Lorch-Wispertal underground plant
The former military underground facility (UTA) Lorch-Wispertal of the German Federal Armed Forces is located near Lorch in the Wispertal and was used as a (main) storage facility. The construction of this facility took twelve years (1962–1974). The system can be hermetically sealed from the outside world. In total, around 290,000 m³ of stone had to be quarried from the mountain to create the tunnel system. The construction of the system cost around 78 million DM up to 1974. The main equipment depot Lorch-Wispertal has been officially closed since December 31, 2008.
Geographical location
The underground facility is located in the Ranselberg as a rock cavity construction. A main traffic tunnel leading from east to west through the Ranselberg runs - continuously sloping - about two km in length from Röderfell / Wolfsloch to Tiefenbachtal . The portals can be reached from the Lorch - Bad Schwalbach road (L 3303, entrance) and Ransel (L 3397, exit). The dimensions of the main traffic tunnel allowed traffic with trucks up to 3.30 m high and 4.00 m wide.
History of origin
Although after the Second World War and the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, the reconstruction brought an economic upswing (so-called economic miracle ), the community of Lorch am Rhein initially did not benefit from this. Many residents therefore commuted to work in neighboring areas. With the formation of the Bundeswehr in 1957, the municipality started talks with the aim of establishing a barracks in order to contribute to an economic improvement on site and to create employment opportunities. Specifically, in addition to a construction site for a barracks and a training area, additional areas for depot facilities on and in the Ranselberg, as well as in the Ranseler Forest and residential buildings for the Bundeswehr employees were offered. The negotiations with the German Armed Forces led to the construction of a barracks facility with a self-protection bunker, a training area with a shooting range, an ammunition storage facility, underground ammunition depots, an army mixed depot for equipment, food and clothing, a partial depot for fuel with a truck loading point and a medical depot. In addition, the construction of a new residential area was considered. After the magistrate had already approved the deployment of the Bundeswehr, the municipal council also approved this plan on May 11, 1959. In 1960 the Hessian State Building Administration set up a building administration in Lorch, which was responsible for the planning and construction of the entire project. In 1962, work began on setting up the Lorch-Wispertal equipment depot.
Structure and infrastructure
The system is inclined in the mountain: sloping 1% from south to north and 1% from east to west to ensure the disposal flow. In this way, any water that might penetrate would be drained away.
The switch and machine center was located in the extreme south of the facility, from which two air shafts - a fresh air shaft and an exhaust air shaft - lead 200 m perpendicular to the top of the Ranselberg. The fresh air shaft is also designed as an emergency exit .
The length of the camp streets and traffic routes is around 10 km. For static fastening, steel mesh is fastened to the tunnel walls with rock anchors and filled and covered with shotcrete.
The system includes 35 tunnel chambers, each around 100 m long, in five different profile widths from 5.60 m to 9.64 m and profile heights from 4.80 m to 8.36 m. Some of these tunnel chambers were specially designed for administrative, social, material preservation and repair purposes as well as accommodation, partly two-story designed and technically furnished. The traffic or warehouse roads, also known as those, run around and cut through the entire tunnel system. A tunnel branching off and rejoining the main traffic tunnel inside the mountain with five transshipment chambers (also designed as air locks) was used to move material into and out of the storage areas. The air locks separate the inner air-conditioned area from the non-air-conditioned traffic routes (leading to the portals).
The underground facility required special technical operating equipment. Among other things, two air conditioning systems were installed in the machine center, which enabled an average temperature of 19 to 21 ° C and a humidity of around 60%. The air conditioning ( ventilation ) was mainly carried out by means of central circulating air fans with an output of 250,000 m³ / h. To freshen up the circulating air, around 30% of the air was constantly renewed through the fresh air shaft.
For the supply of operating materials, 200,000 liters of heating oil and 200,000 liters of diesel fuel were stored in an operating tunnel.
Emergency supply
A full-time Bundeswehr fire brigade carried out defensive and preventive fire protection as well as technical assistance in the underground military facility (UTA). More than two thousand ionization smoke detectors were installed in the system, which were monitored by a computer-controlled alarm system in the fire station outside .
The available air that was fed in by the air conditioning system was 165,000 m³. Ionization sensors were installed in the ventilation system as smoke warning and signaling systems. When warfare agents appeared in the ventilation shaft, the air supply was automatically guaranteed by an ABC filter system.
If the power supply failed, the system automatically switched to diesel emergency power generators (3 units) with 580 kVA each within a minute . In the meantime, the emergency lighting started up automatically .
The oil supply (heating oil / diesel) was 400,000 liters. This operating tunnel was equipped with a fire extinguishing system with 1,000 kg of BC powder , which could be triggered manually by push-button switching or automatically with a thermally effective mechanical device ( fusible link ).
The underground system contained 500,000 liters of extinguishing water, which could be fed into a permanently installed ring main with wall hydrants , as well as 70,000 liters of drinking water.
Use by the Bundeswehr
On April 1, 1972, the Lorch-Wispertal equipment depot began its work, two years before its final completion.
In the 1980s the data transmission team 850/4 was stationed in the depot.
The device units were the depot guard and security train device depot Lorch-Wispertal and the depot handling train device depot Lorch-Wispertal.
From January 1st, 1988 to September 30th, 2007 the fire brigade Lorch-Wispertal equipment main depot Lorch performed its duty. It was renamed the Lorch-Wispertal fire brigade on October 1, 2007 and dissolved when the depot was closed on December 31, 2008.
The Lorch-Wispertal device depot fire protection group was set up in 1989 and was dissolved in 1993.
While the nearby Rheingau barracks were given up at the end of the Cold War in 1993, the equipment depot was restructured on October 1, 1993 to become the main equipment depot in Lorch-Wispertal.
From October 1, 1993 to September 30, 1997, the Lorch-Wispertal field post office was housed in the main equipment depot.
In 2003 it became known that the Federal Ministry of Defense wanted to close the main equipment depot in 2008 as part of the "reorganization of the fixed logistical facilities of the armed forces". There was resistance from the CDU to the decision of the ministry headed by Peter Struck ( SPD ) at the time . But the change of government in Berlin in 2005 and the assumption of the office of Federal Defense Minister by Franz Josef Jung (CDU) did nothing to change that. On December 31, 2008, the Bundeswehr gave up the depot.
conversion
Even before the main equipment depot with the ammunition stores was abandoned, the Federal Real Estate Agency was looking for investors for a civilian reuse. The device depot was built with a property area of approx. 48,000 square meters and a usable building area of approx. 1,700 square meters. Selling the depot, however, turned out to be difficult. Marketing did not succeed despite a Europe-wide tender. The plant is to be dismantled.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b location database of the Bundeswehr. In: http://www.zmsbw.de/ . Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr , accessed on September 13, 2019 .
- ↑ a b c Achim Berg: Bundeswehr fire brigade of the main equipment depot Lorch-Wispertal. Retrieved June 6, 2020 .
- ^ A b Municipality of Lorch am Rhein / Peter Griebel: From the Bundeswehr settlement to the Lorch district of "Ranselberg". Retrieved June 3, 2020 .
- ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung / Oliver Bock: Bundeswehr lets Lorch down for the second time. November 27, 2003, accessed June 3, 2020 .
- ^ Hessian Ministry for Economics, Transport and Regional Development: Conversion in Hesse. Retrieved June 3, 2020 .
- ↑ Federal Agency for Real Estate Tasks BImA Koblenz: Conversion and more opportunities for investments 2013/14. Retrieved June 3, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Wiesbadener Kurier / Jutta Schwiddessen: Expansion of the Lorcher industrial area Wispertal is being tackled again. August 26, 2016, accessed June 4, 2020 .
- ↑ Rheingau-Echo: Lorch wants to push sustainable tourism further, in: Fachbetriebe in der Region, special edition 2/2018, p. 22. Accessed June 7, 2020 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 3 '49.6 " N , 7 ° 50' 57.3" E