Army ammunition facility vacation
Coordinates: 47 ° 47 '2 " N , 10 ° 3' 56" E
The Heeresmunitionsanstalt Urlau (short: Muna Urlau ) in Urlau, a district of Leutkirch in the Allgäu , was an ammunition plant for the manufacture of grenades and a warehouse for ammunition and chemical weapons in the Second World War . The facility was later used by the German Armed Forces and the US armed forces as an ammunition and missile storage facility.
The Muna Urlau was officially decommissioned by the Bundeswehr at the end of September 2007 and was completely cleared by the end of 2007. Plans for a large sawmill failed. On October 1, 2018, Center Parcs opened the Center Park Allgäu holiday park .
location
The ammunition facility is located east of the Urlau district of Leutkirch on the border between Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria in the so-called Urlauer Tann , a good 700 meters above sea level . The facility extends over about 186 hectares , of which 153.5 hectares are in Baden-Württemberg and 32.5 hectares in Bavaria. The site has a large number of partially collapsed bunkers , many of which are still very well preserved, and is accessed by a road network of around 17 kilometers in length. During vacation, there was a loading station ( 47 ° 46 ′ 59.63 ″ N , 10 ° 2 ′ 36.42 ″ E ) on the Herbertingen – Isny railway line until the end of 2001 . The neighboring town on Bavarian territory is Frauenzell , on the Baden-Württemberg side the Leutkirch districts of Friesenhofen, Allmishofen and Urlau.
The Muna in World War II
After the expropriation of 83 farmers from surrounding communities, who owned parts of the site at the time, the ammunition plant was built and operated from 1939. Initially around 20,000 tons of conventional ammunition were stored in above-ground, jacketed bunkers. Moreover, were the auxiliary military service, from the Reich Labor Service , of forced laborers and Russian prisoners of war grenades for the Wehrmacht endgefertigt. From 1943 onwards, poison gas grenades and chemical warfare agents intended for the National Socialist Alpine fortress were brought to vacation from all over Germany and there, due to the lack of storage space, were sometimes even stored openly and above ground. The warfare agents sarin , tabun , phosgene , adamsite and mustard gas ( mustard gas ) were stored during vacation . The multitude and quantity of warfare agents, which were hardly protected during vacation, almost led to a major catastrophe on two occasions. In the case of isolated French air strikes , which the French later referred to as “indiscipline of individuals”, the stored substances almost exploded, the intensity of which would have been comparable to the atomic explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki . The Muna Urlau did not have its own air defense and was dependent on the protection of interceptors from Memmingerberg , from today 's Memmingen Airport , which was still a military airport at the time.
For a second time, the stocks of weapons and poison gas were on the brink of explosion: on March 19, 1945, Adolf Hitler issued the so-called Nero order , according to which all military infrastructure in Germany should be completely destroyed so that it does not fall into the hands of the enemy. However, many German military officials shied away from blowing up poison gas supplies in order not to give the Allies any reason to strike back with poison gas. Torn between his conviction that he should not detonate the warfare agent and the command of the Führer, whom he had to obey, and whose execution was demanded by National Socialist zealots, including Gauleiter Wilhelm Murr , the facility commander, Major Günther Zöller , decided that not to cause dangerous substances to explode. Zöller was threatened with execution by the National Socialist rulers if he refused to give orders , which is why he made false blasting dates appear to be spread and repeatedly postponed. Gas masks and gas beds for small children were distributed to the population, resulting in panic and mass exodus from the surrounding hamlets. Instead of carrying out the demolition, Zöller followed a controversial implementation provision for the Fuehrer's order by the head of the Wehrmacht High Command , Wilhelm Keitel , who had recommended not to detonate chemical warfare agents but to dump them in the sea. Despite large parts of the infrastructure that had already been destroyed, Zöller was able to have several thousand tons of the warfare agents transported by rail to the Baltic Sea , where they were sunk in the Little Belt and are still damaging the fish stocks there today. The Allgäu was saved from a catastrophe. Zoeller sent engaging French as truce toxicologists Dr. Friedrich Jung with a white flag and handed them the Muna on April 28, 1945, along with the remaining 10,000 tons of warfare agents and the prepared explosive charges. The French then used Zöller as an auxiliary major in the disposal of the remaining toxins, most of which were sunk in the North and Baltic Seas.
post war period
After the French withdrew, some of the peasants expropriated in 1939 sued for the return of their land; however, their action was dismissed by the Federal Court of Justice. The Muna was declared a restricted area contaminated with explosives from 1945 to 1960 . In the course of rearmament , the Bundeswehr took over the site in 1959 and set up an ammunition depot in the existing bunkers, which was put into operation in 1961. In the 1960s, this was also used by the US Army as a rocket and ammunition storage facility and for top secret purposes. Ammunition trains kept rolling through Leutkirch until the 1990s, especially during the first Gulf War . The persistent rumors that US nuclear explosives were being stored on vacation were never confirmed. In 2007 the German Armed Forces finally gave up the holiday location, the siding had been abandoned years earlier.
Sawmill planned in the meantime
On the Baden-Württemberg part of the site of the former ammunition plant, an industrial area was to be created after approval by the German armed forces, which was to house a large Klenk AG sawmill and a combined heat and power plant . In order to prevent the establishment of a commercial area on the Muna site and, in particular, to counteract the anticipated loads from rapidly increasing traffic volumes, affected citizens have founded the Hart an der Grenz interest group (also: Muna Urlau interest group ). The community of interests could not prevent the change of the development plan . In a referendum on Sunday, January 13, 2008, the citizens of Leutkirch voted with 6372 votes, this was 61.3 percent of the votes cast, for the industrial area to locate the large sawmill. In view of the economic crisis in 2008/2009, Klenk AG gave up its project.
Holiday park Center Parcs Allgäu
On July 29, 2009, Center Parcs Europe NV announced that it would build a holiday park with around 800 jobs on the Muna site by 2013. On September 27, 2009, the citizens of Leutkirch voted for this project in a referendum with 11,610 votes (95.1 percent of the votes cast). After a Europe-wide invitation to tender, the sale to the only bidder, Center Parcs Allgäu GmbH, a subsidiary of the Center Parcs Europe NV group, took place on May 2, 2011. The buyer took over all development tasks from the municipality and cleared and demilitarized the site. He was supported by a state grant of seven million euros. On November 30, 2015, it was announced that the financing of the facility had been decided and that construction should be completed by the end of 2018.
At the end of 2015 it was announced that the financing of the 250 million euro project had been secured; By the end of 2018, around 1000 holiday homes and a large covered center with shops, restaurants, entertainment and a large bathing and wellness area had been completed. After a false start at the beginning of October 2018, the Leutkirch / Center Parcs Park Allgäu holiday park opened for holiday guests at the end of October 2018. The remaining construction work was completed by the end of March 2019.
Exhibition on the history of the Muna vacation
The “Muna Urlau Working Group” has been presenting the history of Muna Urlau since autumn 2015 in a permanent exhibition in the local history museum in Leutkirch
- the construction and operation of the Muna during the Second World War.
- the prevention of the demolition in April 1945.
- the removal of conventional ammunition and warfare ammunition by the French from 1945 to 1950.
- the military service from 1960 to 2007.
- the prospect of post-military use.
Trivia
• In the Allgäu homeland film Daheim die Leut ' (1985) the main actor, the part-time farmer Hans Allgeier, is employed as a security guard at the "Muna" and is released as a "security risk" during the course of the film.
• The SWR - docudrama " unknown heroes - resistance in the Southwest " recalls an episode in the history of "Muna Urlau".
literature
- Gebhard Blank, Bettina Kahl, Mathias Hufschmid: The history of the Muna vacation. Home care Leutkirch. 2007. ISBN 978-3000227486 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ sueddeutsche.de October 8, 2018: "Center Park Allgäu" has to close again immediately after the start of chaos
- ↑ IG Muna Urlau - general information ( Memento from September 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Gebhard Blank, Bettina Kahl, Mathias Hufschmid: The history of the Muna vacation.
- ↑ a b Bernd Guido Weber: When Major Zöller saved the Allgäu from poison gas. In: Schwäbische Zeitung, October 31, 2007-
- ↑ Muna Urlau working group ( Memento from September 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b Information pages of IG Muna Urlau ( Memento from July 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ IG Muna Urlau ( Memento from October 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Christian Klose: Planned large sawmill splits the Leutkircher . In: Schwäbische Zeitung , January 11, 2008.
- ↑ Center Parcs hopes for support . In: Schwäbische Zeitung from July 30, 2009 ( Memento from August 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ The majority is for the holiday park . ( Memento from October 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: Schwäbische Zeitung from September 28, 2009.
- ↑ Ferienpark Allgäu: Contracts signed and sealed ( Memento from September 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). Internet presence of the city of Leutkirch in the Allgäu.
- ↑ Contract perfect - Center Parcs comes to Leutkirch . In the online edition of the Schwäbische Zeitung on May 5, 2011.
- ↑ The financing is in place - Center Parcs can come to Leutkirch ( Memento from February 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). Internet presence of the city of Leutkirch in the Allgäu.
- ↑ http://ferienpark.leutkirch.de/index.php?finanzierung , accessed on February 12, 2016.
- ↑ 2nd opening in October , November 6, 2018, accessed on February 19, 2019.
- ↑ http://www.heimatpflege-leutkirch.de/museum-im-bock/familieausstellung/muna-urlau.html
- ↑ Kurier, Memmingen, April 28, 2020