Heeresmunitionsanstalt Feucht
The Army munitions plant wetland was a munitions plant (also briefly Muna ) of the Army of the Wehrmacht in the Nazi era . It was created south of Nuremberg near Feucht as part of the armament of the Wehrmacht in the 1930s .
location
The original area of 22.4 hectares is located 2 km west of Feucht in the Le (h) mgruben parcel and the headwaters of the Ochsengraben , a right tributary of the Gauchsbach . This drains the southern Lorenzer Reichswald from a height of 365 to 369 m above sea level. NN towards the Schwarzach .
history
The area was developed from 1934. It was there, among other things, the production of grenades for the 42 cm mortar Dicke Bertha , as well as the warheads for the rocket unit 4 ( A4 for short , propaganda designation V2 ) and from 1944 the V3 cannon (high pressure pump) . Even poison gas grenades were manufactured there. The extensive, partially bunkered military production facilities also had three flak towers , extinguishing water ponds, a canteen, a self-sufficient power supply and a separate two-lane siding for goods and people, which branched off the Feucht – Wendelstein railway line.
From 1944 a prisoner of war camp was also built with four 50 meter long barracks. These were located behind the extinguishing water pond to the left of the road that leads to the archery range. 32 Soviet and two Polish prisoners of war died while working in the ammunition plant and were buried in Feucht on the cemetery wall. In the front archery range, which was still a sand pit until 1960, further bones of prisoners of war from the last months of the war were excavated during its construction in the 1960s, but no longer recovered. Shortly before the end of the war, around 18 tons of spray canisters with the LOST warfare agent were stored there.
After soldiers of the 7th US Army took the Heeresmunitionsanstalt Feucht on April 17, 1945 , the Americans collected Wehrmacht stocks there, for example from ammunition trains from the Nuremberg marshalling yard and large quantities of booty ammunition from other locations. The Muna was renamed Ammo Collecting Point Feucht . On May 4, 1946, a fire got out of control in the complex and spread to a freight train. In a chain reaction, the collected ammunition residues (20,000–30,000 tons) including the entire load of the freight train exploded. The train was loaded with 300 warheads of the Aggregate-4 missile, each of which contained 738 kg of Amatol . Around half of the 130 buildings and all of the track systems were completely destroyed. The population of the neighboring towns was evacuated as a precaution, so that apart from the considerable damage to property, there were no other victims to complain about. In April 1948, all but five of the still intact ammunition bunkers were blown up on the instructions of the occupying forces. The area was initially abandoned and remained as an unguarded military area .
The former Muna site was then used in the 1960s as a fuel store for the Feucht Army Airfield helicopter base, which was built immediately to the north . After the US Army withdrew and the site was returned to the Federal Republic of Germany, it was rededicated as an industrial park between 2002 and 2004. The track system was dismantled from 1961 and partially renatured.
The floor of the Muna's toxic waste dump, which is located in the western and southern parts and designated by the US Army as FASA and Nato Site 23 , has been sealed with concrete since 2006 with its old arms . This was carried out instead of a soil renovation. The risk of completely removing the contaminated sites from the ground and thereby polluting the atmosphere was assessed as too high, as the ammunition is partly equipped with poisonous gas . The area is separated from the groundwater by a waterproof layer of clay.
present
Today, the Muna site only serves as a base for the Ordnance Disposal Service Northern Bavaria when needed and when the opportunity arises. There are no sightseeing opportunities or guided tours, but a permanent exhibition was set up in the Museum of Historical Defense Technology in 2006 to provide information about the Muna. Unauthorized entry into the fenced area has been subject to a fine of up to € 1000 since 2003.
One of the class V 36 shunting diesel locomotives formerly used on the site has been preserved over the decades and has been in the Darmstadt Railway Museum since 1998. In 2004 it was refurbished and is now in a neat rollable condition.
Since the hot summer of 2019, voices have been growing louder calling for complete demilitarization and sustainable rehabilitation with subsequent reforestation of the site. A forest fire could not be fought conventionally there because of the risk of explosion from old armaments.
Footnotes and individual references
- ↑ Location of Muna Feucht on the Bayern Atlas Classic
- ↑ a b press report N-Land
- ↑ a b Track connection of the Muna Feucht
- ^ Lecture by TH-Nürnberg on the renovation of the Muna site ( Memento from November 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ http://www.wehrtechnikmuseum.de/Exponate/Sonderausstellungen/Muna_Feucht/muna_feucht.html
- ↑ http://www.konrad-rupprecht.de/jahresschluss2006.htm
- ↑ a b District Association Feucht
- ^ Ordinance of the city of Feucht zur Muna ( Memento from November 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Diesel locomotive, formerly MUNA Feucht
- ^ Diesel locomotive of Heeres-Muna Feucht, vehicle portrait
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 22 ′ 53.5 ″ N , 11 ° 10 ′ 57 ″ E