Enviro InJustice: Building a Global Record

"Hundreds of evacuees for days in gyms, tents or in hotels. Full of fear for homes, belongings, livestock and pets. The smell of smoke in the air. Distant noise of helicopters. Explosions in the distance. Tanks and other military vehicles drive by. Food provisions are handed out by disaster relief organisations."

“Most […] disasters, or most damages in them, are characteristic rather than accidental features of the places and societies where they occur.” (Hewitt 1983) The case highlights the dialectics of “long emergencies of slow violence” (Nixon 2011, 3) and the manifestations of spectacular disasters like wildfires. With this local disaster several “slow disasters” of more than seven decades come into view such as mining, resource extraction, “unnatural” reforestation initiatives after World War II that together with the problems of UXOs produced the disaster in 2019.

With the compound disaster of 2019 a “slow disaster” of more than seven decades comes into view. A small fire found a lot of conifer fuel of old trees that are a result of the reforestation initiatives after WWII. Furthermore, lots of deadwood due to an un-natural and unmanaged forest gave fuel to the fire.

At the same time firefighting on the ground, which is the norm in Germany, was simple impossible due exploding ammunition. For a variety of reasons that--to some extent--are also related to post-WWII architecture of disaster management in Germany, the country has only very small aerial fire suppression capacity with helicopters of the Federal police. Since regular fire fighters and fire suppression helicopters were forced to keep at least 1000m distance from the fire (and potential exploding devices), tanks of the armed forces were used to cut swathes as the main tactic to contain the fire. Aerial firefighting could only be used as a support measures.

After a couple of days and due to change of weather the fire was finally extinguished. However, the underlying root causes of the dissaster persist.

The origins of the 2019 disaster can be traced back to a whole series of processes that originate in the 1930ies and that are associated with national socialism, facist ideology, preparations for total war and actual warfare. In 1936, an ammunition factory was founded in Jessenitz. More than 360 bunkers and depots were installed on-site to establish the main ammunition bunker of the German Kriegsmarine, the so-called Marineartilleriezeugamt.

During WWII 2000 forced laborers from Russia, Poland, Italy, France, Netherlands, etc. were forced to produce ammunition for the national socialists and their total war that affects the area until today and will continue to do so for decades.

In the years 1945 until 1947 the Red Army detonated the bunkers inappropriately with the effect that unexploded ordnances were dispersed in the whole area.

Even though, the given case is a very specific case it may shed some light on more general aspects concerning the “repositories of vulnerabilities”. In Slow Violence, Nixon (2011) uses the example of so-called precision warfare and uranium ammunition to highlight the distant and cross-scale effects of warfare.

Germany and the same is true for many other countries shows that “less precise”, more “conventional” warfare also involves vast extents of slow violence, too.

The contamination with ammunition and other explosive devices is much more common than widely known: ammunition from WWII (and after) can be found all over Germany. It is assumed that 10% of Mecklenburg-Hither Pomerania are highly contaminated with ammunition. In some German states even up to 12 % of state territories are highly contaminated with the result that hundreds of thousands of ha in Germany are contaminated with ammunition. It will take decades before all areas will be cleared and a common legal framework for all sixteen German states is still lacking.

After WWII the German population faced severe supply shortfalls with regard to food, non-food items but also firewood. The result was widespread illegal logging of the remaining forests.

Furthermore, the allied forces demanded reparations. Part of the reparations were so-called “Reparationshiebe” (reparation chops) that lead to clear-felled areas all over Germany. In the British Sector the North German Timber Control Commission (NGTC) was in charge of the Reparationshiebe, in Soviet sector to which Mecklenburg-Hither Pomerania belonged the Soviet Military Administration in Germany was responsible.

In response to the deforestation so-called “Kulturfrauen”--sometimes also called „Trümmerfrau“ of the forest--replanted millions of trees all over Germany. This work was later commemorated on the 50 Pfennig coin of the Deutsche Mark.

The reforestation had significant impacts both on the composition of the forests and age structure of the forests. Because they grow faster conifer forests were preferred with the result that conifer forest prevail in Eastern Germany and that a certain age structure is predominant. In Mecklenburg-Hither Pomerania the planting of non-native conifers was an economic driven process that started long before WWII but was intensified after WWII.

While in Western Germany some of the associated dangers of forest fires became known due to the devasting forest fire of 1975 and subsequent reforms of forest management and firefighting tactics, it seems that in the GDR these findings were much less prominent which may also be seen as a result of the German separation that followed National Socialism.

Behind the spectacular disaster of 2019 are a large number of people who were directly and indirectly affected by the events.

The inhabitants of five villages had to leave them for days and were very frightened for property and animals. In addition, there was health stress due to smoke on site but also to a lesser extent hundreds of kilometers away. Even though the wildfire died out after a few days, the underlying dangers continue to exist. The next wildfire is only a matter of time.

Still, no solutions exist for UXOs and the unique challenges of wildfires on munitions-laden terrain that are substantive. The problem will remain and only increase with climate change. Similar problems of forest fires on munitions-contaminated land are evident elsewhere in Germany and around the world. But even without forest fires, UXOs remains a general problem for safety and the environment.