Harth air ammunition plant
The Harth air ammunition plant (also known colloquially as the Ringelstein ammunition plant ) was located in the Ringelstein forest near Harth in the urban area of Büren , Paderborn district .
history
At the end of April 1935, officials from the Reich Aviation Ministry from Berlin visited the premises of the Harth Forestry Department in order to check it for the purpose of establishing an ammunition plant. Construction of the facility began on August 8 of the same year. Up to 2,000 people were employed on the construction site during the construction work. The workers came from all over Germany. To get the complex up and running quickly, work was carried out around the clock. An air force construction office was set up in Ringelstein especially for the new building. This belonged to the Luftgaukommando VI in Münster, but in terms of construction it was subordinate to the Dortmund Air Force Construction Office. The topping-out ceremony was held on June 27, 1936 together with the workers involved in the construction. On March 15, 1936, Oberleutnant Schlichting , who was responsible for the Muna, came to Ringelstein. Other senior employees followed in the next few days.
In 1941 the building was extended by the Luft-Muna. A camp for foreign forced laborers was built above the train station. According to sources, around 750 civilians and 100 soldiers were employed in the Muna . About two thirds of them are said to have been women. Towards the end of 1939, the first bombs for the Luftwaffe began to be stored. In 1945 American soldiers blew up part of the facility.
The 100-hectare area was used by the ordnance disposal service of the Arnsberg district government to destroy (final disposal) of dud bombs recovered in North Rhine-Westphalia . The dismantling ended in 2014 when the operating license expired. Remnants of munitions were transferred to the new ammunition destruction facility in Hünxe (Lower Rhine) in 2016 .
building
There were a total of 33 buildings in the work and administration area. The ammunition storage and processing area consisted of 50 ammunition houses and 23 storage tunnels. The tunnels for storing the ordnance were approx. 60 meters long and 8 m in diameter. They were dug into the slope and lined with brick. The ammunition houses, which were partly covered with earth, had a size of 10 m x 10 m or partly 15 m x 15 m.
Muna bridges
Deeper in the forest are two old brick bridges that were built to supply the system with supplies. The smaller viaduct has three arches, the larger of the two four arches. However, they were never finally completed.
The larger of the two bridges
The smaller of the two bridges
Muna settlement
The Muna settlement is located in the neighboring town of Siddinghausen . This residential complex was built with the purpose of providing a place to live for workers who could be won over to the munitions plant. Work on the settlement began in 1939 and ended in 1941.
swell
- Alexander Kessler (Hrsg.): Siddinghausen: History of a Westphalian village . Bonifatius, Paderborn 2000, ISBN 3-00-007193-8 , p. 434-436 .
Web links
- ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: information about the Muna in the village chronicle of Harth-Ringelstein )
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl Finke in Neue Westfälische , edition April 23, 2016 Bomb dismantling officially ended ( Memento from June 16, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
Coordinates: 51 ° 29 '22.8 " N , 8 ° 33' 33.9" E