Army ammunition plant Hänigsen

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The Hänigsen Army Ammunition Establishment in Hänigsen near Hanover was a test and model establishment for the storage of ammunition in potash mines by the Wehrmacht from 1936 . It consisted of the rededicated Riedel potash mine for underground storage and later also the production of ammunition, as well as the above-ground production facilities in the Wathlinger Forest warehouse. The standby camp on Celler Weg was used to accommodate conscripts and forced laborers . In 1946 about 11,000 tons of World War I ammunition exploded during relocation work and 86 men died.

Riedel Research and Model Institute

The Riedel mine was closed after the potash crisis and served the Burbach Kaliwerke AG as a reserve mine until it was designated by the Wehrmacht as a test and model facility in 1936 . Together with the Chemisch-Technische Reichsanstalt , army ammunition was detonated underground in order to obtain the basis for guidelines for the conversion and expansion of numerous salt mines into underground ammunition storage facilities for war preparation.

Army ammunition facility

From 1937 the mine was converted into a full ammunition plant, based on the model of which more than 25 potash mines in the Reich were converted into ammunition stores. For this purpose, a double-track underground diesel railway was built on levels 650 and 750. In the Wathlinger Forest about 2 km from the mine and not visible to aircraft, production and storage houses for the above-ground manufacture of ammunition - the forest warehouse - were built. Residential barracks and the permanent readiness camp for conscripted women were built on Celler Weg . During the war, parts of the production were moved underground. At the end of the war, around 20,000 tons of conventional ammunition were stored in the mine. Major Meyer, who had gone to Holstein with his staff, informed the Allies in American captivity about the chemical warfare agents and their precursors that were also stored.

At peak times, up to 1,500 people worked in the ammunition plant, including Russian prisoners of war and Eastern workers . In neighboring Papenhorst of Eastern workers was in a homestead for the children Poland orphanage set up in which between September 1944 and April 1945, numerous infants by hunger and cold were a cruel death.

post war period

Riedel mine

On June 18, 1946, a series of explosions occurred during the clearance and dismantling of munitions stored in the Riedel mine . Over 80 workers were killed and the area around the mine was contaminated. The condition and whereabouts of the conventional and chemical warfare agents ( blue cross warfare agents ) is unclear, as parts of the facility are no longer accessible.

In 1949 the shaft received new fixtures and potash production was resumed and the plant remained in operation until 1997. With a bottom at 1525 meters, Riedel has been the world's deepest potash mine since the 1980s. The mine operators kept a great secret about the old Wehrmacht pollution, so that the memory of it disappeared from the consciousness of the people of Hänigs.

  • Aerial view from the potash winding tower

  • Potash winding tower in Hänigsen / Riedel

  • Site of the Riedel mine in Hänigsen - the world's deepest potash salt mine, closed in 1996

  • Old factory building of the shaft

Forest camp

The forest camp later served various companies for the storage of food and came into the public eye at the beginning of the 21st century due to environmental pollution from contaminated sites from the armaments industry. The location of the forest camp is on the former railway line between the Riedel potash plant near Hänigsen and the potash heap near Wathlingen on the southern edge of the forest in front of the Brand nature reserve .

The crisps manufacturer Lorenz Snack World, formerly part of the Bahlsen concern , bought a 126,000 m² plot of land in the forest camp (Hänigsen) in 1990, but only found out about the contamination in 1994 through an expert report. In 2017, a claim for damages worth millions against the Federal Republic was pending at the Bonn Regional Court.

DP camp Colorado

The camp in Celler Weg continued to be used as a DP camp with the name Colorado for Displaced Person . Twenty-one former forced laborers who lived there and found work when the Riedel mine was cleared, were killed in the explosion in 1946.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ralf Bierod: The day of the apocalypse - The explosion of the army ammunition facility Bergwerk Riedel in Hänigsen and its history from 1936 to 1946 . P. 6 ff.
  2. ↑ Ralf Bierod: The day of the apocalypse - The explosion of the army ammunition facility Bergwerk Riedel in Hänigsen and its history from 1936 to 1946 . Blurb
  3. ↑ Ralf Bierod: The day of the apocalypse - The explosion of the army ammunition facility Bergwerk Riedel in Hänigsen and its history from 1936 to 1946 . P. 18 ff.
  4. ↑ Ralf Bierod: The day of the apocalypse - The explosion of the army ammunition facility Bergwerk Riedel in Hänigsen and its history from 1936 to 1946 . P. 33 ff., P. 46
  5. ↑ Ralf Bierod: The day of the apocalypse - The explosion of the army ammunition facility Bergwerk Riedel in Hänigsen and its history from 1936 to 1946 . P. 30 f.
  6. ↑ Ralf E. Krupp: Expert opinion on the flooding of the Lower Saxony Riedel potash and rock salt mine , p. 13
  7. ↑ Ralf Bierod: The day of the apocalypse - The explosion of the army ammunition facility Bergwerk Riedel in Hänigsen and its history from 1936 to 1946 . P. 43 ff.
  8. ↑ Friedrich-Wilhelm Schiller: Uetze / Lorenz demands compensation for the forest camp ... online on the page of the daily newspaper Neue Presse (NP) from September 19, 2017, last accessed on October 4, 2017
  9. ↑ Compare, for example, the hiking map from Kompass Verlag Hiking. Bike. Riding. Hanover and surroundings , compass connection map 848, map 2, scale 1: 50,000 [undated, 2012?], Grid square Q ...
  10. ↑ Contaminated area: Lorenz Snack World complains . Hannoversche Allgemeine, September 15, 2017, accessed October 8, 2017
  11. ↑ Uetze - Hänigsen, Ev.-luth. Friedhof , Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge, accessed November 6, 2017

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 '26.4 "  N , 10 ° 6' 28.6"  E