Schießplatz Dünnwald

Could silence hold such a heavy story? Here at Schießplatz Dünnwald, the quiet whispers of the wind through the trees carry echoes of a darker past. Schießplatz Dünnwald, nestled in what is now the Dellbrücker Wald, began innocently enough in 1887 as a training ground for the Prussian Army. Imagine rows of targets, the crack of rifles, the smell of gunpowder hanging in the air. This was a place of practice, of preparation. Yet, the rise of the Nazi regime twisted this place of training into one of tragedy. Schießplatz Dünnwald became a site of execution. Between 1940 and 1943, twenty-three men, labeled as ” Wehrkraftzersetzer” (underminers of military morale) or “Fahnenflüchtige” (deserters), were executed here by firing squad. Their crimes? Often minor infractions, amplified by the brutal wartime justice system. One such story is that of Jakob Brock, a 23-year-old Cologne native. He’d fought on the Eastern Front and returned home on leave to get married. He applied for an extension, believing it granted via phone, but in the chaos of the war’s final days, communication broke down. He was deemed a deserter. A court-martial in Höhenhaus swiftly condemned him to death. On April 7, 1945, just weeks before the war’s end, Brock was executed in a nearby gravel pit, leaving behind a pregnant wife. His story, and the stories of the other 22 men executed at Schießplatz Dünnwald, remained largely hidden, swallowed by the forest and the post-war silence. The structures of the shooting range – the brick wall, the fences, the gatehouse – are gone. Nature has reclaimed the land, the earth mounds and shooting lanes now overgrown. Yet, the echoes remain. Thanks to research by historians like Karola Fings, these stories have begun to surface. A memorial now stands near the former Schießplatz Dünnwald, bearing the poignant words of Ludwig Baumann, a Wehrmacht deserter: “Was kann man Besseres tun als den Krieg verraten.” (“What better thing can one do than betray war?”). At Schießplatz Dünnwald, the silence speaks. It tells of lives lost, of injustice, and the enduring power of memory to reclaim lost histories.