Any chemical weapon that’s
lying around poses a huge danger, and should be removed
as soon as possible. The thought that you could
have been out walking just one meter above so many
shells was really terrifying. Our research uncovered that there are about 200 such
sites across Germany. There are concrete ruins
in the forest — they’re scary. Is that the solution? The most toxic place in Germany is located in a forest near
Munster in Lower Saxony. This pavilion stands over
what was once Dethlinger Pond. It covers rusting explosives and chemical warfare
shells from two world wars. The road here has
been closed for months — only weapons experts and
the emergency medical staff who are always with
them are allowed through. A Pandora’s box has
been opened here. After the Second World War, the British disposed of
their shells and such there. Whatever couldn’t
be transported to and dumped in the
North and Baltic Sea, was sunk in the Dethlinger Pond. The state of Lower Saxony continued using
the 60-metre wide pit as a munitions dump after the war. No records were kept on what
was thrown into Dethlinger Pond. Up until the 1950s, ‘bomb diving’
was a popular weekend activity. Post Word War Two there
was economic hardship, so some people from Munster would go dive for
non-ferrous metals in the pond. That's why the authorities
decided to fill it in. That was in 1952. The weapons experts estimate around 20 thousand
chemical weapons and bombs could still be buried here. For decades, the area
remained hidden in the forest, and accessible to everyone. Maybe we were just lucky that no one came here
in the past few decades, and started digging. There were times
when we were shocked by how many shells there were, and very close to the surface. In September 2019, local authorities began
to excavate the filled-in pit. Tests showed that water quality
readings had been wrong for decades — during all that time,
arsenic and other toxins were seeping into the groundwater. No one knows how many chemical weapons were dumped in Germany after the
end of the First World War in 1918. Today, their remnants can
still be found all over the country. Like here in this forest, just
fifty kilometers east of Hamburg. Geologist and geographer
Johannes Preuß has been studying this toxic
wartime legacy for decades. This area was used
as an incineration site for gas weapons after
the First World War. Preuß first collected samples
here twenty years ago. That's the bottom of a
shell that was twisted off. You can see the marks here. This would have been unscrewed, and the shell would be laid
in a groove — like my arm. Then you’d light it, the
explosive inside would melt, and the glass bottle with the
chemical agent would slip out. They’d remove that, pour
out the remaining explosive and burn it. You can see the layers
of burnt earth here. This is where they threw them in. These are the bases
of large caliber shells — and those are smaller ones. They've been lying here
for about one hundred years. The First World
War was a Gas War. Around 100 thousand
soldiers were killed, and more than a million
others were injured by the use of chemical weapons. The weaponized gases got
more and more dangerous as the war progressed. By 1918, the final year, every
third shell fired was filled with gas. After the armistice, much of Germany's stockpiles
of unused of chemical weapons was dismantled and destroyed. But many weapons
disappeared without a trace. These large things are from
incinerations, which got pretty hot. And this is what was inside it. We sampled this back in 2000,
and found it was dinitrobenzene. Here’s another one. Dinitrobenzene is an
explosive, but it's also poisonous. Back then, the people
who worked filling the shells had a lot of trouble
with dinitrobenzene. There were cases of young
women fainting on the spot. And one case where a
woman died immediately. The chemical agents
were filled into glass bottles that were inserted into shells. Johannes Preuß
found glass here as well. We saw these glass bottles, or at least the tops
made of green glass. One, two, maybe three. We left them here
somewhere on a stone. But it looks like
someone's taken them now. There are others who
recognize those bottles. A mine clearing team from
the German armed forces, the Bundeswehr. They've been searching
the Munster military training grounds for
chemical weapons for years. It's a very large area. We'll be at work here for
another 20 years for sure. It's highly dangerous
because hazardous materials can turn up at any time. But we're trained, and we have
protective gear and good equipment. In addition to dealing with chemical
warfare agents, there are explosives. The munitions haven't
been decommissioned - so detonations are possible. Munster has a
long military history. Since 1893 training took place here, and it remains the largest site
of the German armed forces. During World War One it was home to the biggest
chemical weapons factory in the German empire — a quarter of all chemical
agents were tested, produced and filled into shells here. After the war, Munster played a central role
in the disposal of those weapons. The war was over and the shells
were coming back to Germany — mostly from the
western front in France. The order was that all warfare
weapons were to be brought to Munster. The flood of returning
troops, however — that’s how to think of
it, they were pouring in — they didn’t do that. They just took the
munitions to their stations. As a result there were
conventional weapons and chemical weapons, and
no one knew what was where. So there are at least 35 sites where large amounts of
warfare agents were brought. And we don't know
where the remnants are. It's an unsolved problem. An unsettling thought. Unknown quantities of chemical
weapons are still rotting away, undetected, across Germany. In Munster, millions
of chemical shells and bombs arrived after the war. From there, they were loaded
onto trains and sunk in the sea. In October 1919, one
explosion proved catastrophic. It set off a chain of detonations
that lasted three days, and fired off more
than one million shells in a radius of three kilometers. " Many of those one million
shells are still lying here today... before long the metal
detector goes off. We got a signal from this
detector, which detects iron. All we know for now is
that there is iron buried here. Whether it’s a fragment, or a
part of a tank or a munition — that’s what we need to find out next. Okay, so you can already see now
it's a shell casing, but it's empty. So there used to be a
chemical agent in there, but now there isn't. This time we’re also lucky
enough to find pieces of the bottle. This bottle was filled
during the First World War with a chemical warfare,
vomiting agent known as Clark. During World War One, Clark was also known in
German as the 'Maskenbrecher' — or mask-breaker. Toxicologist Edmund Maser explains the insidious
power of the toxic gases. The gas penetrated
the protective masks, and caused extreme irritation
to the mucous membranes and the eyes, so that the
soldiers would rip off their masks. That’s when they’d be
hit with a second gas, for example a choking agent, which caused severe lung damage. Clark and other hazardous
chemical warfare agents have been lurking in the soil beneath the military training
ground in Munster for decades. It would be easy to
get by the demarcation, but authorities rely on people
using their common sense. Anyone here without permission is risking their own life. With the explosives and
chemical warfare agents here, I strongly advise against it. It's likely to be
several more decades before the small team has
cleared the area of toxic residues. Germany also manufactured
large amounts of chemical weapons for World War Two. The population was
prepared for a gas war. Mustard gas — sometimes
called ‘Deadly Lost’ in German — had already been used
in the First World War. The dangerous agent played an
important role in the Second as well. After the Nazis came to power,
they began with rearmament. One aspect of that was making
warfare agents for Germany. They built factories to
manufacture the toxins, which then had to be
filled into munitions. In total, there were seven
munition-filling centers built that worked with mustard gas." German chemists were behind some of the most gruesome
discoveries in modern warfare. A 1938 propaganda film showcased the power of the
nerve agents tabun and sarin. After just a few seconds, the motor neural stem cells are
paralyzed and breathing ceases. Severe asphyxiation cramps follow. Breathing is stopped, while a
heartbeat can still be detected. In the end — even the Nazis backed away
from using these weapons of horror. When World War Two ended, the Allies found hundreds of
thousands of bombs and shells filled with chemical agents. They decided to dump
most of them at sea. Ships were loaded and then blown up... leaving a legacy of
toxic chemical waste lying on the seabed to this day. Some 50 thousand
tons of mustard gas were dumped off the coast of
the Danish island Bornholm alone. If this substance comes
into direct contact with skin, it causes burns and blistering. But if you inhale it, it can
cause toxic pulmonary edema, which is a really serious
illness that can be fatal. Many of those ships were
loaded up on the Kiel Canal in northern Germany after the war. Christel Schierholz remembers
this from her childhood. These are the tracks
the trains arrived on, carrying a deadly freight of
toxic gas bombs and shells. The boats would
come here to the quay and then the bombs would be
loaded onto the ships from the trains. Including the gas bombs —
most of which were damaged. You could smell it and even see it. It wasn't a white fog; it was a yellow-green fog
that covered everything. That’s when we had to
put on our gas masks. To this day, Christel Schierholz has no idea
which gases she was exposed to. She has difficulty walking — the result of a nerve disease
she's had since she was young. I was 15 when I
first began getting ill. It started after the end of the war, and after they'd finished
loading the gas bombs. There would be times
where I was almost paralyzed, and initially a doctor
thought it might be polio. But it always went away again. And then 20 years ago I was
diagnosed with neuropathy. No one can say what
caused her neuropathy, but Christel Schierholz has found
out that toxins can be a trigger. When she showed us a photo
album of pictures from her childhood, she became sad. Her whole family died of cancer. She blames the chemical weapons — and the politicians who've
ignored the existence of these wartime
poisons for 75 years. I don't understand it. I just can't understand what
the politicians are thinking. I know I'm old, but
I've been through it all. But these days I get the
feeling that they know about it, but they don't want to know. They don't want to spend money on it. The costs are horrendous. And for them, money is
more important than people." The costs are an obstacle. Germany's most toxic hole, Dethlinger Pond in Lower Saxony, could easily become the
world's most costly one. The clean-up comes with an
estimated 50 million-euro price tag. In early 2020, work began
on three exploratory shafts. The first chemical shells turned
up just a meter below the surface. Stefan Wesche is part of the team
recovering the deadly weapons. In this job, he's aware
anything can happen: There are things where
you can’t gauge the risk. Uncovering munitions
that leak and so forth. My biggest concern is coming
across an exposed chemical warfare agent down in the hole. That would mean getting out carefully, evaluating the situation
and taking further measures." Stefan Wesche has been
confronted with such situations down in the shaft. He risks his own life on
the job - to save others. Munitions are a problem. Especially when they're
somewhere buried in the earth, disintegrating, and hazardous
gases are leaking into the water. Eventually that affects
the whole population. Heavy metals that get into the
water, like arsenic for example, seep into the food chain
and then into people. That's why we have to do this. Eighty-four minutes is the
maximum time Stefan Wesche can stay in the shaft with
his HAZMAT suit and mask. He goes down alone. Next to him, and beneath him — are hundreds of poison gas
shells from two World Wars. Today he'll recover
400 kilograms of toxic, deadly munitions from the hole. I have a mix of
feeling. It’s strange. I can't really express
what it feels like. But it's certainly not good. You have to stay sharp, whether you're excavating
things or moving them. This closely-watched convoy has been moving around the
Lüneburg Heath for months. Once a day, its poisonous haul
is loaded onto a special truck and taken to the
G.E.K.A in Munster. The company is the only
one in the country allowed to dispose of chemical weapons — any chemical weapon or warfare
agent found on German soil is brought here. On average, we have one to two hundred
shells being brought here. Most of them come from
the region north of Munster. But for example, two years ago we had some
from Baden-Württemberg. They were doing some building and brought us chemical shells that still contained
the nerve agent tabun. Just a drop of tabun is
enough to kill a person. Philipp Höschele is responsible
for destroying the gas. Before he sets to work, he
meticulously checks his gear. If there's any dirt or
contamination in this area, or if any of these plastic
parts are damaged, it could allow toxic agents
or poisonous gases to get in. That's why it's really important
that everything fits here, that everything is clean and that the membrane
isn’t compromised. Höschele was present
in November 2019 when the first shell from
Dethlinger Pond was sawn open. An emergency medic
was also on standby. We get dressed here, and then we get into our pope
mobile and are driven over. Next, we enter the front chamber
where we pick up the shells, which we take to be cut or sawn open. We take the shell out of the barrel, fasten it at the right height
and we leave the room, because then it's the turn
of the machine operator to saw open the shell. When it's open,
he'll give us the okay. We go in, and monitor the room for concentrations of warfare agent. If everything is okay, we look
to see what the contents are. When we've determined
that, we take a lab sample and then the agent
is put into a barrel that can be secured
and destroyed safely. When the shell from
Dethlinger Pond was sawn open, the chemical warfare agent
inside was found to be phosgene. The problem is that
phosgene damages the lungs, which means bodily
fluids can get in. The lungs fill up, and the person effectively
drowns on their own bodily fluids. Chemical munitions
recovered from Dethlinger Pond are stored at the G.E.K.A. If there really are 20 thousand
shells to be recovered, it'll take years to destroy them all. The G.E.K.A is already
working to capacity. Head of GEKA Andreas Krüger says politicians could be doing more. Of course, that costs
taxpayers money. In the end you have
a safer environment, but that’s not immediately visible so maybe that’s why
it’s an unloved child. But there’s no other option — we should be doing something. Not least because so
few people are aware of the many places in Germany contaminated by wartime
chemical weapons. Berlin's Haselhorst
district for example. Toward the end of the Second
World War the trail of records on substances found here gets lost. During that tumultuous time,
you had the Allied takeover — without any documentation. Some things here were also top secret, so they were never
supposed to be documented, or the records are still sealed. For decades, Berlin
authorities turned a blind eye, unwilling to stir up
trouble on the River Havel. But things changed in 2018 when a real estate firm
planning to build apartments had the area searched
for unexploded bombs. The company got more
than it bargained for. During the search a
metal container was found in one of these bomb craters, whose origin could not be determined. So the company asked the Berlin police bomb
disposal team to check it out. They determined that
the container was filled with the chemical
warfare agent, Clark One. After that unwelcome discovery, the real estate company turned
to an expert: Alfred Krippendorf, is an engineer and former
captain with the East German army. He’s qualified to work
with chemical agents such as mustard gas and tabun. He set his mobile laboratory
up right next to the building site for an on-the-spot soil analysis. We're expecting a very strong
contamination of the soil here, and also the recovery of
large amounts of materials containing arsenic, such
as Clark 1 and Clark 2. Given that the site was once
home to a World War Two factory that made chemical warfare
agents, this is hardly a surprise. Some of the old
buildings are still there. For decades, no one
paid much attention. Parties were held
at a boat house here, and the former-owner the Berlin
housing authority did nothing. Now, the authorities say
it's up to the new owners to clear any old ordnance. But the investor doesn’t want to
pay for it, because that would mean passing on the cost of this toxic
legacy to buyers and tenants. Here are old glass
containers from the lab area, and here is a piece of the barrel. The ground is full
of things like this. Tons of arsenic have
already been recovered — so far, one thousand
barrels have been filled. To prevent dust from
spreading through the air, water is constantly being
sprayed over the area... and the poison has been
detected in the groundwater. The barrels have to be transported
to Munster to be destroyed. The clean-up operation
has cost an eight-figure sum. But what about the
neighboring properties? Large film studios
are on the adjacent lot. And on the other side, new
apartments are being built. Could there be chemical
weapons in the ground there too? We've got no idea
what’s behind that fence or in the neighboring lots. You can assume that the soil
is contaminated there as well. So you can only hope
that the new owners or whoever moves there
also plans to switch out the soil, because we know how
heavily contaminated by arsenic the ground was here. It would be good if everyone
did what we're doing. Other studies have shown that public areas are also
contaminated with arsenic. An uncomfortable truth
for the city of Berlin. After decades of turning a blind eye, authorities have to face up
to this toxic wartime legacy. And it's likely to cost them a lot. Exploratory drilling at
Dethlinger Pond in Lower Saxony ended after turning
up 2,552 gas shells. In spring 2020, local, district
and regional state level officials agreed to excavate and
completely clean up the area. Lower Saxony's environmental
minister, Olaf Lies, says it was the only option. The extent of the contamination is much greater than
we initially thought. I would say we will have to
invest at least 50 million euros to get rid of what is there. Fortunately that can be done
in this fairly compact area, to make it safe again. But the minister doesn't
want Lower Saxony to have to pay the costs on its own — he wants the federal
government to share the burden. There will be a little friction with the federal
government over who pays. In my eyes, the
government is responsible. Or to put it differently: residents here should know this won’t not happen
because of money — it has to be done. The government has to realize
I'm not ready to carry their share. It has to be fairly divided. The Munster
neighborhood of Oerrel is just a stone's throw
away from Dethlinger Pond. If anything goes wrong
at the excavation site, this will be the
first place affected. Munster mayor Christina
Fleckenstein spoke with residents. A huge amount was
dumped in Dethlinger Pond. No one thought about
how dangerous it was for the environment
and for people here. There's no point being scared. We wouldn’t try to stop a
clean-up because it has to be done. What annoys me is that
they took so long to act. In the end, the government
agreed to help fund the clean-up. A painstaking operation has begun
to re-open up the filled-in pond. An engineering
firm was brought in — one experienced in
clearing chemical weapons. Its boss applauds the Lower Saxony
government for showing integrity. On the whole, he says, German politicians
are far too reluctant when it comes to dealing
with the almost 200 sites contaminated by chemical weapons. In the early 1990s, the Federal
Office for the Environment pushed for research to get an overview of the situation on
these sites in Germany. That led to some federal
states setting up so-called ordnance decommissioning programs, which resulted in
targeted investigations being carried out
at several sites. But it was never completed. In addition to the toxins present
in the soil and groundwater, the engineer has other concerns too. There is the risk that explosives and even warfare agents
could end up in the wrong hands. That would pose an even
bigger risk to the population. One of those warfare
agents is the nerve gas sarin. One of the most horrific
chemical weapons ever made. The nerve agents are
probably the worst, because even just
very little concentrations can damage a person's nervous system, and paralyze the respiratory center, leading to death from
respiratory failure. First sergeant Torsten Strutz
is surveying a sinister place — the ruins of the
sarin plant in Munster. This is where the sarin plant was. Towards the end of the war, they carried out trials here
into the mass production of the warfare agent sarin. At that time, they only
produced half a ton, but they would have
eventually been able to produce 50 tons of sarin a month here. During the war, the sarin factory
was disguised as a farmhouse. From the air, there was no indication of the experiments being
carried out underground here. When the British took
over the plant after the war, they continued the research
briefly, and then blew the plant up. The buildings above
ground were destroyed — but what of the underground? This place hasn't
been checked properly. Nobody knows what
could still be in here; laboratory equipment,
production site materials or even munition.... No one knows for certain. And there are no plans to
search the old sarin plant. The German army says
it would cost too much. Bottles and fragments of other lab
equipment lie strewn around the forest... None of it is being tested or cleared. Too many other priorities means the army has little time
to inspect the grounds... It isn’t clear whether
civilians have ever trespassed. No one has been caught so far. If they were, there
would be a stiff penalty. I strongly advise against
coming to this part of the property, because it's very dangerous. There are ruins from when
the buildings were detonated, and there's a huge chance
of falling into an old shaft and never being found. France's war fields are
awash with gas shells from both sides in the war. After the First World War they were incinerated by
the million in French forests. Geologist Daniel Hubé has been researching the
almost industrial-scale destruction. In 2015, we were
officially commissioned by the Environment Ministry to signpost the forgotten
places where chemical weapons were industrially destroyed. So an inventory of at least
50 sites was conducted — which is still on-going. This forest near Trélon,
in northern France, is one site where chemical
weapons were incinerated. According to estimates, several hundred thousand
tons were destroyed here... There are many spots where
nothing has grown for a century. The ground is full of toxic
fragments of munitions and glass containers. And yet, the forest is
accessible to everyone. This is a state-owned forest,
and so it's open to the public. People often come
here to pick mushrooms, and it's not inconceivable that they could come into
contact with toxic waste... kids could stick their
fingers in their mouths after they've been
playing here, for example. But just like in Germany, no one here wants to take
responsibility and bear the costs. There are several reasons
for the lack of willingness to deal with the problem. First, the contamination took
place one hundred years ago. The responsible party
has long since disappeared. And the war ministry that gave
the orders also no longer exists. So now the question is: who can be held accountable? Who is responsible and who pays? However, several incidents have forced
the French government into action. There are accidents every year. The French government
does what it can — as soon as something is found,
the weapons are recovered. The chemicals ones
are put in storage until the plant to
incinerate them is complete. And the explosives are blown up. In France, ordnance disposal
is financed and run centrally by the national government. In Germany, accountability
lies with each regional state and their budgets vary greatly. That's why German experts
would like the federal government to take more control
and responsibility. The regional states keep
putting forward proposals for the federal government
to take over the costs of ordnance removal. Till now, they’ve been
consistently rejected. It's a hot potato that keeps
getting passed back and forth. We received this quote
from the finance ministry, who are responsible for this matter. The Environment Ministry
was quick to respond: Many contaminated sites
belong to the German government. Like the former Löcknitz munitions
plant in north-east Germany, where chemical weapons
were manufactured up until 1945. Geologist Johannes Preuß
is here for the first time. He’s interested in the site because it was laid
out in a similar way to a former war munitions
factory in Bavaria he's studied. Properties such as
this one are managed by the Institute for
Federal Real Estate. Beate Heise and Lisa Ueckermann are in charge of
administration and safety here. This is the only bunker
not to be blown up by the Soviet
army after the war. This was used for mustard gas, which was transported here from
the Ammendorf factory near Halle, and stored in one of seven bunkers. Six bunkers were used
to store mustard gas, and one bunker, or rather, a
cistern, was used to store Clark. The main part of this plant was
dedicated to producing munitions. Empty cartridges, mines
and shells were filled here. ‘Red’ means out of bounds. ‘White’ - all clear. The signs show which parts
of the 100-hectare property can be accessed and which can't. No maps or plans of the
former munitions factory remain, so Johannes Preuß uses the Bavarian
plant's layout for orientation. Gas shells were transported
around the factory via conveyor belts through a network of
subterranean tunnels. Ruins of those
tunnels still survive. After the collapse
of East Germany, the grounds were fenced off. These get checked once a month. A 90s survey determined
the contaminated areas, which were sealed off. The groundwater was
found to be severely polluted by residues of arsenic
and mustard gas. The very high concentrations
of pollutants in the ground water — which are confined to certain areas, so the toxin's reach is also limited — have been decreasing. There’s a clear decline. That's why we asked whether
we need to take further action to clean the soil here. The groundwater here
also isn’t used for drinking. Three houses here have water wells. But they're checked
regularly; twice a year. And thankfully, they haven't
shown any sign of contamination. But is the problem really solved
just by putting a fence around it? Johannes Preuß says no. He's concerned by the
many off-limit areas — and the blind spot when it
comes to wartime poison. He says there could still be
chemical agents in the cisterns here, and toxic gas shells
buried in the ground. For him, the fence isn't a
solution - it's part of the problem. You can do what
they did here and say: we don’t see any immediate
threats, and in case there are any, we’ll put a fence around it. But let’s consider
the long-term picture: I don't see that fence still
standing in 75 years, or 150 years. And the problem won't
go away on its own. We clearly have to do something. It’s a further issue the next
generation will be saddled with. The Dethlinger Pond near
Munster will hopefully be clean when it’s passed on
to the next generation. Even if it does cost 50 million euros. But that'll only happen if local,
regional and national politicians stay in agreement, and as
long as taxpayer money flows. All of us who bear
responsibility today are not to blame for
what happened years ago. We don't know how we would
have acted if we were alive then. But now it is our
responsibility to make sure that this problem is resolved. World War One ended more
than one hundred years ago. World War Two more than 75. Germany is rarely associated
with chemical weapons today. But they remain in the
country; undetected — and in unknown quantities. Even when I retire there
will be plenty of munitions left to clear in Germany. I think that if you don't have
first-hand experience of something, somehow, somewhere, then
you don't know how to deal with it. And if on top of that it costs
money, it’s not interesting. We have to acknowledge that
over the coming years many, many billions more must be spent on eliminating and cleaning
up the weapons of the past. I began researching contaminated sites 34 years ago in 1986. In my view, it's an
issue that's far from over. That leaves me dissatisfied. I thought it would
happen a lot quicker. I thought once we tackled it, and the resources were made available, and the clean-up was made
a priority, that we could do it. There’s that phrase: we can
do it. But no, we haven't done it!
