Air raid shelter at the Gaishalde
The air raid shelter at the Gaishalde is a former air raid shelter below the Laurentius Church in Bietigheim-Bissingen .
construction
The municipalities of Bietigheim and Bissingen are about 19 km north of Stuttgart and were used as relocation sites by armaments companies such as Daimler-Benz and Bosch . For example, the worsted spinning mill and the DLW halls served as production facilities. In the course of the war, numerous bombed-out people from the Ruhr area , the Rhineland and also from Stuttgart itself were quartered in Bietigheim and Bissingen. Before the war, the two parishes had a total of around 12,000 residents.
From 1942 the Enz viaduct and the train station were also bombed regularly.
For these reasons, the capacity of the cellars, which were equipped with air protection equipment in the 1930s and which were mostly carved directly into the rock in this area, was no longer sufficient. In April 1944, on the initiative of the mayor of Bietigheim Gotthilf Holzwarth and the companies Daimler-Benz, Bessey and DLW, construction of several air raid tunnels began; In Bissingen, the local mayor Silcher, the Grotz machine factory and several private individuals pushed the work forward. The work was supported by Reich funds after it was accepted into the expanded Luftschutz-Führer program in May 1944.
The air-raid shelter at the Gaishalde was intended for the residents of the old town up to the passage at Café Central and was driven into the limestone rock behind or under the houses in the Gaishalde from April 1944 . At that time this was still built right up to the steep rock walls.
Twelve Italian forced laborers from the central passage bearing Bietigheim had with jackhammers the tunnel junctions in the rock drive. The demolitions were carried out by the demolition engineer of a civil engineering company. You worked from two entrances, a southern one in Bahnhofstrasse in the back yard of the Hahn stonemason and a western one. The overburden, organized by the NSDAP , was driven away at night by trucks from Großsachsenheim Airport . The work progressed hesitantly, as fissures in the rock, lack of material, inadequate equipment and the miserable working conditions for the slave laborers proved to be a hindrance.
Wartime
The tunnel, which had 243 seats and a calculated 249 standing room, was ready for use from November 1944 and was used intensively, especially after the devastating air raid on Heilbronn in December 1944. In the early days, however, there were difficulties with ventilation; many users have fainted from lack of oxygen. A ventilation system was therefore set up by means of a stove pipe, and a stretcher was provided in the tunnel on which the unconscious were to be transported out. Electric light and sanitary facilities were not available.
Since the tunnel was being used so intensively, the work to complete it could no longer be carried out. Drilled holes in the walls and the z. Some of the corridors that were not driven at the originally planned height are evidence of this. From around February 1945, the tunnel was no longer used only during the air raids, but served as permanent quarters for bombed out people. In April 1945 the Enz formed the front line for ten days before Bietigheim and Bissingen were occupied by French troops on April 24, 1945 and the residents were able to leave the cellars and tunnels.
post war period
The air raid shelter at the Gaishalde was used as a storage room after the Second World War . Later the history association of the city of Bietigheim-Bissingen took over the patronage and made the corridors accessible to the public; In 2009, the research group Untertage e. V. agreed an exhibition and documentation concept. The air raid shelter at the Gaishalde can be visited on the first Sunday in April, July and September as well as on the day of the open monument . It can only be entered via the western entrance; the south entrance was walled up. There is a splinter protection cell next to the west entrance .
A brochure was published for the tunnel, the author of which Norbert Prothmann is also responsible for the exhibition concept in the Gaishalde tunnel. He has evaluated the holdings of the city archive as well as previous publications and the statements of contemporary witnesses.
Web links
- Information on the air raid shelter at the Gaishalde
- Overview of the air raid shelter in Bietigheim-Bissingen (PDF; 1.4 MB)
- Tour of the Ro1 museum bunker and the Gaishalde air raid shelter in Bietigheim-Bissingen
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Underground Research Group ( Memento of the original from October 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Cover of the brochure on the tunnel
- ↑ To the brochure about the Gaishalde tunnel
Coordinates: 48 ° 57 '24.3 " N , 9 ° 7' 56.8" E