The visionary from Krailling

Krailling / Germering - Have you ever wondered why Neue Gautinger Straße runs straight through the forest?

Did you know that there are still 21 underground tanks on the Krailling Oils site today?

Or that a (supposed) chocolate factory was to be built between Krailling and Germering?

In order to get an idea of ​​the site and to have some of the many questions answered, the Friends' Association for Homeland Care was invited to a tank park tour. The host was the managing director of G1 Krailling Real Estate Bernhard Breitsameter. Breitsameter, who comes from a forester family, studied forest sciences himself and came to the tank farm via detours. In 2016, Krailling Oils acquired the tank park from an insolvency estate using the highest bid procedure. The then owner, the Viktoria Group, stored the Czech state reserves here. The outsourcing of these reserves continued until the end of 2017. It was not until 2018 that the tanks and tank systems could be cleaned and checked and the rail network upgraded. In December, the handling of petroleum products in tank trucks began.

However, the history and thus the actually exciting time of the tank farm goes back a long way.

In 1935 construction began on "Münchberg", as the project was called.

A large tank farm was planned with the aim of filling 52 underground tanks with fuel.

However, this only partially succeeded before the outbreak of the war.

At that time the population was told that a chocolate factory was being built.

After all, nobody should find out the real reason for the construction work.

Bombing of the tank farm in 1945

Due to the density of the forests around the tank park, the secret could be kept for a long time. It was not until 1945 that the tank farm, or more precisely the tank wagons parked in the forest, was bombed and parts of the track system were so badly destroyed that the connection to Gauting was abandoned. In the search for the tank farm, the surrounding towns such as Planegg and Krailling were under heavy fire from the Allies, as Breitsameter tells us. More than 20 people lost their lives that day.

The tank farm is still connected to the NATO pipeline and can be reached by train via Freiham. 125 million liters of fuel are stored here. "Around one to two million liters of it are handled in a day," explains Breitsameter, who is working on numerous ideas beyond the actual handling of the mineral oil products. He wanted to create something for future generations and is therefore planning, for example, guided tours of the site - with a view of one of the underground tanks. He is also working on opening parts of the park as a kind of wildlife park for the Germeringers as a local recreation area. Already today, fallow deer and wild sheep, the mouflons, roam freely on the several hundred hectare site. Krailling Oils spent around 450,000 euros on nature conservation. The areas have to be cleared regularly,the wood can be chopped up and more light created again, explains the forester with a view of the fenced-in areas in the northern part of the tank park. New trees are regularly planted here in order to maintain the biodiversity on the site. So here also gentian grows here and there.

Will there be ice storage in the tanks soon?

In addition to nature conservation, the topic of regenerative energies is a prominent one for Breitsameter.

Some of the decommissioned tanks are to serve as ice storage and thus generate energy.

He has also already informed the city of Germering and the municipal utilities, as Lord Mayor Andreas Haas confirmed that the matter is currently still being examined.

Impressed by the amount of information, the members of the association said goodbye.

Incidentally, Neue Gautinger Strasse was a runway for planes.

Claudia Becker