Secret Communist Documents Say Berlin Airport Sitting On Live Ordnance

A Berlin airport that's become a favorite destination for budget airlines sitting on top of thousands of live bombs and warplanes that are fueled, armed and ready to fly. All of them are supposedly relics of World War II.

According to The Scotsman, papers captured from the former East German secret police, the Stasi, suggest tons of live World War II munitions were buried in concrete bunkers, about 28 feet beneath the runways at Schoenefeld airport in East Berlin. Schoenefeld is now the main destination for discount airlines, such as Ryanair, and numerous charter companies.

The ordnance and warplanes weren't left under the airport by the Nazis as Hitler's Germany crumbled in 1945. Instead, the Stasi papers indicate it was the Russians who, upon finding hundreds of thousands of unspent weapons and delivery systems, scrambled to find someplace to put it all.

The Scotsman reports that, not only did the Russians and their East German counterparts store ammunition beneath the runways, but also entire Nazi warplanes, fueled and armed.

The captured files of Interflug, the former East German government airline and the airport authority of the former German Democratic Republic (DDR), are now being examined to see if they can corroborate the Stasi claim.

They're Kidding, Right? Nope. It's Possible.

The Scotsman said experts believe it could indeed be true that, in the aftermath of war and in the shadow of a cold war, the Soviets pressured local officials to clear the airfield swiftly.

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

Berlin authorities say the airport, which handles some two million passengers a year, is perfectly safe. "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," an airport spokesman said.

Oh yeah? The Scotsman reports a thorough check on the Stasi claims -- which will take several years to decipher -- is now underway.

Berlin, with its sandy, dry soil, was perfect for the bunker-building of the Third Reich, the report said. Hundreds of thousands of bunkers were built during the 12 years of the Thousand Year Reich.

For every foot of building rising above ground in modern-day Berlin, there are three feet of bunker space below, the Scotsman reported. It added that bunkers are being discovered every day and some are even turned into tourist attractions.

FMI: www.berlin-stadtfuehrung.de/english.htm