> Police Announcement (German)
Since I live in Germany, I have learned a lot about the crimes of the Third Reich.
I’ve also learned a lot about the misery that German civilians went through, particularly to the end of World War II.
So it didn’t really came a surprise when they found what they suspected to be a dud (a bomb that didn’t went off, called ‘Blindgänger’ in German) under a now demolished sales pavilion right across the street from where I live. (It was found in the catacombs under the pavilion.)
As standard procedure mandates, the construction workers called for the police. Then the police called for an EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) Team from Hannover to figure out what to do.
If it had been a bomb (left from air raids during the war), I would have probably been evacuated, so that the EOD team could defuse the bomb without endangering to many people.
Luckily that wasn’t the case. What they found was still very dangerous though: a tank shell. Probably from when the Germans blew up a nearby bridge to halt American war efforts in early 1945.
Luckily there was no fuse on that tank shell, so that it could be transported without to much danger of it going off.
It will probably still be destroyed though, as the explosives inside are very dangerous nonetheless.
But it’s nothing special when you find World War II ordinance, mostly duds and RPGs or small arms, in cities.
A few years ago, they discovered some white phosphorus grenades, because they started smoking out of a hillside.
A few years earlier, an EOD team sat the forest on fire while blowing up some defunct handgranade.
That’s why in Germany, you have to probe your property for disposed/ defunct military ordinance when you plan on building a new building.
It would be way to dangerous to hit a bomb fuse with an excavator.
For everyone.
UPDATE: They didn’t found a tank shell, they found a Panzerfaust 100. (German anti-tank RPG.)
Panzerfaust 100
this was the final version produced in quantity, from November 1944 onwards. It had a nominal maximum range of 100 m (330 ft). 190 g (6.7 oz) of propellant launched the warhead at 60 m (200 ft) per second from a 6 cm (2.4 in) diameter tube. The sight had holes for 30, 60, 80 and 150 m (260 and 490 ft), and had luminous paint in them to make counting up to the correct one easier in the dark. This version weighed 6 kg (13 lb) and could penetrate 220 mm (8.7 in) of armour.
Robin Ho Fotos 