At the height of the Cold War, 36 systems of the MIM-23 HAWK - an American medium-range surface-to-air missile - were deployed in nine anti-aircraft missile battalions (later squadrons and groups) of the German Air Force. In the NATO alliance, together with Dutch, Belgian and US units, these HAWK formations formed the so-called HAWK belt, which stretched from the Danish border across Germany to the border with Austria.
Eight of the HAWK-systems had been set up in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Most of them have been taken over by local farmers or other businesses. One has been been turned into a small amusement park with a summer toboggan.
I had explored this place once a few years earlier, and it wasn't really spectacular. We only went there, because it was close by, and it is always interesting to see how a location develops over the course of a few years.
Since there isn't really a regular place to park, we had no choice but to drive right up to the front gate and park there. The access was still the same. I don't think that it was the same hole we went through four years earlier, but that doesn't matter anyway :)
The place still looked the same, but less of it. A few buildings had been removed. I think that the buildings containing tanks had to be removed due to risk of contamination. There are quite a few farmers around, and I think they wouldn't be too happy if the groundwater was laced with gasoline or worse.
A HAWK-base isn't a huge installation, so it didn't take us too long to walk around once and go back to the car and head towards the next location.
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