Plantlünne / Wesel military airfield

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Reconnaissance photo of the Royal Air Force of the military airfield Plantlünne / Wesel near the city of Lingen (Ems)

The military airfield Plantlünne / Wesel was located near the city of Lingen (Ems) between Bramsche-Wesel and Plantlünne on both sides of Bundesstraße 70 , at the level of the Venneberg landfill.

The airfield was built by prisoners who moved in guarded columns from the military airfield Plantlünne / Wesel to the Dortmund-Ems canal in order to use shovels and bare hands to load shiploads of building materials and paving material for the airfield expansion onto light rail trucks or trucks. At the beginning of the Second World War , the airfield was operational with 60 to 120 aircraft.

From June 1940 the facilities were only gradually expanded. An ammunition depot with an area of ​​around 20 hectares was built a good two kilometers east. In addition, wide aisles were cut through the forest area Venneberg and opened up with asphalt roads, on which parking spaces for the aircraft were set up, as was an aircraft yard.

For this work and also for the construction of flak positions , prisoners of war Red Army soldiers were used. They were quartered in a separate barrack in the Venneberg camp and insufficiently supplied, so that starvation deaths were recorded.

After several bombings, the British took possession of the airfield on April 9, 1945 and flew missions from there. A tragic mistake began here on May 3, 1945. British fighter planes rose and sank the Cap Arcona and Thielbek in the Bay of Lübeck , on which numerous inmates of the Neuengamme concentration camp were.

  • Bunker ruin

  • Trench system

  • Military ruin

  • Flak position

Web links

Commons : Military Airfield Plantlünne / Wesel  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alfons Wolbers (ed.): In the footsteps of the St. Gertrudis parish in Bramsche, Altkreis Lingen. From its beginnings to our time . Heimatverein, Lingen Bramsche 2000.

Coordinates: 52 ° 26 ′ 3 ″  N , 7 ° 24 ′ 9 ″  E