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.
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