The IG Farben bldg. was renamed the Abrams Building . The
entire Abrams complex has now been turned over the to university. The former PX
complex, where you also no doubt spent some time, remains deserted and
untouched while the city tries to come up with enough money to do something
with it. The original plan announced over five years ago called for a new
central police headquarters to be built on the site, but construction has still
not begun.
All the former US facilities in Frankfurt have been give back to the German
govt. except for AFN radio & TV headquarters and the former 97th general
hospital. The Army almost gave up the hospital, too, but decided at the last
minute that they needed a reserve field hospital.
Frankfurt's night spots are occasionally invaded by American GIs from Hanau,
but they now concentrate on Sachsenhausen on the other side of the river.
Kaiserstrasse is still a dangerous place on occasion. You have be careful not
to get caught in the middle a gunfight between rival Yugoslav gangs fighting
over prostitution turf.
Det J-1 on Schneeberg -- like similar US installations -- was abandoned
during the 1980s. The German Bundeswehr tower on Schneeberg (see photo),
however, remained in operation until 1994. The only building used by the US
Army that remains is the former "ops" building, which housed the
commander's office, com center, "kino" and limited living quarters
(see photos). The former US and Bundeswehr compounds remain fenced off and
together form an eerie ghost town of sorts on Schneeberg's summit. The
"cabin", "mess hall" and "club", located 100
yards or so farther down the "Hill", are all gone. Even the asphalt
in the parking lot between the "cabin" and "mess hall" has
been removed. On Sundays and holidays the "Hill" is alive with
tourists, but a barrier (Schlagbaum) across the road a kilometer or so above
the TB sanitarium at the bottom of the mountain forces everyone to hoof it up
that last 3 km.
Bischofsgruen/Wunsiedel (iby) For 20 years Walter Blaetterlein served as a
civilian employee for the Bundeswehr [German military] atop the nearly
1,000-meter high mountain of Schneeberg in the Fichtelgebirge range of
Germany's Franken region. But the uppermost floors of the tower on Franken's
tallest peak, through which the nerves of the military electronic surveillance
network passed, were off limits to him. The once top secret parabolic dishes
and antennas have since been dismantled and sold to Hungary, and Walter is now
free to roam the rooms. He currently looks after things as a superintendent of
sorts.
The tower is still off limits to the public. A fence topped with barbed wire
surrounds Schneeberg's summit. At night two red lights atop the tower wink at
vacationers and area residents. During the day the stubby structure is an
unseemly landmark in the Fichtelgebirge Nature Park. A calendar showing October
1994 still hangs in one of the rooms. It was then that the tower – one of
five along the East Block border – was deactivated after exactly 30 years
of service. The Bundeswehr's electronic eavsdropping specialists packed up and
moved out.
The atmosphere inside the 16-story tower is surreal. The entry way leads
through an underground corridor, past emergency exits and CBR shelter. The
ground floor still houses part of the tower's equipment including an air
conditioning system and an emergency generator powered by a giant, brand-new,
twelve-cylinder Mercedes diesel engine. The tower is still connected to
functioning power lines.
Three hundred steps lead up to the operation rooms located halfway up the
tower. This is the most secretive level. The synthetic panels once concealed
parabolic dishes that were used to track aircraft, eavesdrop on radio
transmissions on the eastern side of the border and follow Russian troop
movements in the former East Germany.
Now the rooms are deserted and empty. Fragments of a map that was torn down
long ago still cling to a wall. Signs with cryptic messages such as
"acknowledge fault" and "no alert report" lend the place an
eerie atmosphere. In the quiet of the round, partially windowless rooms you get
the feeling that you are traveling through space in a pilotless space ship. The
German Property Agency is currently trying to get rid this military dinosaur.
In contrast to coveted base living quarters and tracts of land suitable for
renting out as commercial property, Schneeberg real estate is not a
sought-after commodity. No minimum bid has been set for the plot of land
located in the middle of a nature preserve. Its commercial value is absolute
zero. The original building permit, which was issued for military purposes, has
since expired. This means that not even as much as an apartment could be set up
here, even though the tower is still supplied with water and electricity.
The unusual climate of the mountain summit, with its average annual temperature
of only four degrees Celsius, would make it an ideal research site. Rare plants
and animals would be able to flourish within the confines of this restricted
area. Wunsiedel District President Peter Seisser thinks this would be a good
solution. But the University of Bayreuth and other institutions have already
abandoned such ideas for lack of money. And it would cost ten million marks to
completely dismantle the tower and adjacent buildings.
The tower continues to be used for communication purposes, albeit civilian. The
German telecommunications company Mannesmann is currently using Schneeberg to
expand its D-2 cellular phone network. For the place where giant metallic ears
once tracked enemy aircraft and followed rumors all the way to Moscow,
"business talk" is now the order of the day.
