15th November 1942
Munster Lager

Munster Lager

The Munster Training Area (German: Truppenübungsplatz Munster) is a military training area in Germany on the Lüneburg Heath. It comprises two separate areas with different purposes: Munster North (Munster-Nord) (size: 102 square kilometres (39 sq mi)) and Munster South (Munster-Süd) (size: 74 square kilometres (29 sq mi)). The two areas are separated geographically by the town of Munster and several barracks. When the military training area was established a camp or Lager was built about 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) from the town centre which became known as Munsterlager. Between Munster North and South there is a road corridor to the nearby training area of Bergen-Hohne over which exercising troops can transfer from one area to the other. There are many rare and endangered plant species on this terrain today that thrive in the environment created by the training area.

In 1916 the so-called Breloh Camp (Breloh-Lager) was built in north Munster by a regiment of gas warfare engineers (‘Gaspionier-Regiment’). In January 1917 the Prussian War Office issued an order for the construction of a facility for gas munitions. Gasplatz Breloh was built on a piece of land about 6,500 hectares (16,000 acres) in size in the Raubkammer Forest (part of the present-day Munster North Training Area). Three factories were erected for the manufacture of chemical war material and associated munitions. Production began as early as July that year and, by the end of the First World War in 1918 extensive facilities had been built, the majority of which were working.

At the end of the war in 1918 the Gasplatz held about 48,000 tonnes (47,000 long tons; 53,000 short tons) of chemical munitions, several thousand tonnes of chemically-filled captured munitions and 40 tank wagons of unfilled chemicals. These supplies were sunk in the North Sea and the Baltic. During the preparations for this there was a tragic accident on 24th October 1919. A train laden with chemical weapons and munitions exploded. Apart from the Clarkwerk factory and the power station almost the entire facility was destroyed, a total of 42 buildings. Chemical grenades were catapulted for miles around and clouds of poison gas threatened the surrounding villages, some having to be evacuated. Many houses in the surrounding area were badly damaged. In addition to the immediate victims of the explosion there were numerous deaths in the months that followed.

The terrain was supposed to be cleared by 1925. Roughly 1,000 workers combed the surface of the land out to a radius of 3 km (1.9 mi) from the explosion site. There was no detection equipment at that time. A considerable quantity of chemical munitions remained live. In 1921 the Hamburg firm of Stolzenberg took over the work that had been previously carried out by König and Evaporator AG. Stolzenberg established a chemical incineration facility and a site to convert chlorine gas and diphosgene. The latter installation exploded on being taken into service in April 1922. In spite of everything, clearance work was completed in 1925 and the remaining facilities were blown up at the behest of the Allies.

In 1935 the Wehrmacht opened Breloh again as a Weapon Testing and Firing Site (Kampfstoffversuchs- und Geschützübungsplatz). The plan was for an overall split of 15% chemical and 85% explosive munitions. The chemical weapons were to be filled with mustard gas (Lost) and phenacyl chloride. The 6,500 hectares (16,000 acres) or so of the old Gasplatz were transferred in 1934 to the Reich Defence Ministry and were expanded through purchases and expropriation to about 10,200 hectares (25,000 acres). The whole complex, which was largely built between 1935 and 1938, was called the Munster North Army Testing Facility (Heeresversuchstelle Munster-Nord), often referred to as the Raubkammer Army Testing Facility. The main purpose of the facility was the testing of chemical weapons that had been developed in Berlin at the Army Chemical Defence Laboratory in Spandau Citadel (Heeresgasschutzlaboratorium Zitadelle Spandau). No. 9 Weapon Testing Office of the Army Weapons Office (Heereswaffenamt) and the Army Chemical Defence Laboratory moved at the beginning of March 1945 from Berlin to Munster (Örtze), due to air raids, and carried on working there until the end of the Second World War.

An extensive range of tests were carried out on a wide variety of shells of various calibres, as well as on mines, projectiles, bombs (up to 500 kg (1,100 lb)) and spray equipment. The substances tried included arsenic oil, hydrogen cyanide, mustard gas (Lost), Tabun, Sarin, cyanogen chloride, phenacyl chloride, Adamsite, Aeroform, Excelsior (10-chlor-9,10-dihydroacridarsin) and many others. Chemical munitions were filled at the so-called 'fog-filling point' (Nebelfüllstelle), which had a tank capacity for about 3,000 t (3,000 long tons; 3,300 short tons) of chemical. At this filling point there was a large underground facility that was partly linked with walkways. During a spraying demonstration by the Luftwaffe on 8th September 1944, a Do-217E-3 crashed, killing all those on board. The facilities were mostly disguised as 'simple' bunker complexes or as houses in rural style. A network of railway branches linked the individual parts of the site with one another. There was also a link to the Reichsbahn network.

Following occupation of the site by British forces in 1945 almost all the chemical installations were demolished in the succeeding years and most of the stocks of chemicals were also destroyed. In spite of that, it has left a dangerous legacy behind which is one of the largest areas of residual contamination caused by armaments in Germany. Since April 1956 there has been intensive work to clear the pollution. Today this is the responsibility of the specialist Group for Chemical Weapon Clearance (Gruppe für Kampfmittelbeseitigung), the Chemical Defence Research Establishment (Wehrwissenschaftliches Institut für Schutztechnologien) and the federal Chemical Weapon and Armament Pollution Disposal Company (Gesellschaft zur Entsorgung chemischer Kampfstoffe und Rüstungsaltlasten).

Source: Wikipedia (2025)

Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page