The video above documents a process that’s become common in Germany: getting rid of the thousands of unexploded munitions left over from World War II bombing raids by Allied forces. Once discovered – as one was this past week in the German city of Koblenz – larger bombs, and those with chemical delay-action detonators, must be either defused in a safe location or detonated where they are found. In Koblenz, 35,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes for a day while technicians try to defuse the bomb. If that doesn’t work, they’ll detonate it.Two years ago Der Spiegel published a profile of Hans-Jürgen Weise, Germany’s most famous bomb disposal expert:“I fitted a pneumatic press to tear the detonator out of the bomb remotely. We were 150 meters away and could see what was happening on a TV monitor,” Weise, a fit 65-year-old with a ready laugh, told SPIEGEL ONLINE in an interview. "The detonator budged a few centimeters but wouldn't come any further.
“So we decided to detonate the bomb. While everything was being prepared I climbed back down into the pit to retrieve the press from the bomb because those machines cost €20,000,” he said. “It was then that I noticed that the detonator had come a bit loose. So I started playing around with it and ended up screwing it out by hand.”
“You should have seen the goose bumps on my arm! I didn't think of anything while I was doing it. I could have just waited for it to be detonated. But that's the ambition of the bomb disposer, I suppose. No one said anything at the time. But looking back on it today they say I was mad. And they were right.”
Advertisement