Air Force transmitter Primadonna
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Prima donna
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| Place: | Veldrom / Feldrom / Kempen (town of Horn-Bad Meinberg ) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Country : | North Rhine-Westphalia | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Country: | Germany | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Altitude : | 424 m above sea level NN | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Coordinates: 51 ° 48 '36 " N , 8 ° 55' 54.7" E | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Use: | Telecommunication mast , military use | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Demolition : | 1945 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Mast data | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Client : | Wehrmacht | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Operating time: | 1937-1945 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Data on the transmission system | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Last modification (transmitter) : | 1943 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Waveband : | LW transmitter | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Send type: | Wire radio | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Shutdown : | 1945 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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The Air Force station Prima Donna was in the Second World War, one of the Air Force operated between 1944 and April 1945 air situation transmitter with a transmitter power of 1.5 kW in the long wave range from 150 to 155 kHz , of the population in North-West Germany about impending air strikes warned.
Air Force transmitter
The air force transmitters were located in the area of the hunting divisions. Each division had its own transmitter to coordinate the hunt:
- 1. Jagddivision (middle and east) the air force transmitter Horizont
- 2nd hunting division (north) the air force transmitter Kreuzotter (possibly also crusader)
- 3rd Jagddivision (West) the air force transmitter Primadonna
- 7th Jagddivision (Southwest) the air force transmitter Leander
- 8th Jagddivision (Southeast) the air force transmitter Rosenkavalier
history
From 1937 the Wehrmacht built the radio transmission center 276 on the 424 meter high Mönkeberg near Kempen. It served the radio communication of the air bases in Detmold , Gütersloh , Paderborn , Lippstadt and Bad Lippspringe . In 1943 she built a heavy VHF radio beacon with partly mobile MW transmitters (Berta type) between 1.5 kW and 20 kW, which were operated at various locations and belonged to the 3rd Hunting Division , which was stationed at the Deelen military airfield .
Field Marshal Albert Kesselring directed the campaign in the west via the transmitter . Also from here, on May 27, 1941, the order was sent to the battleship Bismarck to sink itself. There and on the Mackenberg , the transmitter was set up on October 27, 1943, and it also broadcast over wire . At the end of 1944, the transmitter reported the air situation under the code name "Primadonna" during enemy flights, initially at fixed times and from the summer of 1944 on to a "continuous broadcast". The normal broadcasters stopped broadcasting during this time in order not to provide any orientation for the flying units. It was only ever sent from one location, but this changed due to the war situation. Gong or clock signals were sent during the reporting-free period. The speakers were mostly military assistants and the broadcast was spoken in the Schalück restaurant in Rheda. The messages were intended for government agencies, authorities, archives and schools. There was an instruction that a radio in the entrance area had to be monitored during office hours. Although the station was not intended for the general public, its air situation reports could be received well via the radio. The reports always began with the introductory stereotype: “ Warning! Attention! Primadonna reports: strong combat units are approaching Heinrich-Richard 7 ”. Information on enemy flights such as the number, types, position, altitude, course and speed of the machines was broadcast. The coordination was based on the Jagdgradnetz registration card . Word of this square division got around, so that the population in East Westphalia and North Hesse could also understand the messages as a warning and then made a wireless card. With allied air bases on the European continent, the missions increased further, while German hunting protection was no longer available. The Primadonna transmitter was the only way to alert the rural population; There was not yet a comprehensive equipment with sirens. The reliability of the reports was proverbial. This should also be the reason that from January 1945 with the new label "Primadonna II" the unadorned war facts of the station, without propaganda, in which the population was believed and the station was often searched for and heard.
“When I got home, I quickly tuned in to the 'Primadonna' station, it said something like: 'Enemy bomber units over Lippstadt are turning towards Paderborn.' However, the city names were encrypted. Paderborn was called Konrad Siegfried 2. At that moment you could already hear the dull roar of the planes. ""
As soon as target areas became recognizable through the course taken by the bomber squadrons, there was a pre-alarm in the grid square, which meant that the enemy aircraft were more than 100 kilometers away and there was no imminent danger. When the main alarm occurred, the aircraft had fallen below the 100 km radius, there was now acute danger. Airborne alarms or full alarms were given when an immediate attack was to be expected.
After the war, the transmitting and receiving equipment was dismantled and the plant shut down. From 1967 to 1992 the Bundeswehr set up the “Mönkeberg” training base on the mountain. Today the facility owned by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia is empty. An initiative to use the facility as a rehabilitation facility has failed. On the Mackenberg, however, the Oelde transmitter is still located today .
literature
- H. Krick: Attention, attention, Prima donna reports ...: radio station on the Mackenberg , home pages of the bell; 1993; P. 366f.
- Armin Otte-Schacht: Prima donna reports ..., air situation transmitter in the Second World War , home country Lippe. - 98 (2005), 4, pp. 53-55
- Marc Locker: When the bombs fell: Contributions to the air war in Paderborn 1939 to 1945. edit. and ed. by Marc Locker, Paderborn Contributions to History ; Vol. 7, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-89498-053-2