Posted on 08/02/2003 10:29:19 PM PDT by LibWhacker
HOHENWUTZEN, Germany (Reuters) - Nearly 60 years after the end of World War Two, loud bangs and smoke fill the air as grenades and shells explode by the Polish border -- but this time Germany has informed its neighbour of its plans.
"We've told the Polish authorities, so they won't be worried we're planning to invade again," joked bomb disposal expert Ralf Kirschnick as he inspected shards of metal after a controlled explosion on the German bank of the River Oder.
Since the end of hostilities Germany has made steady inroads into the unexploded bombs and grenades buried beneath its soil, but the disposal task could continue for centuries.
"I'd estimate there's still another 200 to 250 years of work to do," Kirschnick said.
Kirschnick is one of about 50 disposal experts working their way through sites in Brandenburg.
The eastern state, which surrounds Berlin, was one of the most heavily bombed parts of Europe in the war. The U.S. and British air forces dropped about 1.5 million tonnes on Nazi Germany. Around 440,000 bombs fell in the Berlin area, of which an estimated five percent, or 22,000, failed to explode.
Indeed, a map on the wall of disposal group chief Horst Reinhardt showing suspect areas serves as an historical record of conflict.
Swathes of pink show where Soviet forces fought German divisions in their push towards the German capital. Smaller patches mark the cities bombarded by the Americans and British.
"Our state has the heaviest density of munitions. This was after all where the war ended," said Reinhardt.
COSTLY CLEAN-UP
The legacy is a headache for the cash-strapped state which has proposed that the federal government foot the entire clean-up bill.
At present, it covers only clearing German arms at an annual cost of 45 million euros. Brandenburg says with the inclusion of Allied bombs, the bill would double.
The state still has 400,000 hectares (one million acres) of land deemed suspect. Last year, its experts cleared 670 hectares, unearthing 655 tonnes of munitions.
Aerial photographs taken by the Americans and British have helped since they were made available to the formerly communist eastern states in the 1990s.
A large crater in the photos of pockmarked ground indicates a bomb went off, while a small hole suggests an unexploded bomb may still be lying beneath the surface.
Soviet munitions, of which there are few records, are harder to find and their sometimes makeshift construction means they can be more dangerous.
RISKY BUSINESS
It's a risky business.
In Brandenburg, a disposal expert was killed in 1994, while in the town of Oranienburg, a man and a girl were injured in the same year when an undisturbed bomb suddenly blew up.
A bomb exploded at Siegen airport in western Germany in 2000 just minutes after a passenger plane had landed on the same spot and a few hours before Dutch Queen Beatrix was due to visit.
In Salzburg in July, a World War Two bomb killed two disposal experts who were trying to unearth it by the Austrian city's central train station.
Kirschnick, who has served 10 years as a bomb disposal expert, including a stint in Bosnia, says the old munitions are becoming more dangerous by the year as they gradually corrode.
Looking out across the Oder river into Poland, he also comments that eastern Europe has an unenviable clean-up task. When the water is low, he says, some munitions can be seen sticking in the banks.
"There's been little interest in the east, although clearly it's been an issue of money," he said.
Kirschnick says his job requires constant vigilance.
LOL! Well, you do have a point there. The single most unfunny people on the planet should be encouraged to yuk it up, I suppose.
But can they stay off Holocaust jokes, maybe? "How many Jews can you fit in an ashtray?" is significantly less funny when asked with a German accent.
Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja!...
Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
That's not what they said at Nuremberg. No, Germany's coveting of an entire continent so it could have some "lebensraum" was not fair.
My Grand-Pas had nothing to do with these actions. They even didn´t know it.
Yeah, I'll bet they were real good little Nazis. Germans downwind from Dachau to this day claim they didn't know anything about it either, even though they were choking on the crematory soot. We've heard it all before.
MY society has paid for the crimes . . .
Fifty million people perished, Michael. Germany can never adequately pay for that crime.
It's only been a few generations and already Germans are yukking it up over the war (actually, we both know they were yukking it up long ago). East and West is reunited and I don't expect it'll be too many more generations before we see German soldiers goose-stepping down the Kurfurstendamm. The last few months has made it quite clear Germans still don't know right from wrong.
But please spread the word, Michael: America is always ready and willing to give Germany another good thumping. Only this time there will be no reconstruction. Fool us once and all that crap.
How do you know the person who made the joke 'perpetrated the crime'? It would seem like if the person was actively working now, he would've been too young to have been in the active military back in the 1930s-40s.
I guess I start to understand why blacks in America don't like racist jokes. Thanks. Maybe the reparations crowd has a point after all. If we are to all be held responsible for the sins of future generations... Sure why not? What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Maybe the Native Americans have a point as well about the names of sports teams... Where does it stop?
I was there 2 weeks ago---I have never, ever seen landscape like that. You can still see the craters, trenches, and tunnels after all these years. A few years back two military officers went into a former "red zone" and quickly blew up. Incredible.
Well, we're not going back hundreds of years, are we, Michael? IMHO, your generation shares a not insignificant amount of guilt with the actual murderers who committed those many, many war crimes and those other uncountable barbaric crimes against humanity.
How can I say that? Because to this very day the bastards are still living in your midst, perhaps by the millions -- certainly by the thousands -- living the good life, revered, upstanding citizens of every city and hamlet in Germany. They've been there since the day you were born. Civilized people have an obligation to put their collective foot down and say, "NO! . . . You will not get away with those heinous crimes." But your generation has not done that. You've turned a blind eye to it.
How many of them have your generation prosecuted? Almost zilch. None. Nada. Zero. So I'm sorry, as I see it you've done next to nothing to quash the mentality that led to the war in the first place and led to the war crimes and pogroms.
WTF, why don't you just get it over with and give them medals and other high national honors and put an end to the pretense?
Best wishes,
LW
Don't believe the murderers.
Nazis wantonly slaughtered perhaps 20 million Russian civilians during operation Barbarossa. Exactly which five Nazis do you think are responsible for that, hmmmm?
Better talk to grandpa again.
Why? Because in WWI the French actually fought!
In WWII they just rolled over and asked the germans to be nice.
Some years ago (before the intenet) I read an article in Smithsonian Magazine about the ongoing effort to remove these munitions.
The ordnance guys said that the shells that scared them the most were WWI chemical shells. After (at that time) 60 years they were rusty, fragile, and could break at any time.
What happened to the slaves is still with us, after more than 100 years of freedom and 600,000 dead to free them.
I would like to declare a 30 year limit on blood-guilt. Perhaps we could get over things.
Common belief and actual events can be miles apart. The 1940 campaign in the west was short - approx. 6 weeks but it consisted of some rather sharp fighting. The French lost over 100,000 killed. I don't remember the German numbers off the top of my head, sorry, but it was far from a cake walk for them.
We are in total agreement, I am always responsible for what I do.
What I meant (intended) about 'Blood-Guilt' is that we should someday forget and forgive crimes commmited by a nation or a race.
If the world will forgive me for having ancestors who committed various crimes, I will forgive the world for crimes against my ancestors.
Fair enough. I also remember reading that the 5th division threw down their rifles, stripped off their uniforms, and ran.
The invasion of France is a shame to Germany, and France.
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