Once again, I find myself doing a mega report. Every time I tell myself I’ll make it shorter, only to end up writing more. I’ve done a big intro here to set the scene but there’s plenty. I’ve got to thank UrbanX from DP and @The_Raw for some general advice on visiting these bases. We didn’t get round to everything, but you’d need months for that. Each base is so big, covering just one would take all day. These vast wastelands of pine forest and Soviet architecture are the closest experience you’ll get to the Chernobyl exclusion zone without going there. The forests of Brandenburg surrounding Berlin are so vast, there’s so much undeveloped land and hence the bases just sit derelict. Access was almost always easy, as they’re so big they barely even have a fence. Many of the bases do have a shared guard from the same company checking in on them each day, but you’re unlikely to encounter much trouble. Anyway, let’s begin.
The line up is Kummersdorf, Wünsdorf, Sperenburg, Forst Zinna, Jüterbog, and Saalow chapel
The line up is Kummersdorf, Wünsdorf, Sperenburg, Forst Zinna, Jüterbog, and Saalow chapel
BACKGROUND
This adventure begins back in 2018. Myself and mate went on a brief holiday to visit our friend in Potsdam who was doing a year abroad whilst at uni. It was a weekend of visiting all sorts of things you'd never see over here. From Teufelsburg (an ex radio station used by the Americans in the Cold War) - kind of a hippy commune complete with a chicken strutting around whilst people played table tennis, to going clubbing to techno until 7am in a former power station. All part of the Berliner experience. We saw the 1936 Olympiastadion, the Berlin Wall, the site of the Fuhrerbunker, and other cultural sites, so it wasn't all merriment. However, we became hooked on Germany's culture and troubled past. It was a country that formed the epicentre of modern world history, a place where the biggest changes the world has ever seen unfold on its doorstep. This is what made it such an interesting place, especially Berlin.
View from the student apartment block we stayed in in 2018, probably of DDR vintage
Teufelsburg; a military base in West Berlin on the opposite side of this article’s focus
Then it fell quiet. For a few years, we'd fantasized about returning but it was always a pipe dream. We had to make do by watching Deutschland '83. Of course, the WW2 history interested us, but it was the freshness of the Cold War that captured us most - how the country switched hands from one extreme of the political spectrum to another, and how that shaped the world our parents grew up in. With Covid, travelling became a distant prospect, and the occasional tidbit online would lead me to trawling Google Maps and marking out different abandoned military bases, but we didn't act upon it until a heavy night in the pub this year until we were accidentally served 6 rum and lemonades. A happy accident I suppose, as the conversation we had led to us deciding to finally do what we'd always wanted to. After a stressful week of booking flights, accommodation and organising a hire car abroad for the first time ever, we found ourselves on the plane.
BACK IN THE DDR
If you don't know, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik is what we know in the West as East Germany. Whilst not directly part of the Soviet Union, it was a communist puppet state under the Warsaw Pact alliance and therefore the Russians had plenty of military infrastructure based in Germany as we will soon see. When German territory was divided up after WW2 by the Allied, the country was split in half, and the Soviet Russians got the eastern half. Berlin was within this, and in itself was split in two so the West still had access to the capital. Just thought it's worth clearing this up.
We arrived in Berlin. Making our way across the city, we picked up the hire car, which turned out to be a brand new BMW Series 3. In Essex, BMWs aren't so romantic when one's inches from your behind on the drive to work, but over here this German engineering seemed to have a sense of allure. Or maybe it was the way the reception lady said 'beh em veh'. After a tense first drive to the airbnb; situated in an idyllic eastern suburb, we unloaded our kit before heading back into town.
Arriving at the Airbnb in the hire car
We were kicking things off with some DDR cuisine at an excellent restaurant called Volkskammer. The restaurant in East Berlin was established by a man seeking to recreate the nostalgia of growing up in the DDR as a child, and hence both its decor and menu is about as authentic a representation of the 1970s as it gets. No hipster fetishization, just an authentic travel back in time as well as place. In fact the food seemed kind of how my dad describes the make-do dinners of the 70s back in England. I would absolutely recommend it, the staff were lovely and it was unique.
Jaegerschnitzel
So this trip wasn't all about old barracks, we also saw several power stations which I'll cover in a future post. We had a full week off work which was a rarity, and hence we were willing to do a bit more than just urbex to really soak in the atmosphere. We had a day off exploring to go into central Berlin, and first revisited some of the classic central sights to take some better photographs. The USSR's occupation of Germany began at the end of WW2, with the Allied victory in the Battle of Berlin, so I think this serves as a nice starting point.
The Reichstag; one of the Battle of Berlin's key locations.
Tiergarten Soviet Memorial to the USSR soliders who fought for the Allied victory in the Battle of Berlin.
We next stopped off at Alexanderplatz and Karl Marx Allee. This was in some ways the centrepiece of East Germany. The architecture is similar to Brutalism here in the UK, but it actually looked nice and has been cared for better, which helped to appreciate its' original Space Age appeal. Soviet murals adorned the buildings, expressing hopes of a bright future that never was. I'll include a few shots below to set the scene.
Mural at the Haus des Lehrers
A model of the 1957 Sputnik 1 atop the Cafe Moskau
All this fluff might not be directly relevant to the military bases to follow, but we started to really see how the way of life of the DDR bled into every aspect of society. From the architecture and ideology, to the military and its’ war against the West. This was the perfect primer for what came next. Now time for the actual bases.
KUMMERSDORF
After a good night's sleep, we confronted the shaky prospect of a journey in the BMW to our first explore. Ducko handled it like a champ, unlike myself break-checking an innocent Fiat, and we hit up an abandoned power station. After a successful morning, we drove to the first military base where the exploring here begins (long intro ikr).
The gatehouse to the tank area
A substation just beyond the gatehouse
This first barracks in Kummersdorf began as a Prussian barracks in 1875, so this one goes way back. It saw continual use, and by the 1930s it was used for ballistics testing. From 1935, work was carried out to develop aircraft rocket motors. Wikipedia ominously reads ‘After 1938 Kummersdorf was used for nuclear research’ with no further explanation or source.
Gatehouse to the original barracks from the Prussian era on the opposite side of the road to the rest
By WW2, the base shifted role to a tank/armoured vehicle facility at the onset of WW2, where the Nazis learnt about captured tank designs including the Soviet T34, American Sherman, and British Churchill. Many of the iconic German tanks were first tested here, such as the Panther, Jagdpanzer, and Tiger II. The most amazing tank developed here was the legendary super-heavy Maus tank, of which only two were ever built due to its ridiculous size and weight. The curved structure was actually a hall built for working on the Maus tank. Basically this place was cutting edge and of world significance to WW2. It was probably built by slaves, as the construction here was shockingly bad and floors were made of hollow bricks cemented together.
The Maus tank hall
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