Pydna (missile base)

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The GLCM Alert and Maintenance Area (GAMA) on the Wüschheim Air Station with the six Ready Storage Shelters (RSS) for 96 BGM-109G cruise missiles, photo 1989

Under the code name Pydna built military facility is a former missile base of NATO , located in Hunsrück , about three kilometers south of the city Kastellaun , between Bell , Hasselbach and dog home .

history

Reconstruction of Bell's chariot grave

During the years of German rearmament in the 1930s and the construction of the Hunsrückhöhenstrasse , today's Bundesstrasse 327 , a field airfield was set up in the Pydna area in 1938 , and there were also plans to expand the airport . The village of Hundheim was to give way to this expansion and to be developed as a hangar to protect the aircraft of the Goßberg . Barracks were built and excavations were carried out. Many barrows were discovered, but most of them were destroyed. This also included Bell's chariot grave , the tomb of a Celtic prince.

After the end of the western campaign , the airport was no longer needed. It served various branches of arms and the Hitler Youth as a training ground. The camp was destroyed by bombs towards the end of the Second World War . However, no people were harmed in the attack.

After the war , the area began to be reforested.

On June 18, 1958, during the Cold War, the US 38th Bomber Wing was redesignated as the Tactical Missile Wing and stationed at Hahn Air Base . This unit operated in conjunction with the Tactical Missile Unit (TM-61), who deployed their Matador missiles on the site. There were eight rocket launch systems, two control centers and other building services. On November 15, 1959, the conversion to the MACE Missile System (TM-76) began. The 38th Bomber Wing as the Tactical Missile Wing was decommissioned on September 25, 1966 and the site was cleared by the US Air Force . The Bundeswehr took over the site for a short time and used it together with the adjacent training area.

In 1967 the US Army moved into the area under the name B-Battery and deployed Nike Hercules rockets. These were designed as anti-aircraft missiles and were later converted for nuclear use . The warheads had an explosive force of 20 kT-TNT , the missiles had a range of 150 km. The B-Battery consisted of administration and accommodation buildings as well as another closed area towards Hasselbach. In this high-security area there was an observation tower, three launch systems and the corresponding protective and maintenance structures. 1981 began with the dissolution of the B-Battery, the rockets withdrawn and the entire facility closed in early August 1982.

The Pydna

The name Pydna goes back to the Battle of Pydna on June 22nd in 168 BC. BC back. This battle is also portrayed as a classic example of the confrontation between a Macedonian phalanx and the Roman legions , with the older tactic reportedly proving to be inferior.

assignment

Under the code name Pydna (US military designation: Wüschheim Air Station, WAS ) should be on the site of the former B-Battery, as a result of NATO Double-Track Decision , 96 abschuss ready cruise missiles (English: cruise missiles) are stationed, with nuclear warheads were fitted . The stationing area in the Hunsrück was determined by the then federal government in coordination with NATO in 1978/79 . Reasons for choosing the site were: that medium-range missiles had been stationed here before , that the site was largely owned by the land and expropriations could be avoided, and finally the nearby US American Hahn Air Base , which has good facilities for supplying fire services and Ambulance service offered.

construction

Wüschheim Air Station (WAS); Picture dated January 25, 1989

The military facility was divided into three areas: administration, support, protective structures. In particular, it concerned the cooperation of the US fire services with the surrounding German fire services in the event of danger. There were special regulations for the protected areas, which mainly touched military areas. For the BGM-109G Gryphon Block I cruise missiles , 6 hardened nuclear-safe bunkers , so-called Ready Storage Shelter (RSS), had to be built. Two fire control stations and four Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) on M-1014 MAN were to be housed in each bunker. All buildings needed for the supply and storage of nuclear weapons were in the high-security area. The various batteries were constantly practicing emergency situations, that is, they drove with training vehicles to the firing positions scattered all over Rhineland-Palatinate , the so-called GLCM Alert and Maintenance Area (GAMA), in order to familiarize themselves with the site.

At the same time, as part of the stationing, the construction of an underground bunker system as a fire control center for the cruise missiles on the Goßberg , as well as the expansion of a former Nike-Hercules position on the Kandrich near Dichtelbach as a MIM-104 Patriot anti-aircraft missile position and the new construction of such a position at Grenderich began.

execution

In 1984 work began on building the bunker facilities on the site of the former B-Battery . The plans were kept secret from the population. It was only citizens' submissions to the German Defense Ministry that prompted German politicians to act and, if not to stop it, then to delay the deployment. The American armed forces, as the operator of the facility, contented themselves with building the bunker systems and the mounts and relocated newly erected units for the operation and protection of the missile station there. The construction completion date was delayed. Additional complex, previously unplanned security measures were necessary. The planned completion date for the Pydna (end of 1986) could not be kept, an interim solution was planned. In 1987 the first BGM-109G Gryphon cruise missiles arrived in West Germany. The mounts for transporting and launching the cruise missiles were temporarily stored in the Bundeswehr depot near Kappel . Necessary structural and organizational measures had been carried out there in the meantime. The actual rockets were initially stationed on the grounds of the US Hahn Air Base because there was the possibility of storing nuclear warheads.

Peace movement

Field barn with wall painting at Bell
Three crosses as a reminder on the peace field
Shield between the crosses

The BGM-109G Gryphon cruise missiles had a range of 2,500 km and could thus reach the Soviet capital Moscow. Military calculus therefore pulled the launching sites for the Warsaw Pact as possible targets (targets) approach. Out of this fear a peace movement formed, at the head of which, among others, was the evangelical pastor August Dahl (rocket August ) . From May 1985 a permanent vigil was set up on the Hunsrückhöhenstraße on the descent to Pydna . Activists demonstrated with a banner every day from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. War is being prepared .

The local mayor of Hasselbach at the time, Hartmut Pomrehn, voted against the construction work because information from the peace movement gave him the only reliable facts about the stationing project, while the responsible authorities in the administration remained silent. The municipality of Spesenroth rejected an application from the construction management at a municipal meeting to be allowed to reopen the quarry there for material extraction. As a result of this rejection, the community waived around DM 200,000 in income.

On October 11, 1986, the largest known demonstration in Hunsrück history took place on the Beller market square . Around 200,000 people, including around 10,000 from the Hunsrück, protested against the stationing of the rockets. In addition to numerous speakers, well-known artists such as Udo Lindenberg and Hannes Wader could be heard at the final rally . At the end of the day, the Hunsrück Declaration was read out, which advocated a reversal in security policy. The demonstration participants showed a particular peacefulness, so that there were no riots, injuries or arrests. However, the demonstrators who had traveled by special trains had to leave the Hunsrück before dark. The Simmern – Kastellaun – Boppard line was to be closed. The signal systems had already been dismantled so that the last trams, like these special trains, could only run during the day.

Even today there are three warning wooden crosses, as the remainder of the 96 crosses that were once set up there (one for each rocket), west of the site on the so-called Friedensacker , which belongs to the municipality of Bell . Also a large wall painting (rocket cow ) on a Beller field barn (a cow, representing the rural Hunsrück, which takes on a cruise missile by the horns) - carried out by: Wall painting group Düsseldorf - is still visible today as a reminder of this eventful time. The symbol of the Hunsrück resistance, created in 1986, was restored in July 2014 by students of the Kastellauner IGS and their art teacher from donations. In 2013 the work of art took part in the Open Monument Day as an “Inconvenient Monument” .

End of Pydna

On December 1, 1987, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev signed the INF Treaty , in which the US and the USSR undertook to scrap all European medium-range nuclear systems. At the end of the 1980s, the Pydna area was also given up due to the general relaxation and the concluded INF treaty between the power blocs ( Cold War ) and the associated disarmament and withdrawal of the Allied troops, with Hahn Air Base being evacuated almost at the same time . On August 22, 1990, the 38th tactical missile squadron was officially disbanded. The rocket time on the Hunsrück ended on August 31, 1993 with the takeover of the properties by the Kastellaun site administration .

A special purpose association for the conversion of the property, in which the municipality of Kastellaun contributed € 10,000, was dissolved at the end of 2004.

present

The entire area was taken over from the closely adjacent Bundeswehr location in 2005 and is therefore largely still used for military purposes (telecommunications training area).

The civil use of the area is limited to a festival of electronic dance music , Nature One , which has been taking place on the site since 1996 at the end of July / beginning of August and attracts 60,000 to 70,000 visitors every year, as well as for occasional filming.

A documentation center was inaugurated on September 9, 2007 in the newly built lower castle in Kastellaun . On the upper floor there are model replicas and information about the former Pydna missile station , its current use and the Hunsrück peace movement. A special exhibition on the blockades of the missile station and their consequences was opened on September 3, 2010.

Neighboring towns of Pydna

Bell Kastellaun Spesenroth and Laubach
Völkenroth and Leideneck Neighboring communities Hasselbach
Hundheim , the Goßberg and Wüschheim Michelbach and Reich Alterkülz

See also

Web links

Commons : Pydna  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Further images in: Anne Aumann, Thomas Giese, Klaus Klinger : Düsseldorf. A fine address - beautiful gifts II. Part - wall painting group Düsseldorf. Self-published 1991, p. 39.
  2. Bell's rocket cow barn is beaming again. In: volksfreund.de . September 11, 2014, accessed June 22, 2018 .
  3. Fresh color for the Beller rocket cow. In: Rhein-Zeitung , Boppard / Simmern edition. July 17, 2014, accessed June 22, 2018 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 2 ′ 38 "  N , 7 ° 25 ′ 32"  E