Tour Report: Soviet Airfield "Hunter's Game"

We had successfully found and explored the command bunker of the local fighter division and were ready to head through the woods to explore the garrison part of the airfield. The bunker was at the far end of the airfield, so we had to walk for a while.

After a few hundred meters, we could see a figure between the trees. There was also a car not too far away. At first, we thought it was a forestry worker, but when we saw a few more men in the distance, we realized that there was something going on. There really wasn't any way to hide or take a long way to not be spotted, so we decided to play it openly and walk up to the guy as he saw us.

Our usual approach of being friendly didn't work, however. It turned out that there was a hunt going on, and we had just stumbled into it. The guy was pretty mad at us and became rather unfriendly. To make one thing clear: On the path that we used to enter the area, there were no locked gates, no "Do not enter" signs and no signs that there was a hunt going on - although the guy insisted that there were. His statements varied from "You've broken in!" over "You've ignored the signs!" (to which we answered that we would gladly show him that there were no signs) to "I'm calling the police!". We told him that he can surely call the police, but there were no grounds since it was an openly accessible area. Then he told us that if we each gave him twenty Euros, he would let us go. At that point, we just laughed and went back to the car. On the way, we checked if we had overlooked any signs, but there positively weren't any.

So much for exploring the garrison. But we didn't want to go home empty-handed, so we drove around to the other part of the airfield with the runway, airplane shelters and various workshops. This part of the area, too, was easily accessible, so we took our time to explore everything we could find - making sure that we stayed far away from the hunting party.

Well, at least we saw parts of what we had come for - and some parts of the airfield hopefully still remain to be explored some time in the future.

To find out about the history of this place and to check out all the photos, click the button below.

Tour Report: Soviet Command Bunker P.

Our second tour in January of 2019 took us yet again into the realm of the Cold War. We had planned to explore an abandoned Soviet airfield in the former GDR along with two command bunkers together with our friends from Urbex & Lost Places, North Urbex and Lichtbeschatter.

We met early a few kilometers away from the airfield for a first strategy meeting, and we decided to try the front entrance first. There is a museum on a part of the old airfield, and although it is closed during the winter season, there may have been a chance to take an easy way in. We didn't get lucky. The gate was locked, and there wasn't anyone to be seen that we might have asked if we can have a look around, so we had to find another way in. It was the long way; we had to take a dirt road alongside a field until we got to the outer perimeter of the airfield. We walked along the concrete wall until we found an opening, and we were in. We suspected that we were pretty close to the bunker that was on the premises of the airfield (the other was a few kilometers away), so we started looking. Since we didn't have an exact location, we had to search for a while, but then we found it.

The access structure wasn't easy to spot if you weren't looking for it - I think that if you'd look for it during the summer, it would be completely covered by vegetation. The bunker had apparently been sealed at some point, but had later been opened again by copper thieves. There was only a small hole to slip through to get in. Inside, we had to climb over some concrete rubble, and we were in.

There was a little bit of water in the bunker, and I guess that if it had been raining more in the weeks before, there would have been a lot more - in the summer, this must be a breeding ground for mosquitos. The copper thieves had really done their "job"; nothing much was left of the communications or ventilation equipment - and everything else was moldy and decayed due to the water inside the bunker.

Still, we took our time to check out all the rooms, before we climbed back out and started making our way through the forest to the remains of the airfield's garrison.

To find out about the history of this place and to check out all the photos, click the button below.