Königsbrück military training area
The military training area Königsbrück was 1906 for the XII. (I. Royal Saxon) Army Corps created. It was located northwest of Königsbrück on the Pulsnitz and the Otterbach in the Krakauische and Königsbrücker Heide in the Bautzen district ( Saxony ).
history
The surroundings of the Upper Lusatian garrison town of Königsbrück were ideal for the establishment of a training area for the Saxon Army , as the heath areas in particular were sparsely populated. In 1906 the small villages of Quosdorf (63 inhabitants), Otterschütz (198 inhabitants) and Zietsch (116 inhabitants) were bought up by the German Reich, and in the following year the practice began with the establishment of the new camp.
In 1938 the Wehrmacht expanded the area and the villages of Bohra (215 inhabitants), Krakau (478 inhabitants), Naundorf (142 inhabitants), Rohna (302 inhabitants), Sella (120 inhabitants), Steinborn (402 inhabitants) and Zochau (143 inhabitants) were evacuated and relocated.
Time from 1945
After the end of the war, the area was seized and enlarged by the Soviet occupying forces . The approval of Bohra, Steinborn, Krakau and Naundorf for resettlement with resettlers on June 25, 1945 was lifted by the SMAD . Some of the villages were cleared immediately or by 1947 and later destroyed. Only Naundorf was repopulated.
A 2.1 square kilometer area near Röhrsdorf on the western edge of the military training area was converted into a missile base for SS-12 from 1983 . On the base of operations Koenigsbrueck eleven launchers and 19 carrier rockets were in the hands of the 119th Missile Brigade of the GSSD .
On the edge of the military training area, there were also extensive military facilities outside of Königsbrück, for example in Schwepnitz and Schmorkau , which was the location of a hospital .
The night-time shooting, which often resulted in broken window panes due to the pressure waves, sparked protests in the neighboring communities. The then Königsbrück pastor Lothar Anys then sought talks with the Soviets at the end of the 1980s. He achieved that a protocol was drawn up in which it was determined that no more exercises should take place at night.
From 1990 to 1992 the Soviet Army withdrew from East Germany and Koenigsbrück. On October 10, 1992, a large thanksgiving service was held on the Königshöhe, which is now accessible again, with the pastors of the surrounding parishes and hundreds of participants. The large wooden cross, created on the initiative of the Königsbrück sexton Werner Lindner, was consecrated, which is intended to encourage peaceful coexistence.
Time from 1992
Due to the military pollution left in the area, the area remained closed. The "exclusion" of people from the area was seen as an opportunity to secure it in 1996 as the largest connected nature reserve in Saxony. It was named " Königsbrücker Heide nature reserve ".
As the legal successor, the Free State of Saxony handed over most of the former military training area, including DM 25 million, to the Forest for Saxony Foundation as a burden compensation . With these funds, 4.1 million pieces of ordnance, 30,000 tons of scrap and an unspecified amount of chlorine gas have been removed. Almost all above-ground buildings were demolished.
A photovoltaic system was built on part of the site in 2007 . Since 2007 the area has been looked after by the NSG administration Königsbrücker Heide and Gohrischheide, which is subordinate to the Sachsenforst state enterprise.
literature
- Landon K. Davis Site documentation: control bunker near Schwepnitz, Königsbruch, Germany , US Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center, Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory, Technical Report ERDC / GSL-TR-02-5, Vicksburg / Miss., USA , 2002
- Christof Schuster / Matthias Karthe / Thomas Petzold Cover name "Kolybel": Soviet nuclear missiles in Upper Lusatia; A historical review of the stationing of the 119th Missile Brigade and the 2454th Mobile Missile Technical Base in the years 1984 to 1988 in Königsbrück and Bischofswerda , History Association Troop Exercise Area Königsbrück eV, Königsbrück 2016
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.sz-online.de/special/schueler-und-zeitung/artikel/artikel.asp?id=2163020
- ↑ http://www.peterhall.de/srbm/westerngroup/119rbr/119rbr32.html
- ↑ Morgenpost on Sunday, July 9, 2006, page 11
Web links
Detailed presentation of the history of the military training area on the homepage of the city of Königsbrück:
- Natural area, settlement, historical use (accessed on December 29, 2015)
- Military use until 1919 (accessed December 29, 2015)
- Military use from 1919 (accessed December 29, 2015)
Coordinates: 51 ° 20 ′ 0 ″ N , 13 ° 53 ′ 0 ″ E