The Deadly Duds of Deutschland

No one can say with any certainty just how many unexploded bombs and other explosives still lie buried underground in Germany, but a recent annual bomb squad inventory taken for Hamburg alone is pretty telling; 116 incendiary bombs, 29 phosphorus bombs, 83 missiles and other projectiles, 1 land mine, 23 hand grenades and 58 kilograms of other miscellaneous explosive charges. All in all this adds up to over 8 tons of explosives. And this was only what was found for the year 2009 alone, for one city, and this nearly 65 years after the end of World War II.

No, the Krieg didn't just end, and yet German bomb squad units still roll out every day, somewhere in Germany. All across the country they are still defusing and disposing bombs dropped and forgotten here during that cataclysmic event. It might certainly seem strange to those who don't live in this country, but perhaps stranger still is just how routine, even natural it is for Germans to hear about some street being blocked and homes temporarily evacuated while bomb squads do their work, and be seemingly bored by the banality of it all. In fact, regular bomb removal stories like these rarely make it further than the local newspaper. One sad and notable exception was the recent explosion near Goettingen which killed three experienced bomb squad professionals. After incidents like these, one realizes just how truly deadly the past can still be. But then it's quickly back to normalcy as usual, with that certain fatalistic calm here that seems to say "there is nothing that can be done about the danger anyway."

And this is indeed the case. Some 70 years ago, in the summer of 1940, after German attacks on Poland, Holland and England, the Allied air attacks upon the German Reich began in earnest. The Royal Air Force at first bombed relatively small targets at night, but bombing precision in those days, and under those conditions, left a lot to be desired. In 1942, the US Air Force began precision bombings during the day, but these too were much less precise than one might have hoped. As the war progressed, the bombing tonnage increased considerably and by the end of the conflict, millions of bombs had been dropped on and into German soil.

Most of the larger German cities were heavily hit, of course, but to use Hamburg as an example, this city alone was attacked 216 times and bombed with some 107,000 explosive bombs and 3,5 million firebombs. German experts have studied loading lists of the British bombers and, taken together with the bomb squad clearing statistics since the war, it has been calculated that roughly 12.5 percent of the explosive bombs weighing 50 kg to 2 tons dropped over Hamburg never exploded. Subtracting the bombs that have already been accounted for and removed, that still leaves about 2,900 duds that could still possibly explode. In Berlin the number is estimated to be around 3,000.

These bombs can still self-detonate at any time. In fact, one large bomb explodes somewhere in Germany once a year on average. This also appears to have been the case with the recent explosion in Goettigen. Usually, the problem has to do with the type of fuse utilized. A large number of the bombs dropped used chemical fuses and these unexploded bombs present the biggest explosive threat to this day.

The perfidious thing about these chemical fuses is that they are purposely designed to explode hours or even days after impact. But in addition to that, these types of bombs also had a much higher dud rate due to the complicated nature of their design. The device was composed of a small pin wheel at the rear of the bomb propelled by the air draft during the fall. This caused a small spindle in the bomb's interior to rotate. At one point the spindle then crushes an ampule of acetone, a corrosive chemical which then begins to eat away at a celluloid locking ring. Depending upon how thick this ring is, it can take hours or days before the detonation mechanism snaps shut.

That many of these bombs did not explode when they were meant to can have a variety of reasons. The acetone ampule may have never broken because the bomb's pin wheel was jammed, for instance. In other bombs the chemical process took place but the detonation mechanism itself failed. Or, as in many cases, the bomb bored into the earth but then curved upward coming to rest with the nose pointing up. At this angle, the acetone can never come into contact with the locking ring. But even here the acetone vapor will have an effect and can lead to detonation years or even decades later. And even without the acetone in play, the celluloid will age and can become brittle enough to allow the detonation mechanism to set off the bomb one day.

A dud doesn't have to remain a dud, in other words. After disarming these weapons, experts are often struck by the brand-new condition these detonation devices still appear to be in. And unfortunately, provided these bombs have remained intact, they don't "go bad." To make matters worse, when considering the scenarios described above, these duds are more likely to explode with each passing year. They may not be actually ticking, but they are literally time bombs waiting to go off.

When these self-detonating explosions take place, it is pure chance whether anyone gets injured or killed. And there is little that can be done proactively. The cost that would be involved in locating this lethal ordinance before it can explode is, to put it mildly, prohibitive. A systematic search for these many thousands of bombs would simply be too expensive for the cities and communities affected '" German law stipulates that the German Laender or states must carry the costs for removing Allied bombs, the federal government must pay for the removal of any Wehrmacht munition.

And then there is the practical aspect of the matter, of course. Most disarmament experts believe that a systematic search would simply not be feasible, at least not with the manpower that is now available. But at least before any new construction project can begin in Germany, the local bomb squad authorities must be notified so they can examine the proposed site first, often with the help of aerial photography furnished by the Royal Air Force (please see the Aerial Reconnaissance Archives link). If the available photography indicates bombing impacts, the builder must see to it that the premises are thoroughly examined by a company that specializes in this, a process that can include digging meter-deep holes, sinking probes and sensors or the measurement of disturbances in the magnetic field. The bomb squad supervises these efforts and disarms any weapons found.

And the more that is built in Germany, the more bombs found. Due to an increased number of recent building projects in Hamburg, for instance, nearly twice as many bombs were found in 2009 then in the previous year, over 3 tons of explosives. The German state of Saxony registered over 300,000 finds of "warfare agents of all types" in 2009, whereas the bomb squads of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous and one of the most heavily hit areas during the war, retrieved over 27 tons of explosives that year.

And how many duds are left to be uncovered in Germany? No one can say with any certainty, of course, although some estimates put the number as high as 100,000.

Sources:

Sie sind unter uns
Christian Staas
Die Zeit, No 32
August 2010

The Aerial Reconnaissance Archives (TARA)
The National Collection of Aerial Photography
RCAHMS

The Strategic Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945
Alan J. Levine