World War II bomb forces evacuation of 6,500 people in Potsdam
A 550-pound unexploded device found at a construction site leads German authorities to clear the central railway station and surrounding areas
German authorities evacuated Potsdam’s central railway station and the surrounding areas on Tuesday after discovering a 250-kilogram (550-pound) unexploded bomb from World War II. The device, which forced the evacuation of 6,500 people in the German city, will be disposed of by explosives experts during the day.
Nearby residents, including elderly people from a care home, had to leave their homes early in the morning, before 8.30 am. The evacuation also affected the regional government of Brandenburg as the state parliament and many official offices lie within the safety perimeter, as well as the Brandenburg Regional Investment Bank and the Barberini Museum.
Evacuation teams were checking that no one remained within a 700-meter (half a mile) radius of the site where the bomb was found, a city spokeswoman said. Rail traffic was suspended entirely, affecting numerous regional trains and S-Bahn services linking the Brandenburg capital with central Berlin. Many people live in this city of about 190,000 inhabitants but work in Berlin.
The explosive was discovered during construction work near a municipal swimming pool close to Potsdam station, according to city officials. The plan is to interrupt the device’s detonation chain, explosives expert Mike Schwitzke explained, by unscrewing the detonator by hand and then removing the bomb. It is an operation he has carried out countless times — “part of my daily work,” Schwitzke told RBB Berlin-Brandenburg. The expert estimated the defusing would take between 30 minutes and an hour.
Tuesday’s closure is not the first of its kind in Potsdam. In January 2019 a 250-kilogram, US-made aerial bomb from World War II was also found near the central station. At that time, about 5,900 people were affected by the defusing work.
Even 81 years after the end of the war, not a single day passes without an unexploded ordnance being found somewhere in Germany. Experts estimate that 1.3 million tons of explosives were dropped on German cities during the conflict. It is unclear how many of those bombs failed to detonate. Estimates range from 5% to 20%. Unexploded bombs remain highly dangerous even decades later. Leaving them in the ground is not an option: the passage of time and corrosion can even increase their danger.
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