Military history around Zeithain
Please note: This page was machine-translated. If anything is unclear, the German version is authoritative.
It is well documented that Augustus the Strong held his first large-scale military maneuvers in 1730 in the fields northeast of Zeithain. This event became known as the “Campement von Radewitz” or the “Lustlager von Zeithain.”
Over the next 140 years, occasional military maneuvers occurred in the region.
In 1873, two years after the end of the Franco-Prussian War, the Imperial Military Administration took over the southern part of the Gohrischheide forest district, initially covering 210 hectares, from the Saxon Forestry Authority to establish an imperial training ground in Saxony, the „Artillerieschießplatzes Zeithain“ (artillery firing range).
The first artillery exercises on the newly developed site took place as early as the summer of 1874. By 1895, the artillery range had been continuously expanded and was finally declared a “military training area.”
Until 1906, when the Königsbrück military training area was created, the Zeithain military training area was the largest area of its kind for exercises and artillery firing by the Royal Saxon Army in Saxony.
In 1875, the first structure of the Zeithain camp, the civil servants' residence No. 1, was completed. The construction of the accommodations, generally referred to as “barracks,” horse stables, and other functional buildings took place in several stages.
Between 1878 and 1880, approximately 25 buildings were constructed (including the officers' mess, officers' barracks I and II, six enlisted men's barracks, stables, the main guardhouse, and the commandant's building). in 1895/96, approximately 42 buildings (including officers' barracks V–IX, 15 enlisted men's barracks, and a waterworks) were constructed, and between 1913 and 1916, approximately 23 buildings and facilities (including civil servants' residence III, tower barracks, and the Milchtrinkhalle/Kaffee Finke) were built.
From 1936-1939, another 13 buildings were constructed. In 1939, there were a total of approx. 130 buildings – in 1905, there were approx. 140 buildings. If other facilities, sheds, latrines, etc. were added to the aforementioned buildings, the total number of buildings in 1914 was an impressive 220.
By 1900, the Zeithain military training area already covered an area of approximately 4,000 hectares (approximately 40 km²). From this point on, it was possible to accommodate troops at division and corps strength in the camp and to carry out tactical maneuvers and firing with long-range artillery.
From its creation until 1918, the Zeithain military training area served the Royal Saxon Army for the training of its artillery, infantry, and cavalry units. During the war years 1914-1918, the barracks camp was initially used only as a reserve hospital, but later also for the deployment of replacement troops.
Three royal parades (1906, 1908, and 1910) and three imperial parades (1896, 1903, and 1912) were held at the Zeithain military training area.
As a result of the Treaty of Versailles, which was dictated by the 27 victorious nations after the end of World War I and signed by Germany on June 28, 1919, the Zeithain military training area was to be demilitarized.
Military facilities such as parts of the munitions factory, machinery, munitions depots, and munitions warehouses I and III, as well as facilities belonging to the artillery firing range, were dismantled or destroyed under the control of the victorious powers.
From the early 1920s until 1936, the site was used for civilian purposes. The stationed Reichswehr played a subordinate role. The soldiers' and officers' quarters were converted into apartments. The Lager C epidemic hospital, built in 1915/16 during the war years for approximately 1,300,000 marks, was primarily inhabited by returnees from Russia. Commercial enterprises also settled there. Among other things, there were 25 shops and restaurants, 12 companies, a cinema, hairdressers, and three butchers.
In the fall of 1936, the German Wehrmacht took over the Zeithain military training area, and soldiers were trained and weapons tested there again until the end of the war in 1945. After the end of World War II, small parts of the military training area were abandoned and put to civilian use.
In 1946, a section in the east of the former military training area was transferred to a land reform fund. Landless new farmers settled on this land reform land, and the village of Neudorf was established between the waterworks and the former forest camp.
From 1945 to 1992, the former main camp and ammunition depot continued to be used for military purposes by parts of the 9th Tank Division of the Soviet Armed Forces Group in Germany. As the main training center in eastern Germany, the Soviet Army created a maneuvering area covering more than 100 hectares in the northern part of the training ground, conducted exercises with hundreds of tracked vehicles, redesigned the terrain for these exercises, and built numerous bunkers, which kept more interior areas free of forest than in previous centuries.
Over the years, the Soviet Army created additional buildings and facilities, including halls for motor vehicles and tanks, ammunition depots, and underground fuel storage facilities. The former epidemic hospital Camp C was also used for military purposes after World War II. Initially, parts of the Barracks People's Police were stationed there from 1950, and from 1956 onwards, various units of the National People's Army.
From 1990 to 2007, the former National People's Army facility and part of the military training area were used by the German Armed Forces.
The barracks camp was dismantled by the “Entwicklungs- und Verwertungsgesellschaft Zeithain mbH” starting in 1998.
Only ten buildings remain: Infantry Officers' Barracks II (1878), Enlisted Men's Barracks 16 (1895), Garrison Administration Building (1893/94), Civil Servant Residences II (1900) and III (1913/14), Work Barracks (1913/14), Officers' Stables (1914), General Stables (1914), Farrier's workshop 4 (1914) and a functional building (1936).
Under the motto: “Nature only takes back what was once taken from it,” the former Zeithain military training area, covering an area of 2,860 hectares (approx. 29 km²), is now designated as the “Gohrischheide and Elbniederterrasse Zeithain” nature reserve.
Source: Olaf Kaube, Neudorf
