Danny Eichelbaum (CDU) asks a question during the state parliament session. © Soeren Stache/dpa-Zentralbild/ZB/Archivbild
In view of the forest fire near Jüterbog, CDU state politician Danny Eichelbaum has called on the federal government to provide more money for explosive ordnance clearance in Brandenburg. The federal government must finally present a concept of when and how the ammunition, which comes from the Soviet Army and from the Second World War, will be recovered from the forests and destroyed, Eichelbaum said on Sunday.
Jüterbog - More money must be available for this. The federal and state governments should now enter into negotiations.
"The recovery of ammunition around Jüterbog alone would cost 250 million euros," said the Eichelbaum, who also informed himself about the forest fire on Saturday. He is chairman of the Jüterbog city ordinance assembly and vice-chairman of the CDU parliamentary group.
On a former military training area near Jüterbog in the district of Teltow-Fläming, it has been burning since Wednesday evening. The work of the fire brigade is complicated because of the ammunition load on the site.
No other federal state is considered to be as heavily contaminated with explosive ordnance as the state of Brandenburg. The contaminated sites have been rotting in the soil for decades, but remain dangerous. Phosphorus ammunition, for example, is considered highly flammable.
"If the ammunition-contaminated forests in our region are not cleared, there will always be forest fires because the old ammunition lying in the ground will ignite itself," Eichelbaum said. In view of the difficult deployment for the emergency services at Jüterbog, he added: "You also have to give the firefighters a perspective."
Last year (from January to the end of November), Brandenburg spent almost 13.9 million euros on explosive ordnance clearance - of which 7.7 million euros were spent on the disposal of explosive ordnance and 6.2 million euros on personnel and material costs. This information was provided by the Ministry of the Interior last December. It was said that 585,000 hectares of the country's area were still under suspicion of explosive ordnance. In 2022, around 438 tons of ordnance were found - a good third more than in the previous year. Dpa