JHQ Rheindahlen

headquarters City of Mönchengladbach
Coordinates: 51 ° 10 ′ 35 ″  N , 6 ° 19 ′ 18 ″  E
Area :	4.31 km²
Residents :	622  (December 31, 2018)
Population density :	144 inhabitants / km²
Postal code :	41179
Area code :	02161
Location of headquarters in the West district of Mönchengladbach

The JHQ (from: J oint H ead q uarters, German: joint headquarters ) Rheindahlen was a military base north of Rheindahlen in the Mönchengladbach district west . It served from 1954 to 2013 as the headquarters of various units of the British armed forces and NATO . Among other things, it housed the headquarters of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC), a rapid reaction force of NATO. The JHQ Rheindahlen formed its own district ( headquarters ) with (from 1954 around 12,000) only 622 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2018) and 2000 buildings, including schools, churches, theaters (formerly), sports fields and shopping centers.

history

background

Towards the end of the Second World War in May 1945, the British armed forces advancing from the west set up two headquarters in West Germany: The 21st Army Group confiscated large parts of Bad Oeynhausen in North Rhine-Westphalia, while the Royal Air Force (RAF) used Bad Eilsen in Lower Saxony as a location chose.

The 21st Army Group was renamed the British Army on the Rhine (BAOR, Britische Rheinarmee) on August 25, 1945 , whose staff, together with Belgian and Dutch officers, became the staff of the Northern Army Group of NATO (NORTHAG, Army Group North ) formed. The staff of the Second Allied Tactical Air Force (2ATAF, 2nd Allied Tactical Air Fleet) was established on April 2, 1952 in Bad Eilsen based on the same principle . It consisted of officers from the Royal Air Force and the Belgian and Dutch air forces. The task of NORTHAG and 2ATAF was to defend the northern German area north of a Cologne – Kassel line against attacks by the Eastern Bloc or the Warsaw Pact (from 1955) and to repel invading forces in the event of war. In peacetime, the task was to review and optimize the operational plans and command structures through exercises, and at the same time to contribute to NATO's strategy of deterrence .

Decision for Mönchengladbach

As early as 1950 there were first plans to relocate the headquarters. There were several reasons for this: the British had claimed large parts of Bad Oeynhausen and Bad Eilsen for themselves since 1945 and had a considerable adverse effect on civil life and the economy of the two spa towns. A second reason was due to NATO's military strategy. After that, the Rhine formed a main line of defense in the event of war, so that important bases and headquarters should be as west of the Rhine as possible. The decisive argument in favor of a move, however, were the finances: According to the Germany Treaty of May 26, 1952, Germany was still responsible for the costs of confiscated German properties until June 30, 1954. After this date, the respective occupying powers had to bear these expenses themselves. Therefore, the British rushed to complete a new headquarters by mid-1954.

At the beginning of August 1952, the search for a suitable location began. It should be located in the British occupation zone between Aachen and Mönchengladbach, offer around four square kilometers and good transport links. From the initial six possible areas, four remained until the exploration on August 8th: Merbecker and Wegberger Busch, a forest area south of Myhl , the Birgelner Wald west of the Wildenrath military airfield and the Hardter Wald in the west of Mönchengladbach. The exploration group, made up of British and Belgian officers and representatives from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, decided in favor of the western part of the Hardter Forest: the favorable location, the good buildability and the easy supply of gas, electricity and water were decisive factors.

The final decision was to be made at a meeting on August 12, 1952 in Wildenrath. British officers and representatives from the Federal Republic , the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the city of Mönchengladbach took part. Franz Meyers , Minister of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia and at the time also formally Lord Mayor of Mönchengladbach, expressed serious concerns about the choice of the Hardter Forest. It is too close to the Hardt settlement and the lung sanatorium there and is an important local recreation area. As an alternative, he suggested the Rheindahlener Forest, located immediately to the south-west, with expansion areas in the north-west and south-west. After an immediate site visit, the British agreed; they wanted to graduate that same day. The British immediately confiscated the site, including the expansion area around eight square kilometers. The new headquarters should be ready for occupancy by June 1, 1954; the estimated construction costs amounted to 130 million DM. As the whole matter had been treated confidentially, the public did not find out about the confiscation and the construction project until August 15, through a press release. The reactions were mixed: some citizens complained about the loss of the forest, others protested against the increasing military presence, while the local economy hoped for contracts.

Development and construction

On August 15, 1952, the surveying work began for the approximately 400 hectare headquarters. In the British armed forces, Colonel Harry Grattan was entrusted with the construction management as chief engineer officer ; on the German side, construction director Otto Schmalbruch was responsible as the head of the specially founded financial building authority of the city of Mönchengladbach. In September, the first trees for construction roads were cleared, and on October 28, the mechanical production of over 20 kilometers of main roads made of concrete began.

The largest single construction measure was the staff building, a three-storey multi-wing building with external dimensions of around 250 by 160 meters and around 2000 rooms. The foundation stone for the so-called Big House was laid on July 1, 1953. In addition, 1,126 residential buildings were built for married couples and families, of which 476 were for NCOs and men and 650 for officers. There were also around 100 simpler accommodations for single soldiers and civilian employees. All in all, around 10,000 people should be able to be accommodated in the JHQ. In addition, over 300 apartments for German employees were built in the surrounding communities, as well as the RAF Hospital Wegberg in Mönchengladbach city area directly on the border with Wegberg and the Nicholson Barracks (today's Niederrhein barracks ) in the north of Mönchengladbach with a printing plant and the salary office. In the JHQ itself, all facilities that are necessary for supply, social affairs, culture and sport in a settlement were built: officers' fairs , clubs , schools, theaters, cinemas , shops, post office , fire station, churches, outdoor swimming pool and over 20 sports facilities.

Because of the time pressure, the British used standard designs for most of the buildings that they had already used for similar barracks. As a result, the Mönchengladbach architects missed out on this largest construction project in the history of the city. The local construction companies hardly got a chance either; the British preferred large foreign construction firms. No less than 71 Mönchengladbach companies had participated in tenders or received orders by mid-February 1953. A total of 1,500 main contractors and several subcontractors were involved in the construction, up to 6,000 workers were working on the site at the same time.

Three coal-fired thermal power stations with a total of 26 boilers supplied the system with heating and hot water. The JHQ was connected to the public gas network and received electricity from a 15 kV line. A total of around 1,600 km of all types of lines were laid. A connection to at least one of the three surrounding waterworks was originally planned for the supply of drinking water. Since their water quality was only moderate and the construction management knew about a nearby house well with better water, they had test drilling carried out. These encountered good quality groundwater at a depth of 20 to 26 meters. The German geologists asked for advice, however, considered the yield of the deposit to be too low, but the British pioneers around Colonel Grattan were not deterred and kept looking, because they knew about Grattan's special ability: he had become a dowser in India before the Second World War earned a certain reputation. Grattan himself used a dowsing rod to determine 17 additional locations for test drilling, some of them outside the JHQ. The same groundwater reservoir was encountered in all of the boreholes. It quickly became clear that its volume would be able to deliver the calculated 340,000 liters per day. So four pipe wells were built, which, contrary to expectations, allowed the JHQ to be supplied independently and inexpensively with good drinking water.

The total costs for all development and construction measures reached 198 million Deutschmarks, of which 173 million went to the JHQ Rheindahlen.

Moving in and naming

The very wet autumn of 1952 and the severe winter of 1953/54 delayed completion. The planned move in on July 1, 1954, could not be kept and had to be postponed to October 1. On this day the first soldiers from Bad Oeynhausen arrived at the Rheindahlen train station. On October 4, 1954, the four headquarters of the JHQ officially took over their management tasks: The staffs of RAF Germany (RAFG) and the British Rhine Army (BAOR) as well as the NATO staffs of NORTHAG and 2ATAF. The Commander-in-Chief of the Rhine Army was also the Commander-in-Chief of NORTHAG and the Commander-in-Chief of the RAFG was the Commander of the 2ATAF. The staffs of the two NATO units consisted of around 800 officers, NCOs and men from the three nations of Belgium, the Netherlands and Great Britain. In November 1956, German soldiers joined them, and from August 1977 also US soldiers. The British occupied around a third of all officer positions.

There was a lot of back and forth when it came to naming the new facility. The city councilors of Mönchengladbach wanted to see the city name in the name, but the British generals had initially chosen SW Rhine Garrison as the name. At a reception in the city on November 29, 1954, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army on the Rhine, General Sir Richard Gale , announced that he wanted to name the new location Mönchengladbach . Regardless of this, the British themselves have since usually referred to it as JHQ Rheindahlen or just Rheindahlen . The Mönchengladbacher initially called it British headquarters , later also NATO headquarters or simply headquarters , JHQ , or HQ .

attacks

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) first carried out a car bomb bombing in 1973 in the parking lot of the Globe Theater . Since the explosion triggered by the time fuse was supposed to take place after the end of the performance, but it ended earlier than announced, there were no injuries, only a few destroyed cars. A Dutchman and a woman from Belfast were caught, their supposed agent leader, James Joseph McCann , however, escaped.

On March 23, 1987 there was another terrorist attack by the IRA in the JHQ: In front of an officers' mess with German guests, a 100 kg car bomb detonated late in the evening. Over 30 people suffered injuries, three of them severe. There were 27 civilians among the visitors to the officers' mess; the detonation could be felt and heard within a radius of 20 kilometers. The building was destroyed and more than a dozen cars went up in flames. As a result of this attack, the entrances to the JHQ were controlled from then on, but it was still possible to drive through the area by bicycle, for example. The area had previously been freely accessible.

After the cold war

The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the end of the Cold War also affected the JHQ. The first thing the British dissolved on April 20, 1993 was the headquarters of the Royal Air Force Germany . On June 24, 1993, the staff of the Northern Army Group and the Second Allied Tactical Air Force were decommissioned . As the fourth and last, the HQ of the British Rhine Army was decommissioned on October 28, 1994, but not dissolved, but converted into the headquarters of the United Kingdom Support Command (Germany) (UKSC (G), headquarters of the British Support Command Germany).

The headquarters of the Multinational Division Central (MND (C), (Multinational Division Central Europe) in Rheindahlen) was operational from April 1st, 1994. The concept of this first real multinational division of NATO with the four participating nations of Belgium , Germany , Great Britain and the Netherlands originated still from the Cold War. The airmobile MND (C) was supposed to support the NORTHAG as a reserve unit . As NATO increasingly oriented itself towards other crisis reaction forces, it closed the headquarters of the MND (C) on October 25, 2002.

Part of these NATO Rapid Reaction Forces is the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC), which was founded as a NATO Rapid Reaction Force on October 2, 1992. The staff of the ARRC with around 500 employees has been based in the JHQ Rheindahlen since 1994. 17 nations are involved in the ARRC, with Great Britain being the lead nation.

For a few years there were increasing indications of a relocation of the remaining headquarters and the permanent closure of the JHQ. On September 12, 2007, the British Ministry of Defense announced its plans to relocate the headquarters of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (HQ ARCC) to Innsworth in the British county of Gloucestershire and to completely abandon the JHQ Mönchengladbach-Rheindahlen by 2014.

The final decision was made public on May 15, 2008 and said that the troops would be held at a new location from 2010. In the summer of 2008, the NATO Rapid Reaction Force withdrew and, by 2014, all other troops. When exactly and which troop units were to be relocated, it was announced in spring 2009. The task of being the residence of the British armed forces was celebrated on July 11-14, 2013 in the JHQ as well as in Mönchengladbach city center, but not as hoped with a member of the British royal family . On December 13, 2013, the JHQ Rheindahlen was cordoned off and officially handed over to the Federal Republic of Germany. The Federal Agency for Real Estate Tasks (BImA) has owned the site since then .

Location and facilities

Big House of the JHQ Rheindahlen in September 2012

The JHQ is located around eight kilometers west of the center of Mönchengladbach and, as a separate headquarters district , belongs to the city ​​district West , which also includes Rheindahlen. In 2007 around 5800 people lived in the JHQ, but only 232 of them had their main residence here. About 1,000 civilian employees worked at the headquarters. The site, confiscated by the British in 1952, later became the property of the Federal Republic of Germany and was made available to the British armed forces in 1983 by means of a leasing agreement. Its area covered around 380 hectares with around 2000 buildings and 36 kilometers of roads. The streets have British names such as Queens Avenue (the main street), Londonderry Drive or Colchester Walk . Two streets were named after the two site managers Grattan and Schmalbruch in later years. The headquarters was freely accessible, but since the attack in 1987 there have only been three entrances and entry controls.

In addition to the living quarters and the military service buildings, there were three churches in the JHQ, an Anglican ( St. Boniface ), a Catholic (St. Thomas More) and a common church for the Church of Scotland and Methodists ( St. Andrew's ). There were also three primary schools, a secondary school, two cinemas, a theater and several shops, including a supermarket owned by the NAAFI , whose international headquarters are also in Rheindahlen. For sporting activities there were two cinder tracks, an outdoor swimming pool, a riding stables and facilities for football, hockey, tennis, cricket and squash, among other things.

The JHQ together with other smaller properties in the area formed the Rheindahlen Military Complex (RMC).

In local public transport, it was first opened up by lines 23 and 27 of Stadtwerke Mönchengladbach and later by lines 023 and 026 of NEW mobil und aktiv Mönchengladbach , which connects directly to the Mönchengladbach districts of Hardt and Rheindahlen and beyond two days before the closure connected with the Mönchengladbach center, Wickrath and Odenkirchen .

Relations with Mönchengladbach

The nations represented in the JHQ Rheindahlen and the city of Mönchengladbach endeavored to maintain good relationships from the start. There were mutual receptions on the respective national holidays. High-ranking personalities who visited the headquarters on business usually paid an official visit to the city at the same time. Among them Prince Philip , Prince Charles , King Baudouin I , Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker and various defense ministers and commanders in chief.

As early as 1954, a German-British club was established with the aim of promoting friendly relations. In addition, many regular events are linked to the JHQ, including the International Mönchengladbach Military Competition and the NATO Music Festival .

With up to 10,000 residents and 1,000 civilian employees, the JHQ Rheindahlen was of great importance for the local economy.

The JHQ in light literature

In the popular literature, the NATO headquarters provided the backdrop and starting point in the novel "Raptus". The novel by the Mönchengladbach lecturer, journalist and writer Ansgar Fabri tells the fictional story of a series of murders against soldiers in the JHQ. After the murder of a soldier with an influential family in the USA, the FBI agent Gordon Northborn is ordered to Germany, where he is supposed to investigate the case with the Mönchengladbach police officer Oskar Pelzer and his team. “Raptus” takes up the global issue of the Afghanistan conflict and the consequences of war traumatization and processes them locally as a psychological thriller. The novel was well received in the local press. The novel takes place in different, comprehensible places inside and outside of the NATO headquarters. The book was included in the city archive of Mönchengladbach.

Closing ceremony

From July 11th to 13th, 2013 the English and Germans commemorated their common history. The British military in Mönchengladbach got involved intensively in the social structures of the city. The British always took part in popular celebrations and charity events and were on friendly terms with civilians. The closing ceremony was correspondingly emotional for many. The events began with a ceremony at the Big House . Among other things, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach and the then Mayor of Mönchengladbach Norbert Bude took part. During the reception, General Kommandeur (GOC) BFG, Major General John Henderson said: “It is the end of an era, a page will definitely be turned in the book of history.” He thanked the Mayor and the people of Mönchengladbach “for the warm welcome they received City and its company through thick and thin ”. This first event was accompanied by the Crossed Swords Pipe Band, made up of nine nations, under the direction of Bruges Pipe Major David Johnston, the Prince of Wales's Division and the German Army Music Corps 300 . The Crossed Swords Pipe Band had found a home in the JHQ for several years and held regular practice weekends here.

The celebrations also included a large parade with numerous high-ranking members of the British military on Kapuzinerplatz in Mönchengladbach, in which soldiers from the 16th Signal Regiment and the 1st Military Intelligence Battalion took part. Major General John Henderson appealed to the common sense of human rights to work for world peace. A reception by the Lord Mayor's house in the recreation house and a celebration with many thousands of guests, former residents of the JHQ and civilians, were also part of the celebrations, as was a non-public service. The appearance of a Robbie Williams tribute band, the Crossed Swords and a big fireworks display at the end sealed the end of the JHQ.

Todays use

From August 6th to 13th, 2014 the site of the former JHQ Rheindahlen was used as the venue for the 15th Federal Youth Camp of the THW-Jugend eV.

On May 12, 2014, the then Lord Mayor Norbert Bude reported to the main committee that the JHQ is expected to become a location for the initial accommodation of refugees. Since the end of 2015, part of the site has been used as refugee accommodation, and since August 2016 it has also been used as an initial reception facility for refugees. The police also use part of the site for training purposes.

future

In 2011, a public participation on the future of the JHQ area was carried out. The consensus in the Perspektivenwerkstätten was that the focus should be on “deconstructing nature and landscape”.

At the end of 2013, plans of a Saudi Arabian investor group became known, which wanted to build an amusement park on part of the site (60 ha of the total of 400 ha). An actual investor was not found in the following years. The park called Seasons should consist of four domed roof halls, which have the four seasons as their theme. There should also be an elevated railway and a hotel.

In an interview on November 24, 2014, Mayor Hans Wilhelm Reiners, who has been in office since 2014, pointed out that there was a council resolution stating that the subsequent use of the JHQ site should go in the direction of large-scale reforestation with commercial islands.

The Federal Agency for Real Estate Tasks (BImA) is planning to convert the entire site back into forest and hand it over to its Federal Forests division . It is also intended to serve as a federal compensation area. Initially, around 600 buildings on an area of ​​75 hectares were to be demolished from August 2018. The demolition of further buildings in the western area should begin in spring 2020 at the earliest ^{[out of date]} . The demolition work on the entire site is expected to last until 2035 due to the size and ongoing use. A 35-meter-high hill with a viewpoint is to be built on the former sports field from the resulting demolition material. According to the plans, a new route through the western area of ​​the JHQ is to be created by 2023 with a connection to the Schwalm-Nette nature park in the northwest and to the connection to the edge of the opencast mine in the south. The southern part of the JHQ site is to serve as a “tangible landscape area with access routes”, the northern part is to remain without human use. As a reminder of the earlier use, consideration is being given to leaving equipment elements such as street signs and signposts and adding visual media.

documentation

• Goodbye Tommies! Farewell to the British , WDR 2014

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://www.moenchengladbach.de/fileadmin/user_upload/statistik/Bevölker_nach_Stadtbezirken_und_Stadtteile__12_2018.pdf
2. ↑ Law on the Treaty on Relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Three Powers of May 26, 1952 with additional treaties in the version of March 28, 1954, Financial Agreement, Article 4
3. ^ British Armed Forces JHQ MG-Rheindahlen
4. ↑ Patrick Franke: Mönchengladbach 1987. In: A trace of violence - The IRA attacks in Münster and West Germany, 1978-1996. March 21, 2017, accessed on December 27, 2018 (online report from the history seminar of the WWU Münster ). 
5. ^ Benedikt Fausch, Michael Siems: Chronology of the attacks. Therein: March 23, 1987 - Mönchengladbach, JHQ Rheindahlen . In: A Trace of Violence - The IRA Attacks in Münster and West Germany, 1978–1996. March 21, 2017, accessed on December 27, 2018 (online report from the history seminar of the WWU Münster ). 
6. ↑ Hardly any chance for JHQ. Rheinische Post from August 15, 2007, Mönchengladbach edition, p. B1
7. ^ British forces to move from Germany to UK. Ministry of Defense News, September 12, 2007 via defense-aerospace.com
8. ↑ The end of the JHQ. Rheinische Post of May 16, 2008, Mönchengladbach edition, p. B1
9. ↑ Farewell to JHQ Mönchengladbach: Brits say 'goodbye' for four days in July
10. ↑ Official population statistics of the city of Mönchengladbach, as of June 30, 2007 PDF ( Memento from October 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
11. ^ Ansgar Fabri: Raptus . Open studio Mönchengladbach, Mönchengladbach 2011, ISBN 978-3-942950-00-8 .
12. ↑ Christian Hensen: First crime thriller published by Offenes Atelier . In: Rheinische Post . April 13, 2011 ( online ( memento of December 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF; 642 kB ; accessed on March 30, 2013]). First crime thriller published by Offenes Atelier ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
13. ^ Federal Youth Camp 2014 , accessed on June 3, 2014
14. ↑ Ralf Jüngermann: Land chooses JHQ as refugee accommodation rp-online.de, March 13, 2014, accessed on June 8, 2014
15. ↑ ^{a b c} New paths in the JHQ are to be created by 2023. In: rp-online.de. May 29, 2018. Retrieved July 16, 2018 . 
16. ↑ JHQ site is being renatured . In: City of Mönchengladbach (Ed.): Focus on the city . Supplement to the Sunday newspaper Extra Tip . No. 18 , July 7, 2013, p. 3 ( online [PDF; 1.9 MB ; accessed on April 19, 2019]).
17. ↑ Ralf Jüngermann: Saudis are planning a giant amusement park in the JHQ. In: Rheinische Post . December 21, 2013, accessed April 24, 2016 . 
18. ↑ Claudia Kook: Little concrete information about the planned amusement park. In: Westdeutsche Zeitung . April 16, 2014, accessed April 24, 2016 . 
19. ↑ "We are all Mönchengladbach" , interview with Lord Mayor Hans Wilhelm Reiners on his website, accessed on April 17, 2015
20. ↑ ^{a b c} Gabi Peters: The JHQ is getting a "mountain". In: RP Online . November 13, 2019, accessed November 16, 2019 . 

literature

• Hans Hoster: The headquarters in Mönchengladbach: The unknown district “JHQ” . Ed .: Otto von Bylandt Society, Friends of the Municipal Museum at Rheydt Castle. Mönchengladbach 2004, ISBN 3-925256-67-9 .
• Nicole Blaffert, Franz Wamhof (with a foreword by Martin Barnes): JHQ. Blaffert and Wamhof . Ed .: Städtisches Museum Schloß Rheydt. Fotohof, Mönchengladbach 2012, ISBN 3-902675-82-9 .