< Fortresses

Fort Hahneberg was built from 1882 till 1886 as „detached Fort II" of the fortified Town of Spandau, at the time Germanys biggest centre of arms manufacturing. This last phase of fortress building in Berlin Spandau began after the German-French War of 1870/71. In 1873 was decided to fortify certain Imperial Fortresses as Metz, Köln, Ingolstadt or Spandau with an outer row of fortresses. From the planned four forts for Spandau, only Fort Hahneberg was realised, in a distance of 5.5 km from the Citadel of Spandau.The natural hill Hahneberg was excavated and the fort was built with 28.000.000 bricks in the hollow, it covers an area of 450 m x 170 m. But before completion of the fort, the crisis of highly explosive shrapnel-ammunition, the „Brisanzmunitionskrise", shook the fortress world. With the introduction of this ammunition the traditional brick fort became anachronistic and Fort Hahneberg got some more extensive fortifications before its commissioning in 1888, but never went into service. During the rearmament in the middle of the 1930ies in Germany, there were new building operations also in Fort Hahneberg, the plans were for using it as barracks of an infantry regiment and as education centre. The fort was electrified and got new technical equipment. Fort Hahneberg was not involved in wartime activities and there were just minor damages. After the war the Allied ordered the blasting of the inner defense facilities and the fort was rendered military useless. In the following years large parts of the walls were pulled down and used for the reconstruction of destroyed buildings in Berlin, the main reason for the actual damage in the fort. After 1952 Fort Hahneberg was part of the GDR border installations and with the building of the Wall in 1961 the borderline (exactly on the glacis) was secured. The Fort became completely inaccessible for almost 40 years. In all these years the nature could unfold without restriction, Fort Hahneberg is today an important hibernation station for bats and the utilization is concentrated on the summer months. 1990 was the first peaceful „conquest" of Fort Hahneberg by the population and in the same year the „Arbeits- und Schutzgemeinschaft Fort Hahneberg e. V." was founded as a registered society. In 1991 Fort Hahneberg became a registered Monument and this organisation is managing the reconstruction work and the development as a natural biotope and touristic highlight.