Flugplatz Brand

THE ABANDONED MILITARY SITE IN GERMANY

‘Flugplatz Brand’ has a rich military history. It was built in 1938 as ‘Fliegerhorst Briesen‘ a military airport for the Luftwaffe, part of the German Wehrmacht.

Originally there was a grass runway with a length of one kilometer. Also several barracks and a train station were built. In fact there were no active planes stationed at the site, but it was used as a training school for pilots.

Runways

In 1950, after the Second World War, the Soviet forces extended the small airfield by a 2,5 kilometer long concrete main runway. In 1958 they built another, 2 kilometer long runway. At the end of the main runway there is an aircraft parking area with shelters and ammunition bunkers. Also they built hardened aircraft shelter for the planes in the years 1970 until 1983.

Cargolifter

In 1992 the Red Army left Germany and the site was back in German control. In 1996 it was sold to Cargolifter AG. A German company founded in 1996 that offer logistical services through point-to point transport of heavy and outsized loads. This service was based on the development of a heavy lift airship, the CL160, a 550,000 m3 vessel designed to carry a 160-tonne payload. The hangar for production and operation of the CL160 and engineering team facilities was built in 1998. The hangar (360 m long, 220 m wide and 106 m high), a technological marvel in itself, is a freestanding steel-dome “barrel-bowl” construction large enough to fit the Eiffel Tower on its side. The airship was never built and the company went bankrupt in 2002. After the company bankrupted a tropical theme park was opened in the hangar.

I visited Flugplatz Brand in 2016. Also check these other abandoned military sites in Belgium, Germany and Poland.

Built 1938

Abandoned 1992

Endangered

The main building of the ghost town of airfield Brand.
The last remaining Russian aviator.
Mosaic of Vladimir Iljitsj Lenin, the communist leader, form a clear contrast to the lost places.
When the Soviet forces took over the airfield it was steadily expanded to house a fighter-bomber regiment.
Only walls remain of some buildings.
Office inside the airfield workshop.
Huge doors in the workshop.
The ghost village used to house military personnel.
The old gym, with bright colors and murals.
All kind of sports were done at Brand.
The roof of the gym collapsed.
Building 73.
Hallway of the abandoned flats.
Entrance to the living quarters.
The abandoned military village.
Flight of stairs in the main building.
Peeling paint in the abandoned buildings.
Housing for the officers.
Soviet information poster.
Derelict room.
Old depot, today another lost place.
Everywhere you look, you find ruins and empty buildings, camouflaged behind the trees.
A colorful stairway.
Decay sets in.
Old office block at the military site.
BAU.
Lost place at the barracks of the airfield.
The pool at the barracks south of flugplatz Brand-Briesen.
The CCCP map.
Open and empty Aircraft Shelters at the former airbase.
There are still many Hardened Aircraft Shelters at the former airbase.