By Gerlof
Location:
in the woods of Schaarsbergen, near Arnhem, the Netherlands.
History:
On May 14th, 1940 after the German occupation of
Holland has taken place, the German
army entered the demolised Dutch airstrip near Deelen. They started to
build an airfield, "Fliegerhorst Deelen" . Therefore the Germans
annexed about 2000 ha of ground from the nearby national park and hired local
personnel for the building activities.
On the airfield were concrete barracks and hangars
built in the so called "Heimatstil" which are buildings camouflaged as
farm houses.
In 1941 the airfield was connected to the Dutch
railway system to supply it with fuel, parts and ammunition by train.
As part of the "Kammhuber Linie" ,
an air defense system located on several locations in the western part of Europe
forming a chain of early warning and control centres for night fighters,
stretching from Norway to the Elzas, in 1942 the Germans started to build
a flight control centre nearby the Deelen airfield, the Jäger Leitstelle
Teerose.
A huge bunker, code name "Diogenes" (for Deelen) measuring 60x40x16 meters was build in the woods of
Schaarsbergen, near Deelen. The concrete walls of the bunker had a thickness of
3,5 - 4 meters. The building activities were completed and the operations
centre became operational in september 1943.
In the bunker the Luftwaffe flight operations
and control centre called "Diogenes" had found their location and
directed from there the Luftwaffe's 3rd nightfighter division, based on the
nearby Deelen airfield.
Part of the Kammhuber Line were so-called "Freya"
early warning direction and
detection systems, they were deployed allong the Dutch coast. Nichtfighters
itself were guided from a nightfighter guidancestation codenamed "Teerose I,
II and III". It was build on hills in the woods around Arnhem, one on the
Galgenberg (104m) near Terlet (= Teerose)
, one on a hill on the Rozendaalse Veld (109m) and one near the river Rhine. The
main task of teh Teerose stations was to guide the nightfighters in the
battlezone (Allied planes).
Based on information supplied by these radio
direction finder and detection systems, incoming
allied aircrafts were detected and their direction and number were
plotted on a glass pane on which a map of Holland was projected,
lighted by a number of small lamps, a similar usage as the elswhere used "Seeburgtisch"
From Diogenes the Bf110 nightfighterplanes on
Deelen, equipped with FuG 202 "Lichtenstein" radars,
range 200-5000 metres, were sent into the night skies to intercept allied
bombers.
On september 17, 1944, the day of operation "Market-Garden" -the allied
air landings at Arnhem-, the Germans destroyed the interior of "Diogenes"
by using explosives, and buried the contents of the office building which was
build besides Diogenes in ditches in the surrounding woods.
The night fighter squadron was moved to Duisburg
(Germany).
Still, the "Teerose" radarstations stayed
intact and operational througout the war .
The remains of the Teerose fundaments can still be found in the woods near Terlet, which is a glider airfield today.
Current
status:
The heavily damaged interior of Diogenes was
restored in 1970. It now is a secundary depot of the "Rijksarchief",
the archives of the Dutch Government.
During this renovation the hidden contents of the
bunker, dumped in holes in the
woods came to the surface. Amongst
personal posessions, kitchenware, bureau materials, papers and photo's, pieces
of glass from the plotting table, a badge with signs of a German staffcar was
found and a photograph of German female personnel, posing in front of the
Diogenes "office building".
These remainings are now displayed in the WWII
museum on the "Kop van Deelen" a former officers mess, in which the
history of the Deelen airfield in wartime is preserved.
Amongst these items is a very rare antenna of the
"Lichtenstein" radar, found in the ground on the airfield, and an 88mm
FLAK (Flug Abwehr Kanone - anti
aircraft cannon) found buried in a field near Nijmegen.
The Diogenes location is accessible by a road
leading north from the Koningsweg, about 200 meters into the woods, at
the left side of the entrance to the national park.
On the left side of Diogenes and separated from the
main building, a smaller bunker can be seen, probably a former generator housing
or security staff bunker.
At the back of Diogenes, stairs made of concrete
lead into the woods.
On the side walls of the bunker the black camouflage pattern can still be seen,
and also very many bulletholes apparently from air raids. Also the annexed
"office building" is still intact and in use today.
The Diogenes bunker is in remarkable good condition
and forms the largest remaining German bunker of this kind in the Netherlands.
A similar one in Utrecht was broken down in 1998.
Along the Koningsweg are more buildings, one
of them is an old villa, called "Oud Vrijland".
From 1946 till 1995 it was used by the Dutch army,
the 1st Army Division - Expeditional Force had their staff headquarters housed
in this building.
In 1995 they left the building and the barracks on
the nearby army camp.
After the staff left, the building was renovated
and remains of the former German occupants were found.
Papers, personal possessions and documents
related to the airfield such as meteo reports, were found hidden under the
floors.
All of it can be seen in the WWII museum at the
"Kop van Deelen", a small but very interesting museum.
Another exhibition and a mockup of a Teerose
operating shack can be found in the Arnhems Oorlogsmuseum, at Schaarsbergen.
Both musea are well signed from the road.
References:
"Trein en tram naar de Fliegerhorst Deelen" by Otto Dijkstra
http://www.obd.nl/~otto/wolfdel.htm (in Dutch)
RAM magazine, feb. 1998, "Electronische jacht"
Museum Luchtoorlog - Stichting DAEG, Hoenderloseweg , building 20, Deelen