Flugplatz Brand
BOMBS AWAY!
Of all Berlin’s abandoned airports, Flugplatz Brand is one that has flown under the radar. It’s not spoken of in the same breath as, say, Tempelhof, Tegel, or that new fancy airport that they almost abandoned while they were abandoning Tegel.
Few visit Flugplatz Brand, few but a smattering of melancholy Russian aviators give a damn. That’s just the way the last remaining soldier likes it. He’s there, alone, unflinchingly keeping watch over one of the happiest-looking Lenins left in the DDR. He’s just happy the nukes are gone.
The Flugplatz began life in 1938 as a military airfield for the German Luftwaffe called Fliegerhorst Briesen. It was furnished with a one-kilometer grass runway the following year, but its hopes of joining the war never really took flight. Instead the airfield was used for training other would-be heroes.
It was the Russians who really lit a fire under Brand and made its Flugplatz dreams come true. The Red Army took over after the war, of course, and Brand became strategically important for the Soviet Air Force.
A proper runway made of concrete, 2.5 kilometers long, was built in 1950 or 1951, then another, 2 kilometers long, in 1958, while a whole load of ammunition bunkers and reinforced aircraft hangars (hardened aircraft shelters, or HAS) were added, too.
The airfield played host at various times to Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17, Sukhoi Su-7, Su-24 and later MiG-27 fighter planes. A special weapons depot was constructed to house nuclear bombs for the waiting aircraft.
“Nothing of any interest was there,” one evidently hard-to-impress former soldier wrote on a Brand veterans’ forum.
“They stored and maintained nuclear devices (weapons of deterrence) that could be attached to the airplanes if necessary. Then it was like in the song, “Go, boys, fuck yourselves, bomb the town, boys.”
It must have been a lovely song.
“The red button or nuclear suitcase at that moment was the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,” the veteran wrote. He called himself VVS GSFG on the forum.
Another veteran named Goga was a bit more sentimental about Brand, nicknamed the ‘Sixes’ due to the base’s number, 66683.
“I remember the soldiers’ shops were a fairytale compared to those in the Soviet Union. And the hospital… I had to spend some time there with a boil. The hospital was small, one floor only, so cozy,” he wrote.
“Where did you guys get your booze? There was the officers’ shop, but common soldiers couldn't shop there. So we ran away from ‘Sixes’ and through the woods to the road (Krausnicker Weg) to Schönwald, a station below Brand. We bought beer from a woman in the courtyard entrance to a Gaststätte. I forgot her name. She always gave us a bottle of beer for free.”
A veteran who called himself Urok wrote that an officer spent whole days in 1991 burning documentation from the headquarters and burying it in a hole, destroying it before the withdrawal.
Potatoes were also a thing. One veteran named Sibiryak (the Siberian) spent a month in Brand in 1990 and went a bit overboard on the spuds.
“I had to report for work at the canteen. One day on, then a day to myself. It was like a vacation. I recall how we found a giant pot in the woods, stole a bucket of potatoes, some onions and some fat from the canteen, and we fried it all up in the woods, myself and my friend. I still don't understand how we managed to eat that giant pot of fried potatoes, just the two of us,” said Sibiryak, who remembered collecting beer bottles and bringing them to the Gaststätte for the deposit.
Of course, the deposit was used to buy more beer. Some things never change around Berlin.
The Cold War thaw meant Brand’s focus changed from offense to defense, though there’s very little difference between the two, as the aforementioned VVS GSFG explained.
“During Gorbi (Mikhail Gorbachev), we had to be all nice and fluffy and not a threat to anyone, but everyone knew that the Rooks (SU-24) are front-line war bombers and so could be classified as offensive weapons, not defensive,” VVS wrote.
“So the ‘sharks of imperialism’ (Western powers) started to voice their disapproval: ‘Look, you are all nice and fluffy but you also have offensive weapons stationed in Europe - not in Ordnung!’
“‘Not a problem,’ we say, and send the Rooks back to the USSR. Instead we parked the MiGs, which are classified as defensive weapons. But you know, it’s a choice between two rotten apples: it’s the same thing. Europe is tiny and MiGs with their ‘product’ can make it to Normandy or wherever like nothing.”
Fortunately, Brand’s battalions of flying fighters were never called into action. They remained on ice for the duration of the Cold War.
It ended thanks to events not so far away in Berlin, Leipzig and Moscow that led to Mauerfall, the subsequent reunification of Germany and collapse of the Soviet Bloc. It left the flightless fighters fightless.
The 911th fighter-bomber aviation regiment and its MiG-27s were transferred from Brand to Belarus on July 6, 1992.
The Germans had no use for the military airfield at the time and so it was sold in 1998 to CargoLifter AG, a company with grand notions of building colossal airships to transport colossal cargo loads.
It got as far as building a colossal hangar – the largest freestanding structure in the world at 360 meters long, 220 wide and 107 high. But then CargoLifter went bust in 2002.
The massive hall was left jutting out of the landscape like some sort of monstrous bean. It and part of the surrounding area was snapped up the next year by a British-Malaysian investment company, Colin Au & Tanjong Public Ltd., for less than a quarter of what it had cost to build. Around half of the €78 million construction cost had been provided by taxpayers’ money.
But Au was the only one with an idea of what to do with this giant bean in the middle of nowhere – turn it into a tropical paradise for frostbitten Berliners to escape the greyness of the capital with a short train ride south. “Tropical Islands” opened in December 2004.
“After September 11, with fear of flying and the recession, the time was right to give people the option of taking their holidays near home,” Au said at the time.
“Tropical Islands” has a tropical sea, tropical rain forest, tropical sauna, tropical geysers, tropical whirlpools, tropical rides, tropical ice cream and tropical prices. It’s so tropical Jair Bolsonaro put it on his list of things to burn down.
Visitors have mixed feelings on the experience.
“Tacky but fun,” said Fernando Mafra, a tropical Brazilian.
“A horrible summer, but summer,” Marcela of Fotostraße said.
“Unique, the metal dome is very impressive,” said Rodrigo of Canal Alemanizando, identifying the one thing that was there before the tropicalization began.
They all agreed Europe’s largest tropical holiday resort is too expensive.
Reports last year suggested Au and his business partner Ananda Krishnan were looking to sell it.
So far it has managed 15 years’ operation, but it’s clearly only a matter of time before the “Tropical Islands” resort is abandoned too.
Meanwhile the rest of the former Soviet air base languishes just out of sight of the tropical guests, with old discarded wodka bottles testament to occupants’ efforts to pass time in a more traditional non-tropical manner.
The stone soldier and Lenin are the only two remaining now. At least they have each other.
LOCATION AND ACCESS (HOW TO FIND GUIDE)
What: Flugplatz Brand, formerly Fliegerhorst Briesen, a German airfield later developed into a Soviet airbase where fighter planes with atomic weapons waited out the Cold War.
Where: Krausnick, 15910 Krausnick-Groß Wasserburg.
How to get there: Get the Cottbus train from Ostkreuz and get off before it gets to Cottbus – don’t take any chances! Get off specifically at Brand Tropical Islands. The train station used to just be called Brand, but Brand’s been rebranded Brand Tropical Islands. Anyway, get off there, and follow the directions for Tropical Islands along the rebranded Tropical Islands Allee. The tropical stuff will be on your left, the interesting stuff on your right. Here it is on a map.
Getting in: Just find a part of the fence that has been lifted up or set aside already, and make your way in. It’s no great shakes.
When to go: Daytime is best from a safety perspective and of course you’ll be able to see much more if you go during the day. The area is quite large, so give yourself plenty of time to wander around.
Difficulty rating: 3/10. Getting in is very easy. Finding things is not so straightforward.
Who to bring: Bring friends if you want company. Probably best not to go alone in case you get locked in a dark bunker.
What to bring: Bring a torch, good boots, a camera, some food to ward off the hunger.
Dangers: Rusty nails, holes in the ground, dark bunkers, soft floors in some of the buildings, and dodgy ceilings above your head. Be careful.
Many thanks to Cecília for her research help, Ksenya for her translation help, and Mark for his proofreading help! Again, they’re to blame for anything that’s wrong. Dedicated to little Cormac ♥
Filed 15/12/2019 | Updated 11/3/2023