A vast British military settlement in Germany, once home to 12,000 personnel and their families, now lies deserted and overgrown, with nature reclaiming the site. Urban explorer Colin Hodson, who runs the Bearded Explorer YouTube channel, recently revisited the Rheindahlen complex in Mönchengladbach, North Rhine-Westphalia, and was astonished by its sheer scale.
Built almost overnight in 1954 during the Cold War, Rheindahlen served as the main base for British forces and the NATO Northern Army Group. It operated until 2013, when it was finally vacated. Hodson discovered a secret map room in a reinforced bunker, which helped him locate the town's shopping district, church, and cinema—the latter targeted in a failed Provisional IRA bombing in 1973.
The site boasted extensive facilities, including sports grounds, a large swimming pool, a youth club, and a NAAFI. The cinema's promotional materials, featuring films from 2006, hint at its final years. Hodson also found an overgrown police station with a large detention cell, now home only to a dead rodent.
Despite proposals to turn the area into a leisure park or housing for asylum-seekers, the town remains abandoned. 'Today, it is completely abandoned. Nobody goes there, only wildlife, and nature is slowly reclaiming the site,' Hodson said.
