The abandoned WW2 camp in the woods (2nd visit)

In 2019 I went for a hike in a small forest near Vienna. The area is known to be sparsely inhabited, so you will only encounter a few people there (if any). The nearest road is a few miles away, and there's no touristic infrastructure in that area.

The discovery of an abandoned building

After I hiked for around 45 minutes, I spotted something above the treetops that looked like the remains of a tower that could have belonged to an ancient castle. But as I went closer, I discovered that those remains belonged to an abandoned and decayed building.

Abandoned structure in the woods

The inside of the building was taken back by nature. Trees grow everywhere inside the former building. I love that. It's so impressive to see how nature takes back such facilities.

Inside the abandoned building

I wasn't prepared to explore an abandoned building. Neither did I have my AmazonBasics Travel Tripod with me, nor my trusted Olight S30R III flashlight I usually use to explore such places. Instead, I used my everyday carry flashlight (also from Olight).

As I didn't have my tripod with me, I used a neat feature of ProCamera App: The motion detection shutter release, which will only trigger the shutter release if you can hold your camera still.

I set ProCamera to manual mode with ISO speed set as low as possible to achieve at least a shutter speed of 1/20 and set ProCamera to save the photos in RAW format. In a dedicated blog post, you can learn about how to shoot RAW on iPhone.

The research

Once I returned home, I started my research to learn more about this building and the entire area. Long story short: The building I discovered was an administrative building of a World War II camp. The purpose of this camp was to store V2 rockets. From here, these deadly rockets were transported to the front lines and launched - mainly against London.

During my research, I also discovered a laser-scan map of the entire area that would reveal this camp's dimensions and that more remains should be found. So I visited and explored the area again in 2021.

The former WWII camp revisited

I inspected the abandoned administrative building again and found two artifacts that could be closely related to the history of this area.

The first artifact was a still intact cartridge. The second one was a hint about when this building was abandoned. It's a laundry detergent box. It mentions the 50th anniversary of the brand: That was in 1957! It would be interesting to learn how this camp was between the end of World War II and 1957.

Abandoned WW2 Cartridge?

Laundry detergent box from the 1950s

Then, I headed towards an area where, according to the laserscan map, I should find more structures. After making my way through the thicket, I saw another building that looked like a water tower.

Water tower in an abandoned WW2 camp

Water tower in an abandoned WW2 camp

Unfortunately, it was boarded up. But I found a small gap and could take a peek (and photo) inside the utterly empty building.

Behind the water tower, I came across the remains of something that looked like one or two bunkers, separated by a trench.

Trench between two WW2 bunkers

Trench between two WW2 bunkers

I was pretty excited to discover these new structured during my second visit. If you've been following my blog for a while, you know I have a soft spot for lost places and abandoned structures. In the blog, you can read more about lost places I've discovered and photographed.

Chris Feichtner

In 2012, I ditched my cumbersome DSLR in favor of an iPhone to document my travels.

https://nocamerabag.com
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