A Journey Through Vogelsang

[Nictoshek]

The inhabitants were afforded different levels of comfort depending on their status. While officers warmed themselves at tiled ovens, lower-ranking soliders had to make due with improvised, potbelly stoves such as this one.


When the Soviet troops withdrew, they left behind a vast military base in the forest near Berlin. Almost two decades later, photographic images of the deserted site show a haunting beauty, and reveal that nature is slowly taking over.

bit.ly/NIo6Fy

[Jaga]

interesting. So, this oven was used by Soviets in WWII?

[kaima]

I see that is the English language site of Der Spiegel.

Just looking at the 'pot belly stove' as it is mis-labeled, what you are looking at is a well designed "55 gallon drum" stove. It is a well practiced science in Alaska, where 55 gallon drums are also known as "tundra daisies" for their proliferation all over Alaska during WW II and the cold war afterwards. We had them by the thousands, and residents wasted no time in putting these fine assets to work. Books have been written about how to build an oil drum stove (I have one and have built them).

The multiple chambers on this stove show it is a sophisticated version, not a cave-man design as the title "improvised pot belly stove" implies.

That just tells me that the author does not know his topic.

[kaima]

Vogelsang is not exactly a boomtown. Located just northwest of Berlin, it has a mere 100 residents and a tiny train station. It is extremely quiet.

But in the forest nearby, there is a different Vogelsang. It its day, it was completely autonomous from the nearby village, had its own residential buildings, cinemas, warehouses and even a school. Some 15,000 people once lived there, and it was seldom quiet. The second Vogelsang was the home of Soviet troops, the warehouses were crammed full of tanks, howitzers and all-terrain vehicles. The cinemas were for the soldiers' families.

Vogelsang, one of the largest Soviet garrisons outside of the Soviet Union, was the base of the 25th tank division. For almost 40 year, soldiers belonging to the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany lived here -- until they finally withdrew in 1994.

Sine then, Vogelsang has been left to the elements, a ghost town in the middle of the Brandenburg forest. And yet, two decades after the last light was switched off, there is still plenty of life at the site. Deer and raccoon roam among the trees as do feral sheep and goats.

Testament to Former Prisoners

The barracks too still hint at the life they once contained. While most look the same from the outside, plenty of differences can be seen on the inside. The type of heating within, for example, indicates whether they housed officers or mere foot soldiers. The former tended to have decorative, tiled wood stoves instead of simple potbelly stoves. Window grates in the form of a shining sun likewise provided a bit of ornamentation.

The residential buildings, similar to the gigantic halls housing military equipment and vehicles, were painted in standard shades of gray, blue, green, yellow and sometimes even pink. The resulting mixture is a photographer's dream.

A walk through the facility also reveals several buildings and rooms that were built solely for the family members of the soldiers stationed there, highlighting its function as a kind of autonomous city. It even had a kindergarten and its own school.

One part of the facility was sealed off from the rest, surrounded by high walls and barbed wire. It housed the prison, full of tiny cells, some of them with no window. The only furnishing was a wooden bench that stretched from wall to wall, leaving little open space in the cell. It is difficult to believe that people were locked into the rooms, but messages scratched into the walls continue to bear testament to their former prisoners.

Vogelsang is slowly succumbing to nature and soon it will have disappeared entirely. For now, though, it remains as cluster of forgotten buildings near a small, quiet town in the forests north of Berlin.

www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/a-photographic-journey-through-an-abandoned-soviet-military-base-a-843056.html

[karl]

Thank you Kai for your interdiction of information. I have never been to Vogelsang and have not intention of, but it is interesting to hear of it, and to observe the various photos as brought forward by Speigel.

I am some what surprised or shall we say,,,,interested,,as for not that junk to be removed off the land and replaced with some thing more fitting. For as usual of land that once was for heavy equipment, maintenance, repair yards, fuel and lubricants, will be heavily contaminated into the soil. With this, will go expensive soil removal of contaminated material to be replaced with fresh clean material.

The Soviets were quite confident in their manner of saber rattling into the faces of good people. That is until the news release of American development of Neutron bombs. For with this weapons, it is not so much the blast and heat effects that are so dangerous, but the fact of neutron penetration through the steel of armoured vehicles to kill the crews with out damage to the machines.

In as above, this would indicate the uselessness of massive tank and armoured machines if used as a manouver through the Fulga gape in attack formation.

Then of course, the 1961 tank stand off between the Americans and The Russians at check point Charlie. This was an effect of great tension, for if one GI rather American or Russian were to lose nerve,and fire a shot or slipped a tooth on the tank gear box. It would possibly have quickly escalated into a shooting match and border war until cool heads were to take control.

Those were not good years, nor of the post cold war years. For to then take onto the working mans back, the junk dump left of the Former DDR was an expense still being accounted for.

www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/sovietcollapse.htm

The following url is use of the sweat of some one else, but, why not?

tinyurl.com/6pr5lev


Karl