holes near Bückeburg , which are assigned to the system, belonged to a separate second tunnel system, which has been buried and cannot be found for many decades.

The analysis of seams 3 and 4, which were mined in the Harrlstollen, showed: ash 16.47%, coke yield 80%, volatile constituents 20%, sulfur 0.69%. In 1923, coal production was stopped again.

Use during the Second World War

View of the remaining southern mouth hole

The tunnel was used by aircraft manufacturer Focke-Wulf during the Second World War . The massive porch with which the second tunnel mouth hole was secured comes from this time. It was intended to accommodate the blueprint and model aircraft construction of the company on an area of ​​around 300 m² within the tunnel. However, these plans have not been fully implemented. The plant was given the cover name Disthen . On April 8, 1945 Bad Eilsen was captured by Allied troops. The blueprint department, which was located in the tunnel, was subjected to a thorough examination on June 10, 1945 and dismantled; so the episode ended as the aircraft factory quarters. The rest of the tunnel system could not be examined by the Allies, since the former mining operations had been dammed by brick wall dams since the early 1940s.

post war period

In the times of need after the end of the war, a resumption of coal production was discussed, but after reports of water ingress in 1947, the project was finally abandoned. At that time, a large part of the tunnel must have been under water. Later, the Harrlstollen was converted into a bat roost and the mouth hole was closed except for a small opening of approx. 40 × 40 cm. Activities in the gallery and in the neighboring former railway tunnel during the winter months have since been prohibited.

Reuse

In the main tunnel, the rooms of the blueprint and the model making department of Focke-Wulf AG are still located today, which take up about 1/3 of the cross-cut. The remaining stretches are home to a well-preserved old mine. Several stretches to the west branch off to the former mining areas, which, however, were closed by dams at the beginning of the 1940s, as problems with escaping mine gas were expected for the construction of the Disthen underground relocation.

The property on which the tunnel mouth hole is located belonged from 2005 to 2017 to the real estate company Zweihandhaus GmbH, which transferred it to the Association for Employment Promotion in Magdeburgerforth in 2010, which carried out investigations in the tunnel there in August 2010. During these investigations, a wall was blown open from which mine gas leaked, so that the mining authority closed the tunnel. It should be permanently locked, but the association was able to successfully sue this decision, so that further exploration work could be carried out there in October 2011. The mine gases ( methane ) that appeared in 2010 had meanwhile been flushed out by natural ventilation and could no longer be detected with gas measuring devices. The Harrlstollen in Ahnsen was included in the EU master plan in 2010; this plan was intended to investigate the use of the facility for a museum mine . In 2012 and 2013, work and explorations were carried out there, accompanied by a television station. During this work, other parts of the mine were explored, which, however, corresponded to the old mineworks.

For a long time it was suspected that these hitherto little explored stretches belong to the tunnel sought by the hobby researcher Günter Fernholz. Fernholz suspects there are unknown legacies from the end of the Second World War. This assumption did not appear to be entirely unfounded, as testimonies were actually found in the archives which support observations from April 1945. These testimonies speak of the storage of boxes, which are now known to be those in which the documents from the underground dislocation Disthen were evacuated.

In 2017 the site on which the former eastern mouth of the gallery is located was sold. It has been in private hands ever since. In this context, the new owner also appropriated large parts of the mine.

Since then, extensive renovation measures have been carried out on the old mine building with the intention of making the tunnel accessible to the public as a visitor mine.

View of the indoor system at operating point C103 during the renovation

Vandalism damage and several failed break-in attempts led to the installation of a video surveillance system on the historical substance, which is particularly worthy of protection.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Friedrich Winkelhake: Historical walk through the town and hall of Bad Eilsen . Small local history. Ed .: Initiative group "Search for traces" of the Schaumburger Landschaft e. V. Südhorsten, S. 3 ( schaumburgerlandschaft.de [PDF; 214 kB ; accessed on October 1, 2018]).
  2. ↑ Nazi treasure in the mine tunnel? (Video; 14:53 min.) In: FOCUS TV Reportage. Focus TV, 2013, accessed April 20, 2019 ( YouTube ).