Real-Life Ghost Town Uncovered in Germany
An urban explorer navigating through a massive 11,000-acre settlement that sprang up almost overnight during the Cold War era says he was utterly astounded by the extraordinary scale of the location. Colin Hodson, who documents his adventures on his Bearded Explorer YouTube channel, revealed that despite having visited the Rheindahlen settlement previously, he hadn't fully comprehended just how monumentally vast it truly was.
"People were saying to me after the last video we did of one of the housing estates, 'You've missed so much'," Colin remarked, highlighting the sheer size of the abandoned complex.
A Once-Thriving Military Hub
The enormous complex in Mönchengladbach, North Rhine-Westphalia, once accommodated approximately 12,000 British military personnel and their families, though it has remained vacant since 2013. Rheindalen functioned as the principal base for British forces in Germany and for the NATO Northern Army Group during the Cold War period, emerging almost instantaneously in 1954 and operating until 2013.
"I never realised that the whole place I was looking at was completely abandoned," Colin said. "It's just so big. I just think it was possible."
Colin explained: "The town offered a wide range of facilities for both military personnel and civilians. These included accommodation, sports facilities, gym and sports grounds, a large swimming pool, recreational areas including cinema, youth club and NAAFI."
At its peak, Rheindahlen was home to 12,000 British military personnel and their families, he added. "It housed the headquarters of the British Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force. It was a significant base for the British forces throughout the Cold War and beyond."
Striking Discoveries Amidst Decay
Among the most striking discoveries Colin made during his second exploration of the settlement was a reinforced subterranean shelter containing an extensive map of the complete site. "We've got a map room," Colin stated. "This is incredible - there's a whole map of the town there. We have just found a secret map room in this abandoned town... Oh my goodness me."
Using a photograph of the site map as his guide, Colin managed to locate the town's shopping district, its church, and the cinema that was targeted in an unsuccessful Provisional IRA bombing attempt in 1973.
Discovering an open door at the rear of Rheindahlen's Globe Cinema, Colin observes that the auditorium seats have been stripped out, though promotional materials for films including Bruce Willis thriller 16 Blocks and Jennifer Aniston's romantic comedy The Break-Up are scattered across the floor. Both pictures were released in 2006, providing an indication of the cinema's final operational period.
All the promotional materials feature English-language versions of the productions, whilst the safety instructions in the projection booth are also written in English, highlighting the mother tongue of the residents who inhabited this vast complex in the heart of Germany.
Nature's Reclamation and Failed Revitalisation Plans
Colin was especially taken with the town's enormous open-air swimming pool, which hasn't been fully drained, though the water contains far too much algae to tempt swimmers nowadays. Inside the town's severely overgrown police station, Colin discovered an enormous detention cell, apparently designed to hold numerous detainees. The sole inhabitant currently, however, was a single deceased rodent.
Despite proposals in 2015 to transform the site into a leisure park, and subsequent plans to utilise part of it for housing asylum-seekers, the sprawling town remains deserted. "Today, it is completely abandoned. Nobody goes there, only wildlife, and nature is slowly reclaiming the site," Colin says, emphasising the eerie transformation of this once-bustling community.
The site is now largely reclaimed by nature, with vegetation encroaching on buildings and wildlife taking over spaces once filled with human activity, painting a vivid picture of abandonment and decay in the heart of Germany.
