• Bunkertours 2007

• NATO Depot Flensungen
• Ore cleaning facility Windhain

 

Turns out though, that this depot was planned to be here in the 70ies, but ultimately was erected in Rabenau, some 20km away from here and in the early 80ies. Such a depot was to be used to keep the quipment of a full regiment in place during peacetime in case the russinas were to cross the border. Instead of having to transport all material over the big pond during a crisis, they just needed to ferry their personnel over and would find all necessary stuff in the bunker depots ready for action. So to say. So I decided to go and check out, what was left of this depot one day, equipped with my camera and flashlights. The ride to it was pretty short using my GPS unit. Easy to find. Looking around the area, I quickly discovered an entrance to it, an old rusty gate with barbed wire on top - but wide open. So I parked my car about 200m away from the entrance and went in to check out the inside of the depot.  

(Main gate viewed from the outside. Pictured as closed here, more about that later...)

The depot is vaguely oval shaped and has a bulge on one end. The bunkers are all located next to an access road, that goes around the whole depot and which is still fenced off from the outside with barbed wire fences. Even the light installations were still in place - the place looked rather well preserved. 

(Inside of the fence, you can see the main road in the bunker area pretty well. In some places, tank track marks are still visible)

However the lights were dead or at least sometimes you could see not working wiring at them. The bunkers are now rented out to civilians as storage shelters and such. Teh local volunteer firebrigade also has one to store some of their less often used equipment. 

(One of the bunkers from the outside.)

(Different bunker, styled the same way. Obviously used by some kids too for playing...)

(Nice: a steamroller idyllicly placed in front of someones bunker. A bit of industrial romatic?)

(Part of the lighting system, intact barbwired fence from the inside.)

I made my way slowly thorugh the depot, taking pictures on my way and enjoying the good weather and being outside. After the first few bunkers it was pretty clear that they were all locked - I wish I could have taken pipctures of the inside of one. Anyways - it got a bit repetetive, since they all look exactly the same. So after my long walk I came back to the frontgate - and found it to be locked and shut. Crap! Thanks to the barbedwire I could not just climb the fence (its razorwire), so I was stuck in there.  Never had this problem before - so what did I do? 

(The gate and its barbwired top from the inside. To the left the wire was dangling down, but still attached. Still no dice to climb over it. And yes, I tried that.)

I checked out the whole depot again and focussed on the fence to the outside. Halfway though the depot i foud a small 50cm hole inthe fence and squeezed myself through it. Maybe animals chewed their way in or out there or teenagers did it - at least I got out. Unfortunately due to the strom a while ago, a bunch of trees fell over and effetivley blocked the way around the depot back to my car. My only route to escape was now to climb downhill and take a huge detour around the whole hill and back up the street to my car. Thanks to my GPS unit I never got lost while doing that and 5km later and more then an hour of walking, I got back to my car and managed to drive back home. 

Next time on my to do andbring along list: Cell phone and toolkit for emergencys. 

 
Größere Kartenansicht

Some time after my little adventure with the NATO Depot, my then trainee at work told me, that close to his paretns house hidden in the woods would be a small bunker too. Of course I had to check it out. Took me two trips to the site though to figure out, where this one would be. There were also a lot of broken trees again from the strom that went through this region before, so finding the bunker was difficult as well as walking through the woods. 

(View from the back of the bunker, as seen when approaching it.)

It turned out to be not a bunker at all, but rather part of the water supply in this area, though quite oddly shaped and not standard formed in my opinion. Also seemed to not be in use anymore. 

(View from the front of the building, probably a water pressure tank. On the left you can see the ventilation shafts with the mushroom shaped covers on top.)

But what do you such a big water storage in the middle of the forest for? I investigated the area more closely after taking a few pictures of the conrete structure and soon found two odd places: There were two perfectly rectangular, even places in the middle of the forest. Looking very artificially made. Strange I thought. 

(One of the odd rectangular shaped platforms in the forest. You can see easily how all the trees are situated next to the edge of the rectangle, where the ground drops off a bit. In the background: Broken trees. ) 

Further looking around led me to another structure close by. Another concrete structure, obviously a former water bassin located in the forest. It features a steel cover that is mostly intact still. Again: Why would you need so much water in the forest with no houses etc. nearby?

(Concrete bassin in the forest, featuring the steel plates on top. You can see that it was not closed up entirely, the middle must hae been always open. The small chamber in front is connected to the main chamber with some pipes. Maybe a drain system?)

I took a few pictures of it and and of the rectangular platforms and then headed  hoem to tra to find out more about this. A few days later when talking with a colleague of mine about it, he mentioned that there used to be ore mining in this area and that I probably discovered an abandoned ore cleaning or washing facility. This would explain the rectangular platforms as well as the waterbassins and the depot I discovered. Well - interesting nevertheless. Not a bunker, but an industrial remain from years ago.

Updated 03/22/2009