Soviet Garrison "Camp III"
"Camp III" is a former military area. It is located about three kilometers north of the nearest town. The barracks complex is bounded in the east by a river and in the west by a "Bundesstrasse" (federal road ) and arailway line. Beyond the railway line, a former military training area extends to the west, which today is part of a Nature Park.
As part of the German rearmament, a new troop camp was set up on the edge of the old military training area starting in 1934. In the chronological order after the "old camp" and the
"new camp", this camp was initially named "Camp III". Immediately afterwards, the place was officially named "Adolf Hitler Camp". In addition to the actual troop camp, a separate provisions store and the construction of a train station (1937) rounded off the complex.
According to contemporary witnesses, the first user of the camp was the SS. From autumn 1935 the Artillery School used the camp to set up observation departments for the artillery troops. From the beginning of the 1940s, the Artillery School, the "Teaching Team T", which dealt with the training of drivers for tracked vehicles, was housed in the camp. There was also an installation department for a newly developed assault gun .
Immediately after the end of the Second World War, the Soviet occupying power operated a camp for displaced persons here. Members of different countries were concentrated here - often against their will - and then deported in collective transports to their countries of origin.
From 1947, the German Administrative Academy (DVA), which was founded by the SED (the socialist party), used the buildings created by the Wehrmacht. In addition to the actual barracks and technical areas, these included cinema and theater halls, restaurant rooms, sports facilities in a pleasant architecture in the middle of a park-like landscape, and offered ideal external conditions for an academy.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, renowned artists were tasked with designing the academy's interior - not knowing that soon after that, the Soviet Army would claim the area to set up an administrative headqaurters here.
So after it was used by the SED, the area was taken over by the Soviet Army. In the 1970s, a new facility for a construction battalion was built. In the military area there were several administration buildings, farm buildings, a cinema and a zoo.
On January 19, 1988, one of the worst railway accidents in the GDR, caused by the Soviet military, occurred here. An express train crashed into a Soviet Army tank that was standing on the tracks. Six people died and 33 were injured.
Most of the military installations and buildings were removed as part of the conversion. At the end of 2007, the total demolition of Camp III began. A review prior to the start of the measures showed that there are more than 500,000 cubic meters of enclosed space on the site. It is planned to completely unseal and renaturate the area. One of the goals of the demolition measures is to keep possible commercial space free for the future.
Source: Wikipedia
Visited: August 12, 2018
Location: Undisclosed, Germany
Status: Abandoned / Security Service
