Langlau air main ammunition facility

Location of the site on aerial photo v. West (2020)

The Langlau air main ammunition plant was an armaments company of the Luftwaffe in the central Franconian district of Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen . This ammunition facility ( Muna Langlau for short , precise name Lufthauptmunitionsanstalt 2 / XIII ) was built in the 1930s east of the village of Langlau during the Nazi era .

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geography

The area originally encompassing around 233 hectares is located one kilometer east of Langlau and has an elevation profile of 411.9 to 466.6 m above sea level. NN on. The area is orographically to the right in the valley of the Brombach , which has been dammed up there since 1986 to form the Kleiner Brombachsee and is part of the Franconian Lake District . Immediately to the north is the peninsula nature reserve in the Kleiner Brombachsee , to the east is the Grafenmühle NSG and two kilometers to the south are the European main watershed and the Limes , which is also called the Devil's Wall .

history

The main air ammunition facility was established between 1935 and 1939. The site was conveniently located on the Gunzenhausen – Pleinfeld railway line, which had existed since 1865 , from which a pull-out track was built halfway between Langlau and Sorghof to the Muna. The farmers received only a small compensation of 20 Reichspfennig / m² for arable land and 6 RPf./m² for forest areas for their land . By Julius Streicher them were for their offspring generous new business areas in the Ukraine promised.

Initially, 60 bunkers, halls, barracks, canteen, laundry and sanitary rooms, a joinery, a sewing shop and roads were built on the site. Furthermore, watchtowers, a parade ground and a sports field were built. Sometimes up to 2000 people worked there; 1200 were accommodated directly on the premises, the officers lived in the area outside.

Bullets of all calibres were produced, mainly for anti-aircraft guns 8.8 and 10.5 centimeters . The annual turnover of railway wagons grew during the Second World War from 1,500 to 8,000 in 1944. Many female forced laborers were also employed in the Muna Langlau . According to an Italian contemporary witness , up to 150 Ukrainians were employed in 1944 and, most recently, 75 Italians. In the transport sector, 30–40 Red Cross trucks were used to replace rail traffic disruptions .

The Muna escaped the Allied bombing raids on the one hand by camouflaging greenery and, above all, because the aerial photographs and maps of this rural area were incorrect. It showed an Altmühl flood as a lake, which at the time of the intended bombing had long since drained away so that the pilots could not find a safe target. There were only minor low- flying attacks along the railway line and leaflets were dropped with the slogan: "Langlau im Loch - we will find you."

At Easter 1945 the forced laborers were evacuated and the area is said to have been mined afterwards. An ear witness claims to have heard the bunker being blown up from a distance while they were marching off.

Civil re-use

After the end of the war, there was little looting of the abandoned Muna. In 1947 almost 800 released prisoners of war and displaced persons arrived there and moved into the remaining barracks. In the years 1946 to 1948, ammunition residues were processed, which again employed up to 460 people.
Another part of the existing buildings was used from 1948 onwards by the Euterpe piano factory , later taken over by Bechstein , which sells “W. Hoffmann "," C. Bechstein "," H. Haegele ”,“ Berdux ”,“ Feurich ”and“ Zimmermann ”and profited from the still existing rail connection. Up to 300 employees were employed until production was relocated to the Czech Republic in 1993 .
Until August 31, 2005, parts of the mobilization base were used by the Free State of Bavaria as repatriate accommodation .
The track systems were dismantled at the end of the 2000s and are now partially renatured. In the period that followed, military collectors repeatedly feasted on the remains.

Pastoral use and place of remembrance

In 1953, the Eichstätt diocese leased the property on which Barrack No. 10 stood, demolished the structure and erected a simple wooden church there. In 1998 the Federal Real Estate Administration sold the square to the church.

In 1958, a grave-like memorial cross was erected at the church of the Mother Mary three times miraculous in memory of the former refugee camp and the dead of the displaced.

Military re-use

From 1956 the Bundeswehr set up the Supply Command 2 , Corpsdepot Langlau, fuel depot Langlau (SKB). The budget committee made 500,000 DM available for the site renovation this year . In 1992, 13% of the area was considered to be a suspected armament site . After the end of the Cold War, the Bundeswehr returned the site to civilian operation in 1995.

From 1960 to 1992 the US Army also operated an ammunition and fuel depot there as a corps depot. Together with the Bundeswehr facilities, the former Muna Langlau consisted of 34 ammunition stores and 20 fuel depots, each with 180,000 liters of fuel stored.

presence

At the end of the 2010s, plans became known to rededicate the remaining area, which is still around 168 hectares today, into a Center Parcs resort with around 800 residential units for the leisure industry. The plan is for around 3,000 to 4,000 holidaymakers to be accommodated in a spatially concentrated manner all year round on the site. Since then, both the local residents, who founded a citizens 'initiative “Lake District in Citizens' Hands”, and the Federation of Nature Conservation in Bavaria have been resisting the plans . The online property description published in 2018 by the Federal Agency for Real Estate Tasks on the site was then taken offline in September 2020 and the website captures in the web archive were also deleted or made unusable.
The question of how to dispose of old armaments remains unresolved.

literature

Friedrich Hetzner: Das Land am Brombach , Schrenk-Verlag 2002, ISBN 978-3-924270-37-7

Web links

Commons : Lufthauptmunitionsanstalt Langlau - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

49.121351 10.873166 423Coordinates: 49 ° 7 ′ 16.9 ″ N , 10 ° 52 ′ 23.4 ″ E