Koblenz-Schmidtenhöhe training area

Panzerstraße on the Koblenz-Schmidtenhöhe training area

Tank washing area

Shooting range

The Koblenz-Schmidtenhöhe training area (StOÜbPl Schmidtenhöhe) is a military facility in Koblenz . The 776-hectare training area is located in the district Horchheimer amount to a hill of the Rhine Valley expiring Westerwald between Koblenz and Fachbach . Parts of the facility are now under nature protection and are looked after by the Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU). The semi-open pasture landscape offers a habitat for rare species . The area is owned byFederal Agency for Real Estate and is subordinate to the Rhineland-Palatinate State Command . In September 2017, 235 hectares of the Schmidtenhöhe were permanently transferred to the NABU Foundation for National Natural Heritage .

history

The city of Koblenz was a large garrison city of the Wehrmacht and the Bundeswehr . During the Cold War it was even the largest garrison town of the Bundeswehr with more than 10,000 soldiers . In 1937, a large area on the Schmidtenhöhe was expropriated for the Wehrmacht in order to give the soldiers of the adjacent barracks a training area.

After the Second World War , the French army continued to use the training area and handed it over to the newly established Bundeswehr in 1956. In the following years were here Signal Corps , pioneers and tank drivers trained. There is a large training area for tank troops (today a nature reserve), a tank washing area and two shooting ranges on the site training area . The tank battalions in particular made extensive use of the space and shaped its present-day design.

After the tank battalions were disbanded in 1992, large parts of the training area remained unused. The eastern part has been converted into a nature reserve. The rest of the area was only used sporadically and mostly fell into disrepair. The entire area was released for the population as a recreational area , but is still a military area . According to a decision by the Federal Minister of Defense on March 4, 2013, the Koblenz-Schmidtenhöhe training area, especially the shooting range, should continue to be used by the German armed forces.

natural reserve

After the disbandment of the tank battalions in 1992, a landscape with little or no vegetation remained with many mud and water holes, scree slopes and a cleared structure. These areas were ideal habitats for many rare species, including some of the rarest species in Europe. Because of this biodiversity, the Schmidtenhöhe was largely included in two significantly larger protected areas: Parts of the areas are located in the European Lahnhang bird sanctuary (identifier DE-5611-401) and / or in the Lahnhang FFH area (DE-5613-301). This makes them part of the European Natura 2000 network of protected areas .

In detail u. a. the following species can be found:

Birds and bats , these can hunt insects in the open spaces, e.g. B. backed Shrike , Great Gray Shrike , Skylark

Amphibians that live in the small bodies of water, e.g. B. yellow-bellied toads , crested newts , green toads , tree frogs

Plants that only occur on unfertilized and nutrient-poor areas, e.g. B. Orchids , bee garlic , pyramid orchids
Insects and butterflies , which find optimal conditions in the flowery meadows, e.g. B. Little pitch dragonfly , early darter dragonfly , common plump insect , large caterpillar butterfly , imperial mantle

Taurus cattle as an effective countermeasure to the ongoing encroachment

Thereafter, the area threatened to become increasingly bushy , as no more tanks removed the wood and left new water holes. The result was that the number of rare animal and plant species decreased sharply. Since the European Union does not allow the deterioration of the Natura 2000 sites, immediate countermeasures were necessary.

As a solution, the concept of the semi-open pasture landscape was introduced, which has already been very successful in comparable projects. With the support of the Rhineland-Palatinate nature conservation authority , work began in September 2009 to implement this concept on a 130 hectare area. Large herbivores such as Taurus cattle and Konik horses were used, which counteract the encroachment and, through their weight, structured the edges of the waters in order to preserve the habitats of the amphibians. NABU Rhineland-Palatinate has committed itself to carrying out this project for 20 years. The first successes were already visible after 20 months and the species population had recovered. In 2017, the NABU Foundation for National Natural Heritage took over a total of 235 hectares. As the new owner, she will “further expand the grazing project and supplement it with sheep grazing in order to preserve the biodiversity of the poor meadows. The NABU Foundation will leave the semi-natural mixed deciduous forests to develop undisturbed. "

The Tongrube nature reserve on Escherfeld is located south of the training site .