59 Soviet Grenades Found Beneath a Pankow Forest
A metal detectorist's walk in the Pankow woods turned up 59 unspent Soviet grenades from WWII, weighing a combined 1.5 tonnes.
Monday, May 25
Not every weekend trip to the woods ends like this.
A man out walking in a Pankow forest with a metal detector recently made a find that was, as Berlin police put it on Instagram, "a little more than just wood." Beneath the ground: 59 unspent Soviet grenades from the Second World War, with a combined weight of around 1.5 tonnes.
"Piece by piece, the grenades are being secured, recovered, and professionally transported," police reported.
According to reporting by rbb, specialists from the LKA - Berlin's state criminal investigation office - were called to the scene to confirm the find and begin the painstaking work of securing it. "Piece by piece, the grenades are being secured, recovered, and professionally transported," police reported. They described it as a quiet, highly concentrated operation in the middle of the forest.
The area was cordoned off during the operation. Police were clear that at no point was there any danger to the public. The grenades are now set to be destroyed in a controlled detonation at a designated demolition site.
Berlin's forests have long harboured remnants of the war - the city sits on ground that saw some of the heaviest fighting of 1945, and unexploded ordnance turns up with uncomfortable regularity. What started as a leisurely walk, in other words, turned into a 1.5-tonne reminder that the past is never quite as buried as you'd think.