Fully armed Nazi bomber planes 'buried below East Berlin airport

Drudge via The Scotsman ^ | 7/23/03 | Allan Hall

[SquirrelKing]

IN BERLIN

AN AIRPORT used by hundreds of thousands of tourists and business travellers each year could be sitting on top of thousands of live bombs.

Papers among thousands of files captured from the Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, claim tons of live Second World War munitions were buried in concrete bunkers beneath the runways of Schoenefeld airport in East Berlin. It is now the main destination for discount airlines, such as Ryanair, and numerous charter companies.

Not only did the commissars intern munitions beneath the runways, but also entire Nazi fighter planes, all fuelled and fully bombed-up, according to the Stasi.

The captured files of Interflug, the former East German government airline and the airport authority of the DDR, are now being examined to see if the Stasi claim is true.

Experts believe it entirely feasible that, in the aftermath of the Second World War, with Berlin littered with millions of tons of unexploded ordnance, the Soviets could well have pressured local officials to move to clear the airfield as swiftly as possible.

"They would have stuffed them anywhere they could - there was simply too much stuff to blow up all at once," said Karl-Heinz Eckhardt, a Berlin historian. "There was a warren of massive Nazi bunkers beneath the site of the present airport that would have suited their purposes."

City authorities claim the airport is perfectly safe, but a thorough check on the claims in the Stasi files - 140 km of them that will still take a number of years to decipher - is being undertaken.

Nearly two million passengers a year pass through Schoenefeld. According to the Stasi files, the ammunition was buried in bunkers between eight and nine metres deep.

A spokesman for the airport said: "We became aware of the bunkers in 1993, four years after the fall of the [Berlin] Wall. A check was undertaken then and everything was determined to be safe."

But he conceded that he was astounded at the claims that fully-fuelled and bombed-up aircraft lie beneath the runways and said new tests about the safety of the structures will be carried out.

He added: "We had no idea that so much ordnance is supposedly under there."

Frank Henkel, the Conservative interior ministry spokesman, said: "This must be investigated thoroughly and immediately and the runways strengthened if necessary."

Berlin, with its sandy, dry soil, was perfect for the bunker-building of the Third Reich. Hundreds of thousands of them were constructed during the 12-year lifespan of the Nazi government: for every one metre of building above ground in modern-day Berlin, there are three metres below ground.

Bunkers are being discovered every day and a group called Underground Berlin has turned several of them into tourist attractions.

[aristeides]

Schoenefeld was the Berlin airport of East Germany, but it is not/was not in East Berlin. It is south of Mariendorf/Marienfelde in West Berlin, and is in the Mark Brandenburg, just outside the city limits of Berlin.

I was not aware that Schoenefeld was already in use in the Nazi period. Anybody know anything about that?

I was stationed at Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin from 1970 to 1972. There were rumors while I was there about what was in the subterranean floors of the barracks there, which the Russians had flooded during the Battle of Berlin. Those floors were sealed off, so we could not see what was there.

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks Johnny. It would be great if they really find planes. Thanks for the ping.

[wolficatZ]

Anything jet or technically advanced ( like the incomplete Hs 132) would have been carted off by the Soviets.

Henschel Aircraft had a huge complex there; above and below ground. Ju-88s

and Ju-388s were built there up until Feb '45 when all production switched to single

engine fighters. Plus all the Henschel  guided missile projects were built there, which

could account for large quantities of SC500 and other type bombs.

Anything from He-111s, Do217s, Ju88/388s. Fw190A/D/F/G's

Me109G/K's, Hs129s, or Ju87Gs. Who knows.

I ran across a site earlier where a Soviet pilot shot down

a Me-109 over Schoenefeld in April '45 so they were probably based

there during the last days of the war.

[SAMWolf]

You're probably right about any jet/rocket aircraft being carted off. Sure would be nice to find some Fw-190s there though.

[tophat9000]

You guy have no imagination

I want a Ta152

I would prefer a C model but an H model will do

Check out http://www.luft46.com/

[ZviTheWise]

Given that corroded lumps of 60-year old scrap aluminum are nowadays "restorable" aircraft worth thousands, expect some serious spelunking to go on here soon (assuming it isn't an uber-urban legend). And while you're at it, I'd like an ME-262, a cool, longnosed TA-152, and one of those Nazi flying saucers that didn't exist (assuming they didn't all end up at the secret base in Anarctica).

[wolficatZ]

Nice pic of the D. Could be Fw190s there; I had some video footage of Tempelhof after the

Soviet capture and you can see a number of Fw190s in a hangar, so they were

definitely in Berlin at the end of the war. Fuel being so short; would have been

reserved for the few fighter and recon units available;most of the bomber units

were dissolved and the crews and ground crews sent into the Battle for Berlin

on the ground.

 

A number of Fa-223s were captured at Tempelhof supposedly

[Nebr FAL owner]

In 2002 the French were doing some work in a rural area that would have been a couple miles behind the front in W.W.1 when the backhoe they were using uncovered a tunnel complete with narrow gage electric railroad tracks that dated back to W.W.1 ,the tunnel was used for moving men & ammunition up to the front out of sight of the enemy & under protection from airburst artillery.heaven only knows what is still buried under the soil in the various parts of the old East Germany.

[wolficatZ]

             They just dug up one of these

 

[SAMWolf]

Aha so that's what all the UFO sightings are!

[wolficatZ]

When I was stationed in Crailsheim there were rumors of underground planes in one of the partialy buried concrete aircraft revements. Also there were a number of places on base (like the football field and the "back 40")where we couldn't drive vehicles or our M-113s, because of buried munitions left over from the war. Never got to investigate the hangar,it was supposedly flooded and booby-trapped. I'm sure a lot of ex-military has heard a lot of these kind of stories. I did get to explore a big bunker in the woods in Grafenwoehr that had been blown up and stillhave some pictures I took of a tank graveyard somewhere near Hohenfels.

[rockfish59]

It's a lie, it's a lie, it's a DAMNED LIE!!

[SAMWolf]

Ho229V7 Night Fighter (Plototype of Ho229B)
Length : 8.50m
Wing Span: 16.76m
Hight : 3.05m
Wing Area : 53.60 Square Meter
All-Up Weight : 20,500Kg
Engine : Jumo004B-2 (900Kg) X 2
Max Speed : 950Km/h
Range : 2,080Km
Service Ceiling : 16,000m
Crew : 2
Armament : MK108 30mm X 4
Option Armament : R4M 55mm Rocket X 24
Radar : FuG244 Bremen O

[SAMWolf]

Ar E.555-1 American Bomber Project
Length : 18.40m
Wing Span : 21.20m
Wing Area : 125.0 Square Meter
All-Up Weight : 25,000Kg
Engine : BMW003 X 6
Max Speed : 715Km/h
Crew : 2
Bomb : 4,000Kg

[AppyPappy]

Nutzis are the craziest peoples.

[wolficatZ]

http://www.berliner-unterwelten.de/ has english version

http://home.t-online.de/home/m.tegge/relikte/ a whole page of links

I've noticed there are quite a few more sites now dealing with WW2 fortifications and underground sites that just a year ago. Seems to be a lot of interest.

[SAMWolf]

Thanks for the links. When I was stationed in Germany I wuold find what was left of old bunkers in the woods all the time. They were all picked over since they were all on the beaten path.

The massive Air Raid shelter my mom used in Koln is still standing.

[tophat9000]

Look like Sing along with Mitch

[ChadGore]

ROFL !"France surrendered two hours ago."

[Paulus Invictus]

And I have just the guy to pilot the plane, an ex-Nazi who I play tennis with. The guy is a bad player and a worse sport. Let's get him back into the type of plane he brags he used to shoot down B-17s and let him get it into the air, preferably with the old gas in the tanks. This unreconstructed idiot has paintings of the plane in his den.