Pocking

48°22'09"N 013°18'00"E

Flying field: ../.. - ...meters/...feet - grass

Air field Pocking (german: Flugplatz Pocking, also known as Waldstadt or Einsatzhafen Pocking) was an airfield 130km/80mi east of Munich, Germany.
The airfield was built between 1937 and 1939 by the Luftwaffe. Although it was an active airfield, it did not see much action during the war. It was home to several Luftwaffe-nachrichtenschulen (Luftwaffe communications schools) and their associated aircraft. Aircraft mentioned were Me110, He111, Fieseler Storch, Bf109, Ju88 and even a Messerschmidt Gigant and Me262. Only during the fall of the Reich in early 1945 did it get active flying units.
From March 1945 until the end of the war the airfield was used by II./NJG 2 (II Group of Night Fighter Wing 2). In April they were joined by III./Erganzungskampfgeschwader 1. Parts of Stab./, 1./ and 2./Nachtslachtgruppe 2 joined during that same period.Towards the end of the war several Hungarian units fled there as well.


No photos of the airfield while in use have been located.

After the war the airfield was used as a Displaced Persons Camp, accoring to Arpad Szollosi (aged 78 in December 2013), who wrote me by email:
"I (am) from Budapest, lived in this DP (Displaced Persons) Camp, otherwise known as Waldstadt, with my brother and parents from late 1945 until late 1949 as refugees from the Russians. My father did not want to live under communism and my mother did not want to be raped by the victorious Russians. Immediately after the war there were Poles and Hungarians living here, later only Hungarians and later still Jews, who survived the Concentration Camps and one Barrackfull of Hungarians who looked after the electricity and water supply to the camp plus two Hungarian families, who lived in the "Water House". There were four wells that supplied water to the camp and electricity was supplied from a nearby sub-station. By the end of 1949 all the Jews left for Israel (some finished up in Cyprus, because of the British blockade) or America if they had relatives there. We emigrated to Australia in August 1949 (only a few Hungarians were left by that time) and arrived in Melbourne on the 15th of September 1949. According to Google Map it is amazing how different this area is now (2013). I wonder what happened to all the people that passed through this camp. I am 78 years old, so there cannot be many! (...) There were over 150 barracks, four partly demolished hangar and some concrete roads between the hangars. The runways were of timber latticework in the soil. Where did they go?"

After the camp was closed, the land lay abandoned for several years until the Bundeswehr was formed. From 1964 they used the terrain as an exercise area, and its logistics site as a barracks: the Rottal-Kaserne. The barracks were closed in 1989, however. Around 2005 the terrain was converted to a 10MW photovoltaic power plant.


The former airfield from the air in 2003 (Google Earth)


Same location in 2010, with the new photovoltaic powerplant clearly visible (Google Earth)