Wildflecken military training area

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wildflecken military training area

TrÜbPl Wildflecken.jpg

Internal association badge of the military training area command
Lineup 1938
Country Flag of Germany.svg Germany
Armed forces armed forces
Organizational area Bundeswehr Logo Streitkraeftebasis with lettering.svg Force Base
Insinuation KdoTA.pngTerritorial Tasks Command of the Bundeswehr
Location Wild spots

The Wildflecken military training area is a military training area of over 7,000 hectares near Wildflecken in the High Rhön . It was established by the German Wehrmacht in 1938 and temporarily served the US Army after the Second World War . At present, it is with the located there Combat Simulation Center army jointly by the army and its NATO - Allies used. The northern part of the military base is in Gersfeld ( Haderwald ) in Hesse .

Planning and geographic location

With the reintroduction of general conscription on October 1, 1935, an army strength of 12 corps commands with 36 divisions was planned. The peace-keeping strength of this army was to reach 550,000 men by the year 1939, five and a half times the strength of the Reichswehr and, with an armament, the soldiers were to be trained in the event of war within a very short time. For this purpose, additional training areas had to be created. So were for the VII. And IX. Army Corps planned for two new military training areas in southern Germany. While the Hohenfels training area was planned for the VII. Army Corps, the choice of location for the IX. Army corps on the low mountain range of the Rhön. In this structurally weak region, a concept for economic development had existed for the Main Franconian part since 1935 with the so-called Dr. Hellmuth Plan , which, however, already excluded the Wildflecken area with regard to the planned military use. According to the plans of the Army under the leadership of Military District VII in Munich, the area between Bad Brückenau in the south, Wildflecken in the east, Gersfeld in the north and the municipality of Motten in the west was to have an approx. 7400 hectare military training area with firing ranges, observation stands and Bunkers provided. The majority of this area is in Bavaria, approx. 1200 hectares are in Hessen-Nassau or in today's Hessen. The maximum west-east width is about eleven, the north-south extent about twelve kilometers. The troop camp was designed for 9,000 men and 1,500 horses. In addition, the planning provided for a food depot and an ammunition plant (Muna).

Acquisition of territory

The land purchase was carried out by the Reichsumsiedlungsgesellschaft mbH (Ruges) Berlin on the basis of the law on land procurement for the purposes of the Wehrmacht of March 29, 1935. This company, with its headquarters in Berlin, was created specifically for the procurement and compensation of property expropriated for the purposes of the Wehrmacht and had around 50 branch offices throughout the Reich.

In the planned practice area there were seven villages as well as various hamlets and individual farmsteads with around 2500 residents who were relocated by May 1938:

The pilgrimage site of Maria Ehrenberg, immediately east of the Motten community, and the Franken house , a horse hospital built during the First World War , which had been converted into a Rhön Club hiking home in 1920, were also affected .

The resettlers were given buildings and land in the vicinity such as B. in Weißenbach , Roßbach , Rottendorf- Rothof, Wässerndorf , but also further away near Frankfurt am Main , Offenbach am Main , Seßlach and Deggendorf . Anyone who could not decide to voluntarily sell their property was expropriated.

The area of ​​the municipalities of Altglashütten, Neuglashütten, Reussendorf, Rothenrain and Werberg formed the Wildflecken Heeresguts district in 1942 .

Construction work

Former officers' mess in the troop camp with main square (formerly Adolf-Hitler- or Eisenhower-Platz)

In the late autumn of 1936, before the land purchase was completed, the preparatory work for the troop camp began with the measurements in the Grünhansenwald north of Wildflecken, which continued until around mid-1937. At this time, the newly formed military district command IX in Kassel took over the planning for the training area, which was originally for the IX. Army Corps was provided. The government master builder Leonz Karch was entrusted with the construction management.

First of all, in the winter of 1936, a community camp with residential and leisure barracks, farm buildings, large kitchen and sanitary area for 3000 workers was built on the eastern slope of the forest area. The labor camp, which was completed in June 1937, was placed under the German Labor Front . However, only a third of the workers required for the large construction site could be accommodated in the warehouse. When construction work began, more than a hundred buses brought a further 6,000 workers, craftsmen and technicians from the near and far surroundings to their workplaces every day.

The actual construction work required extensive preparatory work, as the difficult-to-access area first had to be developed through the construction of roads with connections to the public road and rail network. From the Wildflecken train station, a paved road with a bridge was built over Reichsstraße 287 to the troop camp, which was to be built on a mountain slope north of the village. The difference between the lowest and highest point of the planning area was 200 m. The 156 planned buildings were laid out in six terraces parallel to the mountain, which were made accessible with ring roads and eight connecting roads leading uphill. Most of the buildings were oriented towards the slope towards the eaves and towards the gable in the flatter eastern area.

The actual construction work began in mid-1937. The buildings were built in solid construction and for the most part with a basement for various purposes such as crew and officer quarters, administration, infirmary, troop kitchen, army bakery, etc. The stable and horse camp for 1,500 animals was the last of this size for military purposes. The horses were intended for the stringing of ten-centimeter cannons and six-inch field howitzers. 30 stables, buildings for the farriers, the veterinarians and the fodder store were arranged on the two highest terraces of the troop camp, on the one hand to have the shortest route to the training area and on the other hand to direct the stable smells away from the camp when the wind conditions are favorable.

Water and sewage disposal were ensured by spring catchments, pumping stations, elevated tanks and a sewer system with a sewage treatment plant and rainwater retention basin.

Military training area

Kleiner Auersberg on the grounds of the military training area

At the same time as the troop camp, the training facilities for the training area were created. From the spring of 1937 to the summer of the following year, 30 school and combat tracks and 20 target areas for infantry with a depth of 3500 and a width of 600 meters and for tanks and artillery with shooting ranges of 6000 meters in length and 1500 meters in width were created. The artillery fire positions were arranged around the Dammersfeld. Later bunkers of various sizes were built to serve additional destinations and for artillery observers advanced, as well as large bunkers for exercises to overcome fortifications and as artillery targets.

Army supply depot, Muna and administration

A third construction site from the summer of 1938 to the end of 1940 was the army catering depot with four-storey warehouse buildings and a connection to the Jossa – Wildflecken railway line, which was planned outside the training area west of the Arnsberg . The topping-out ceremony was celebrated on September 20, 1940. At the same time, an ammunition plant , called Muna, with assembly halls, warehouses and accommodation buildings was built at the foot of the Kreuzberg .

Buildings were also required for the commandant's office, the site administration of the training area, which had been declared an army estate district, and the Heeresforstamt, which had to manage approx. 4000 hectares of forest that had become the property of the Reich. Until the building was completed in January 1938, the commandant's office was housed in the Hotel Zur Post in Bad Brückenau.

The construction work for the approximately 3.5 million Reichsmark expensive military camp and military training area was carried out under extreme time pressure by up to 9,000 workers in shifts. 50 to 60 architects, engineers and technicians and the same number of administrative employees managed the largest construction site in Bavaria. For the first time, the construction work was not interrupted in winter. The frost protection was guaranteed by heated tents, so that work could be carried out continuously and around the clock. This made it possible to create the most important facilities and buildings in the record time of just under a year. Five workers had a fatal accident during the construction work. A memorial stone on the driveway to the troop camp reminds of their fate. On February 8, 1938, the commanding general of the IX. Army Corps, General of the Artillery Friedrich Dollmann , with the first shot of the II. Division of the Artillery Regiment 51 (motorized) handed over the military training area to its destination. A memorial stone marks the place of this event at the foot of the Dammersfeldkuppe .

Military use and development until the end of World War II

The first units were the 51 artillery regiment from Fulda and the 88 infantry regiment from Hanau to move into their new accommodations in the Wildflecken troop camp.

The expansion of the troop camp and the training area were not yet completed when the Second World War began and the use of the area was intensified. In addition to combat training, the establishment of new field and replacement units and later the retrofitting and refreshment of troops withdrawn from the front took up more and more space. The Wildflecken military training area became the starting point for hundreds of units of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS .

The then SS-Unterscharfuhrer Franz Schönhuber and later co-founder as well as federal chairman of the party Die Republikaner describes in his biography I was there his arrival in the troop camp Wildflecken. From the summer of 1944 he worked there as a trainer and interpreter for a French volunteer unit, which later formed the tribe for the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (French No. 1) :

“ From Brückenau a truck picked me up to a large gate with an arch, the entrance to the barracks area. Above it was written "Our honor is loyalty". Then it went up a steep ramp to the barracks complex. ... The barracks were well camouflaged, so well, by the way, that it was not discovered from the air until the end of the war, although from 1944 Allied bomber squadrons with the deadly loads constantly made their way across the Rhön. ... Companies of the Leibstandarte also belonged to the various units stationed here . The 1st SS Panzer Regiment of the Leibstandarte was formed here in 1942. It was the first tank unit that was set up and practiced at the military training area. The Waffen SS was very strongly represented here. An SS Mountain Infantry Regiment was located here, the SS Division North was reclassified here. The Wallonia SS Assault Brigade was posted here, and finally the Charlemagne Brigade to which I was assigned. It should be increased to a division here. "

- Franz Schönhuber : I was there , Munich-Vienna 1981, ISBN 3-7844-1906-2 , p. 116

Czech and Polish prisoners of war , for whom a separate camp had been built in 1939, were used to maintain the structural facilities and to further expand the infrastructure . After the attack on the Soviet Union , there were also prisoners of the Red Army . In addition to German conscripts, prisoners of war were also used to run the Muna.

A defense of the military area in the spring of 1945 was out of the question, as the active troops and the main units were deployed on the western front in March 1945. On April 6, 1945, units of the 3rd and 14th US divisions were able to take Wildflecken and the troop camp after a short battle.

It is estimated that between 150,000 and 180,000 soldiers were trained in the camp in the period up to 1945. These estimates are based on an average length of stay of four months.

Development after the end of the Second World War

Poland cemetery south of the camp

After the liberation of Wildflecken by the US Army, the prisoner of war camp was closed. While the French and Belgian prisoners returned immediately to their homeland, the Russians and Poles had to stay in wild spots for several months or even years. By 1947, the number of Poles alone grew to 17,000, as the majority of them could not or did not want to return to their native Ukraine due to the Soviet occupation . A memorial plaque on the Poland cemetery established in 1970/1 recalls their fate with the following inscription:

“After the fall of the Third Reich, up to 20,000 Poles had to live together in an IRO camp at the Wildflecken military training area. Many children were born. 428 died at the tenderest ages. 116 adults also fell asleep. Respect for human life created this resting place for them. "

Thousands of former prisoners of war as well as foreign and forced laborers were housed in the troop camp. A variety of looting, robbery, theft and even murder have occurred. These riots lasted until 1948, despite the establishment of a local guard.

The formerly perfect camouflage of the troop camp almost fell victim to clear cutting due to the need for firewood. Some of the rafters were even removed from the roof trusses of the accommodation buildings and used for heating purposes. The barracks of the former labor camp burned down in 1947.

The district of Oberwildflecken developed from the former Muna, and in 1965 new accommodation for the German armed forces called the Rhön barracks was built.

Managed by UNRRA and IRO

The United Nations Relief Rehabilitation Administration ( UNRRA ) took over the camp in October 1945. Five hospitals were set up and food supplies for the camp residents were ensured. In July 1947 the UNRRA handed over the camp to the IRO ( International Refugee Organization ), the United Nations' international refugee organization. This tried to place the so-called Displaced Persons (DP) in European countries or overseas. By March 31, 1952, 15,000 DPs from Wildflecken were able to find a new home and existence. The receiving countries included England, France, Belgium, USA, Canada, Australia, Brazil and Chile.

Usage by US Army

The American occupation troops were particularly interested in the camp and its evacuation, as the largely preserved infrastructure of the camp and the training area was an excellent location near the new inner-German border. After a year of repair and modernization work, the 373rd Armored Infantry Battalion moved into the Wildflecken military camp as the first American unit in the spring of 1952 and stayed there, renamed 2/15 Infantry, for more than 30 years. From 1953 the American troops used the training area for target practice and expanded it as the Wildflecken Training Area (WTA). The housing area was built for the families of the stationed soldiers .

The command of the WTA changed repeatedly from 1951 on. On July 1, 1967, the 7th Army Training Command (ATC) in Grafenwoehr took over command of the Wildflecken military training area. In 1979 the battle lines were modernized for the new generation of battle and armored personnel carriers.

One of the thousands of US soldiers who have been stationed or practiced in Wildflecken over the years was Elvis Presley in October 1959 when his unit stationed in Bad Nauheim carried out a maneuver.

The undestroyed villages of Dalherda, Reußendorf and Werberg in the training area were repopulated by expellees from the former German eastern regions after the end of the war . Dalherda had already been spun off from the practice area in 1945, so that its size was reduced to 7286 hectares. On April 1, 1951, the community Neuwildflecken , consisting of the localities Reussendorf and Werberg, was founded. A year later, Reussendorf had to be resettled again when the practice operations began. The same fate befell Werberg in 1965. In 1973 the houses in this village were finally demolished.

Bundeswehr in Oberwildflecken and in the troop camp

A hundred of the Federal Border Guard were stationed in the Wildflecken military camp in the summer of 1951, from which the 34th Grenadier Battalion emerged when the Bundeswehr was founded on July 1, 1956. After the battalion was split up, the part remaining in Wildflecken was replenished on July 1, 1960 and renamed Panzergrenadierbataillon 52. With the relocation of this unit to Mellrichstadt in May 1962, the 1./102 (staff and supply platoon) of the 102nd Panzergrenadier Battalion, set up on September 16, 1962, as well as the training companies 14/4, 16/4, 17/4 and 4/12 entered Troop camp. With the beginning of the formation of the 12th Panzer Division, these formed the 353 Panzer Grenadier Battalion, which moved into the new accommodations of the Rhön barracks in Oberwildflecken on July 1, 1965. In 1968 the unit was reclassified as 12th Reconnaissance Battalion. The 1st and 2nd companies moved to the Balthasar Neumann barracks in Ebern in April 1970. When the 12th Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion was set up in the Rhön barracks on October 1, 1970, its 3rd company was transferred to the Wildflecken military camp and remained there with the 4th company until March 1981 as the only German unit in the camp occupied by American troops. Between 1981 and 1994 there was only the German liaison command, which in 1994 became part of the troop headquarters. When the Bundeswehr joined NATO, German troops had already used the training area again.

When the US troops withdrew in 1994, the 355 tank artillery battalion, 350 tank pioneer company and the 5th company of 102 supply battalion moved to the troop camp. On April 26, 1994, this was given the name of the Rhön barracks that were dissolved in Oberwildflecken in the same year. Today only the army's combat simulation center, the military training area command and a branch of the Bundeswehr service center in Hammelburg are housed in the troop camp or at the training area. Since 2002 there has been Germany's only eco-explosive area in Germany at the military training area. Bacteria in the sewage treatment plant almost completely break down explosive residues that previously seeped into the ground with the rainwater and got into the groundwater and streams.

Associations established until 1945

  • September 19 to December 1, 1939: 95th Infantry Division
  • December 1, 1939 to May 1940: 82nd Infantry Division
  • June 1941: Penal battalion z. b. V. 500
  • February 1, 1942 to?: 1st Division SS Panzer Regiment 5 Wiking
  • March to September 1942: Parts of the 6th SS Mountain Division North
  • December 1942 to January 1943: 345th Motorized Infantry Division
  • June 6, 1943 to?: 5th SS Volunteer Assault Brigade Wallonia
  • December 15, 1943 to April 15, 1944: SS Panzergrenadier Training Replacement Regiment 36
  • June 19, 1944 to?: Parts of 715th Infantry Division
  • June 26, 1944 to?: 232nd Infantry Division
  • August 3, 1944 to? : 566th People's Grenadier Division
  • August 3 to November 1944: Re-establishment of the 25th Panzer Division
  • November 1944 to?: Parts of the Brandenburg Panzer Grenadier Division
  • January (?) 1945 to? : 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS "Charlemagne" (French No. 1)
  • March 25, 1945 to?: Parts division z. b. V. 409

Accessibility of the military training area

Reference to the admission control to the people's hiking days on the Wildflecken military training area 2016 with signposts for all three routes.

Entering the military training area is strictly forbidden. This is expressly indicated by signs posted at regular intervals on the border of the military training area. The approaches to the military training area are provided with barriers. According to the current jurisprudence, this is considered an enclosure . Entering this area can therefore be viewed as trespassing under criminal law ( Section 123 ). It is also an administrative offense to intentionally or negligently enter military facilities that are blocked for security reasons ( Section 114 ). The purpose of the entry ban is to protect the public, since the military training area is used intensively for military purposes. In addition to the shooting, there is also a considerable risk from duds . In the event of an accident on this site, rescuers must also put their lives in danger when rescuing injured persons.

The Maria Ehrenberg church on the area of ​​the military training area can be visited on Sundays and public holidays from May to October between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. (except Corpus Christi ). Outside these times, access is only possible after consultation with the Catholic rectory in Kothen . Church services are held regularly during the summer months.

Every year on the last weekend in July, the people's hiking days take place in the Wildflecken military training area. The terrain can be legally traversed on prepared routes of various lengths that change every year.

literature

  • Christa Jäckel: How a cultural landscape became a military training area , in Rhönwacht 2007, issue 3, pp. 109–111.
  • Joachim S. Hohmann: Rural people under the swastika - agricultural and racial policy in the Rhön , Frankfurt a. M. 1992.
  • Manfred Neidert: The Wildflecken military training area is being developed in the district committee of the district of Fulda (ed.), Fulda 1996, pp. 253-257.
  • Burckhard, Paul The military training areas Grafenwoehr, Hohenfels, Wildflecken , Weiden 1989.
  • Gerwin Kellermann: 475 years Wildflecken 1524–1999 , Wildflecken - market town - 1999.
  • Anton H. Dorow: Bacteria clean Germany's only eco-blasting site , in: Greenpeace Magazin from July 29, 2012 ( online ).
  • Adam R. Seipp: Strangers in the Wild Place. Refugees, Americans, and a German Town, 1945-1952. Indiana University Press, Bloomington & Indianapolis, 2013, ISBN 978-0-253-00677-6 (English)

Web links

Commons : Wildflecken military training area  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Law for the Reconstruction of the Wehrmacht of March 16, 1935, RGBl. I. 1935, 375
  2. ↑ RGBl. IS 467 ff
  3. ↑ Dammersfeld at www.rhoenline.de
  4. ↑ a b Wilhelm Volkert (Ed.): Handbook of the Bavarian offices, communities and courts 1799–1980 . CH Beck, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-406-09669-7 , p. 426 .
  5. ↑ www.rhoenline.de - Resettled home around Dammersfeld. A piece of the Rhön and its history
  6. ↑ a b www.deutschesheer.de - History of the Wildflecken location
  7. ↑ http://www.wildflecken.de/ - 1937-1945 German Army / German Wehrmacht / Waffen-SS
  8. ↑ Heinz Leitsch: The end. Withdrawal of the German troops and capture of the Wildflecken camp by the US Army. In: www.campwildflecken.heinzleitsch.de. Retrieved July 24, 2013 .
  9. ↑ a b Schmid, Ulrich: From the Rhön to the Reich Chancellery - The Camp in the Third Reich , in Fuldaer Zeitung of February 22, 2013, p. 16
  10. ↑ Murder, robbery, terror
  11. ↑ http://www.camp-wildflecken.de/us-army/wta_elvis.html
  12. ^ View into the Hammelburg and Wildflecken garrison , Stuttgart 1969, pp. 33–37
  13. ^ Anton H. Dorow: With bacteria against explosive residues. Unique project at the Wildflecken military training area. In: www.main-netz.de. Main-Netz Media GmbH, July 29, 2012, accessed on July 24, 2013 .
  14. ↑ Headquarters of the Wildflecken military training area
  15. ↑ Maria-Ehrenberg.de

Coordinates: 50 ° 23 '17.2 "  N , 9 ° 55' 16.4"  E