Gunzenhausen auxiliary hospital
The auxiliary hospitals in Gunzenhausen were three former bunker hospitals in Gunzenhausen , a town in the Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen district in Central Franconia . The Gunzenhausen location was chosen because the city was far enough from the central Franconian cities, militarily relevant industries and military bases. The nearby Bundeswehr barracks in Heidenheim am Hahnenkamm was not built until the 1970s. A total of three facilities were installed within the city, a fully protected auxiliary hospital and two partially protected facilities. The parent houses for the auxiliary hospitals were the Nuremberg, Fürth and Ansbach clinics. The fully protected bunker hospital with operating theater, treatment and intensive care wing was the first of 44 auxiliary hospitals in Bavaria and served as a model for other auxiliary hospitals. According to current knowledge, it is the only fully protected auxiliary hospital of around 220 in West Germany that is still almost completely equipped; only the X-ray machines were given to Costa Rica and Cuba . The two other partially protected auxiliary hospitals in Gunzenhausen were completely closed in the 1990s.
Story and purpose
The underground bunker complex consisted of three facilities: the actual fully protected bunker hospital under today's vocational school in Bismarckstraße and two partially developed variants in the immediate vicinity, one below the Stephani school (formerly a girls ' secondary school) and one below the Simon Marius grammar school . The systems were built from 1963 to 1965 as part of the Cold War and were intended to treat patients in the nearby cities of the Nuremberg , Fürth and Ansbach metropolitan area in the event of a nuclear attack . In a total of three buildings in Gunzenhausen approx. 1400 beds were made available for the population of the three large cities. For this purpose, the auxiliary hospital below the vocational school Bismarckstraße had 427 patient and 159 employee beds, the auxiliary hospital Gymnasium had 600 beds and the auxiliary hospital Stephani-Schule had 400 beds. Only the bunker in Bismarckstrasse was fully protected, i.e. completely protected. The other two systems were only partially protected. For this purpose, the treatment wing was created to be radiation-protected and safe from rubble, but the patient wing was provided with emergency beds in the gyms or in the respective auditorium.
Building description of the auxiliary hospital in Bismarckstrasse
The fully protected auxiliary hospital below the vocational school in Bismarckstrasse is enclosed by a 60 centimeter thick reinforced concrete shell with lead protection and is located five meters below the ground below the vocational school building in Gunzenhausen. The auxiliary hospital has an area of around 4,000 square meters and an enclosed space of 13,800 cubic meters. The construction cost 3.9 million DM. The maintenance of the system caused annual costs of 25,000 DM. Conceptually, the bunker system had weaknesses: The waste disposal was unresolved, there was no dining room, and during the 14 days maximum stay the 600 residents would only have 15 toilets was available.
The equipment is almost completely preserved. In addition to the 600 beds and medically necessary material, the inventory also includes ship engines as emergency power generators and four decontamination showers.
Personnel and alerting
If necessary, the auxiliary hospitals could only be put into operation by the most efficient hospitals in the immediate vicinity. The three auxiliary hospitals in Gunzenhausen were each affiliated to the (parent) clinics in Nuremberg , Fürth and Ansbach, which as the parent hospital had to provide the necessary staff. The Gunzenhausen district hospital was merely co-opted. If the clinics were unable to provide the necessary staff in full, additional staff were made compulsory through the so-called Disaster Protection Act. The auxiliary hospital on Bismarckstrasse had a special task, as it was the only one of the three facilities to have an operating theater and intensive care wing. In addition, it was fully protected, while the other two auxiliary hospitals could only guarantee simple patient care in partially protected systems. Thus the priority of the activation of the three systems was clearly regulated. First the auxiliary hospital in Bismarckstrasse should be put into operation within 12 to 24 hours, while the two systems were then added within approx. 1 to 2 days.
The Central Franconian government had guidelines for each main hospital, which provided for the following personnel key with a bed number of 600 beds: 18 doctors, 8 laboratory and X-ray workers and 30 nurses in a ratio of 24: 6. A 60-hour week was used as the basis for this. The Bavarian Red Cross in Middle Franconia was established as the rescue service to evacuate the population, but also to secure transport for the medical staff. Despite a lot of correspondence and several site visits by appropriate medical staff from the respective headquarters in Gunzenhausen, the employees concerned remained skeptical as to whether, in a so-called emergency, an evacuation of a large city with more than 100,000 inhabitants in a neighboring town within 50 km range would be feasible.
Exercise and commissioning
On November 29, 1986, the auxiliary hospitals in Gunzenhausen were put into operation as part of a disaster control exercise. There had already been an exercise in the bunker systems in 1977. The 1986 exercise provided that the federal government had already established the so-called "tension" since November 20, 1986, and the corresponding constitutional organs reported numerous acts of sabotage in the administrative district. In addition, on November 29, 1986 at around 8:30 a.m., a rocket attack on an ammunition depot in Langlau was identified as a damage situation. The operating buildings of the munitions factory were completely destroyed. The exercise plan stipulated that around 100 people would be injured. The number of deaths was given as "unknown". Unfortunately, the course of the exercise is just as unknown, as this is no longer evident from the documentation that is currently still available.
The bunker system in the vocational school and in the Stephani school was finally used in the period from November 7th to 12th, 1989 to accommodate GDR migrants. In the run-up to this, there were great concerns about accommodating the so-called GDR emigrants in underground bunkers, which is why the decision was mainly made in favor of the partial bunker systems that were housed in gyms. However, many GDR emigrants said in discussions in front of the organizers of the district office that they would prefer the underground facilities, as the spatial separation within the bunker would ensure a much better privacy than in a gym. The operation was carried out with the support of the technical relief organization, which accounted for the operation in 1,800 hours with 260 helpers. The Bay was also in use. Red Cross with around 30 helpers in a total of 1,751 hours. Cost of the mission: 53,943 DM.
In June 1990, the auxiliary hospital below the vocational school was used again, this time to take in migrants from Romania . First of all, the emigrants were to be transferred to eight federal collection camps to record their personal details. For organizational reasons, however, this took place on June 11, 1990, so that no further relocation was necessary. After that, it became quiet around the system, further use is no longer occupied.
Public perception and current use
In 1996 the auxiliary hospital, like most of the other auxiliary hospitals and bunker facilities in Germany, was decommissioned and released from civil protection. It has been owned by the city since then. After a file was found by an employee at the Fürth Clinic in the historical archive of his facility, research began again for the first time on the facilities in Gunzenhausen, which have since been forgotten. From the inspection protocols of the employees of the Fürth Clinic from the 1960s it emerged that the Fürth Clinic was intended as the headquarters for Gunzenhausen. This knowledge was no longer known either in the relevant offices of the city of Fürth or within the Fürth Clinic . After an initial inspection of the facility by employees of the Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen District Office and the Fürth Clinic on January 22, 2009, it was quickly realized that the existing facility below the vocational school is a special piece of history, as the The facility below the vocational school was almost completely preserved - including the facility. In a first exhibition, with exhibits from the Gunzenhausen auxiliary hospital, on September 18, 2009, the population of Fürth was first publicly informed about the auxiliary hospital. The exhibition took place in the so-called Schwandbunker, a decommissioned nuclear shelter near the Fürth Clinic.
After an initial report in the local newspaper, a camera team from Bavarian TV arrived on November 2, 2009 with the well-known presenter Max Schmidt . As soon as it was broadcast, public interest in the facility grew, as the facility was hardly known to the local population either. On November 28, 2009, the District Office organized a first improvised tour for the public, which attracted well over 150 visitors - some of them from all over Germany. Due to the great success and the steady public interest, the bunker system below the vocational school is now used permanently for tourist purposes. The tours are offered by the Gunzenhausen Adult Education Center.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Documentation on the exercises in the auxiliary hospital of the Gunzenhausen vocational school on November 29, 1986 from the Weißenburg / Gunzenhausen district office, self-published, p. 2, 1986 in the Fürth Clinic Historical Archive.
- ↑ a b Underground operating theaters: Bunker Hospital in Gunzenhausen , nordbayern.de , published on June 3, 2015, accessed on September 28, 2015
- ↑ Relic of the Cold War: Gunzenhausen auxiliary hospital , May 2, 2014. Accessed September 28, 2015
- ↑ Documentation on the exercises in the auxiliary hospital of the Gunzenhausen vocational school on November 29, 1986 from the Weißenburg / Gunzenhausen district office, self-published, pp. 3 ff., 1986, in the Fürth Clinic Historical Archive.
- ↑ a b Hilfskrankenhaus.Gunzenhausen.de , accessed on September 28, 2015
- ^ Letter from the Middle Franconia government of August 13, 1971, No. II / 13 - 2011 ae VII 44 from the Medical Director Dr. Huber, Historical Archive Clinic Fürth
- ↑ Fürth: local protocol after inspection from November 26, 1971 by the hospital speakers at the Fürth City, Historic Archive Klinikum Fürth
- ↑ Experience report of the Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen district office. Care work and commissioning of the auxiliary hospitals Stepahnie School and Gunzenhausen vocational school on the occasion of the first admission of GDR emigrants from November 7th to 12th, 1989, self-published, 1989, historical archive Klinikum Fürth
- ↑ Gabi Pfeiffer: Clinic underground . In: Fürther Nachrichten of November 10, 2009 - available online
- ↑ Gabi Pfeiffer: Gunzenhausen: First night in the west in the bunker clinic. In: Fürther Nachrichten of November 10, 2009 - available online
Web links
- official homepage
- Area in the Bavaria Atlas of the Bavarian State Government ( information )
- Bunker hospital. In: Galileo . February 11, 2011, accessed September 28, 2015 (video).
Coordinates: 49 ° 7 ′ 5.2 " N , 10 ° 45 ′ 54.5" E