Mine disaster in Hemishofen
In the mine accident in Hemishofen on June 17, 1944, ten members of the Border Guard Company II / 261 of the Swiss Army died in the "Tschungel" forest south of the Hemishofen railway bridge when landmines exploded . The scene of the accident is in the municipality of Wagenhausen .
accident
As part of the border occupation by Border Brigade 6 during the Second World War , ten mines were mounted on boards and used as improvised rapid mine locks to mine the roadway on the bridge. The fuses were connected in such a way that they could be armed at the same time by pulling the fuse on the first mine.
On June 17, 1944 at 11 a.m., two boards with 20 mines stacked on top of each other near a stove exploded, which corresponded to 60 kg of TNT . As a result of the explosion, ten soldiers in the vicinity died and others were injured, some seriously.
examination
Before the military tribunal of the 6th Division, the trial of seven officers took place from February 11 to 21, 1946. They were charged with disobedience, failure to observe service regulations, negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm in connection with the accident. The prosecution held that the pins used to secure the mines were not properly tied with a string and that there were no technical regulations for the improvised mine barriers.
The court came to the conclusion that the accident was probably due to the fact that one or more cotter pins had slipped out during the earlier unprotected transport of the mine boards, and that the mines then detonated while being transported from the cooking area to the next storage location. Since it was no longer possible to accurately reconstruct the course of the accident, the court acquitted all of the defendants.
Victim
Today a memorial stone commemorates the ten victims at the site of the accident:
- Sergeant Ernst Beuggert (born 1906)
- Sergeant Oskar Sauter (born 1911)
- Corporal Franz Behr (born 1904)
- Corporal Otto Brütsch (born 1922)
- Private Willi Kocherhans (born 1912)
- Private Herbert Brütsch (born 1917)
- Sagittarius Georg Wenger (born 1909)
- Sagittarius Johann Ammann (born 1926)
- Sagittarius Johann Eigenmann (born 1922)
- Sagittarius Willy Dünnenberger (born 1924)
swell
- Christian Birchmeier: 1944: The mine disaster. Swiss soldier 03/2011, p. 44 f.
- Christian Birchmeier: The mine accident in the "Tschungel". Schaffhauser Magazin 01/1990, pp. 83–84.
- Process files: Federal Archives Sig. 98/2785/1944.