U.S. placed bomb in Germany!

[Bernhard]

Well, OK, it was almost 70 years ago and we all know why.

A 250kg bomb of U.S. origin from World War II was found on a construction site right in the city of Munich (where the real Oktoberfest takes place in a few weeks). It had a chemical fuse, still active - and too dangerous to defuse on spot.

This leads to evacuation of about 2500 inhabitants and closing down a whole quarter of the city, affected was a circle of 1 kilometer radius. Fire department and police led the people out (only one had to be forced, most were total cool), disaster response groups of Red Cross and Maltese Cross cared for those who found no other shelter. EMS and volunteer disaster transport groups assisted those who were not mobile enough. Several staging areas collected forces of fire, EMS, police and German Federal Agency for technical relief. Some emptied fire stations were filled with volunteer departments from outside areas.

After two days trying to defuse and finally preparing one of the biggest explosions Germany had seen since WW2 within a major city, they forced the bomb to detonate in the evening of August, 28th.

The following video was released by a private citizen and shows the impressive fire ball:

After the blast there were several fires on the roofs and in the streets. First reports talked about "Chaos", but Munich FD was able to get all of those fires under control in less than 30 minutes. There were no victims or injured persons. Some structures were damaged, but only slightly - however, most windows broke in a radius of several 100 meters. Civil engineers checked all buildings and there was only one with significant problems. Though, several apartments still are uninhabitable due to broken windows, shattered glass and damaged furniture. For those still without an intact home, the city authorities organized hotel rooms. All emergency shelters could be closed a day later.

The images of the first 30 minutes show streets in flames: http://www.focus.de/..._did_40939.html and http://www.merkur-on...ia&firstslide=1 . Main cause for the fires were hot splinters and the hay they used for controlling the explosion.

In preparation they piled up around 100 tons material in earthwalls, sandbags and special mats for directing the explosion. Hay bales were used to damp the explosion and catch splinters, which obviously worked rather good despite beeing the cause for several fires. But, as said above, it was under control rather fast.

During this events there were several other remarkable emergencies despite the "normal" daily emergency business in a million people city, including a severe collapse on a construction site (totally unrelated to the bomb) wtih multiple injured persons.

I wasn't involved in the whole setting but know several key players very well. EMS hadn't much to do, only to transport several handicapped and sick people. A lot of work was done by the volunteer groups who prepared the shelters and cared for the evacuees.

It's not uncommon for german cities to have several buildings evacuated due to old WW2 remains from time to time. According to a spokesman of the State of Bavaria in 2011 there were around 1000 findings with 40 tons of explosives, mostly ammunition from WW2 but including 214 unexploded bombs. In Munich there were around three findings this year, but all others could be defused on spot. 2010 in another german city, Göttingen, there were three fatalities among bomb experts when they tried to defuse a bomb with the exact same mechanism as the Munich bomb now. I myself was involved in two incidents of WW2 bomb findings around here, where we had to evacuate some streets.

So at least this bomb is history and I hope my next incident report will be about an interesting shift on Oktoberfest. See you there!

[paramedicmike]

And that was just one bomb. Imagine dozens and dozens and hundreds of them. It must have been terrifying.

Cool story, though, Bernhard. Thanks for sharing!

[Arctickat]

That was impressive. Watching that fireball rise finally allows me to comprehend the damage that these weapons did. Thanks for sharing that Bernhard.

[DwayneEMTP]

And I'm guessing that the bomb was covered with...something...to catch shrapnel. I've never thought about those kinds of issues...thanks for sharing that...

[itku2er]

All I can say is WOW lots of fire power there. That was one big ball of fire.

[Bernhard]

In one bomb raid over a city there were typically thousands (!) of such and bigger bombs used. Pattern changed, but usually there were "roof crashers" (big explosive bombs to blow the roof away) and then a lot of ignition bombs (phosphor) to cause heavy fires in the then unprotected houses. Bomb sizes usually ranged from 100kg to 500kg bombs.

Lots of germans have relatives in the parent or grandparent generation who witnessed such bomb raids and survived (or not) in the bunkers. Almost all big german cities were target of allied bombings, mostly civil targets by the way - industry and infrastructure often wasn't there anyway. My mother was saved multiple times by my grandmother in such a bunker, where other babies died. Usual cause of death was not only the debris or heat but often the lack of oxygen, if the buildings around the bunker were burning and consuming all the oxygen.

A special threat were bombs with chemical fuses: they had a time delay between several hours and up to several days until they exploded. A mechanism involving chemical acid slowly destroying the fuse holder was used. This was to hit responding firefighters and rescue squads, so to disturb help after a bombing. Such time bombs now cause a lot of trouble when still unexploded in the ground - as was the case here in Munich now. Normal contact/pressure fuses usually are rather easy to defuse (but don't try this at home!) and then transported to a deposit.

In one of the pictures you can see the things they used to point the explosion upwards and to catch the shrapnels and blast wave. First an earth wall to protect near buildings and to direct the pressure upwards. Then a lot of sandsacks to support the directing and protecting. This was packed with special mats for catching shrapnels. Then a lot of dry and pressed hay was used to cover the whole thing, lightweigth but compressed hay seems to be perfect for catching shrapnels AND taking a lot of energy of the explosion. Even if it catches fire, but that was addressed by staging several firefighting capabilities. It's cheap and was easily available.

Problem was the time factor and the sensitivity of the bomb. They simply didn't dare to make this all very exact. This would have been a danger to all workers involved. All in all, there were no injuries or death, so I consider it as a success. Some (few) owners of burned property may see this in another view, but what would have happened when that thing has exploded by random? Formerly, there was a famous restaurant located at this spot for the last 30-40 years until they recently demolished the house and now intend to raise a larger building.

Every construction site in german cities is a probable finding spot for unexploded bombs. Experts try to detect them by old aerial views of the bomb raids, but that's no exact science. Metal detectors are easily disturbed by all the other things you usually find in city soil (cables, canal systems and so on). So, every construction worker and excavator operator in a german city is aware about the dangers and when hearing the "cling" should immedeate contact police who in turn activates the regional bomb squad (for war bombs usually a private owned company).

Yeah, that was an impressive sight and I'm glad I live in a time and place where we're not in constant danger to get such a bomb on our house as my grandparents got: they were totally bombed out, loosing all their belongings - at least they survived.

[cscboulder11]

I knew about blowing the roofs off and then igniting buildings, but the chemical fuse bomb is news to me. Thanks for that info, Bernhard.

[spenac]

So will Germany be billing the USA for the expenses?

[Bernhard]

So will Germany be billing the USA for the expenses?

Guess not. The bomb was carefully placed in August 1945, think the juristical responsibilities for such a gift are timed-out now.

Financial part is interesting, though. Authorities already denied beeing responsible for the explosion damage, since this was the only reasonable way to get rid of the dangerous thing.

The bomb experts are paid by the state anyway, there is a case-independent budget, actually 700'000 EUR per year alone in Bavaria. State of Bavaria and City of Munich may bear the own public safety costs by goodwill (police, fire, EMS, disaster relief organizations), I assume. There were no legal reasons to declare the "case of disaster", which would have opened a special state fund - but State of Bavaria and City of Munich can take this, they're healthy enough. They even announced a special fund for short term economical emergencies of the victims.

Most probably the owner of the construction site is liable to compensate all other costs. If not: most people here are insured on their appartments and belongings, but usually not for war related damages. However, a very strange thing already happened: insurances have announced to make an exception and pay for the bomb damage...I think that's part of their advertising, since the risk is rather low for another such case.

So this would be settled rather easy, except some detail problems and forever lost personal belongings (photographs, memorabilia, unique art and so on). At least, noone was hurt. Craftspeople (especially glaziers) and construction companies have a big time there now.

In the aftermath there was an interesting information, I just read about: more than 70% of the bombs on german cities were dropped by British air forces and they did an aerial image before and after each bombing for damage assessment. Those pictures are very valuable information for the bomb sweepers today. However, recently the UK denied usage of their images for private companies due to "copyright issues"! Bavarian state already paid a lot of money to use those pictures, but apparently is not allowed any more to forward them to the private owned companies doing the actual work. There are negotiations now, but I think, that's really crazy. They still make money from the bombings and obviously want to raise the price!

There is a reason we try to get the money back from all of you WW2 allieds on Oktoberfest!