JHQ Rheindahlen Germany

JHQ will be officially closed and handed back on Friday 13th December 2013. My wife has taken a photograph of every house on the Garrison as well as many other buildings and there are also quite a few short videos if anyone is interested. I have added a JHQ link to my own Poetry website and on the JHQ page is another link to my wife's page Houses on JHQ. Please take a look here is the link
http://www.poetrycommunicates.com/

   Many a happy, and rather drunken trips to JHQ Rheindhalen of a Friday and Saturday evening after duty, with carousing in the Malborough Club, occasionally sneaking into the Queensway Club, then later on down the German Bar at the 'Shack'..... if memory serves me right. It is a few years ago now..... then being escorted off the Garrison area in a Bedford 3 tonne truck, with a coule of landrovers of the local RMP and sometime German civvy police following on behind to see that nobody missbehaved themselves and were well and truly 'off the premises'....

Loved my 5 year stint in JHQ and will be sadly missed, end of an era...

Last bus ride found this on FB

http://www.myvideo.de/watch/9331629/The_last_bus_to_JHQ

How it started

Bad Oeynhausen to a brand new Rheindahlen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d89RtFRPjO0

Interesting site, great maps for those who want to remember who and where:

https://jhq-rheindahlen.de/jhq-maps/

Found this last night. Still standing, but what a waste of real estate. Wouldn't take much for it to be returned to a habitable state.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nta7ipNFF8

In November 1952 work started on the building of the NATO Joint Head Quarters (JHQ)
on open land consisting of some forest and a great deal of
boggy, swampy areas within the Rheindahlen Wald (Forest).

We (Brits) are no longer tenants there. (We never owned the buildings or löand). 
Ready for first occupants  in 1954, (a rapid build to UK spec)
the JHQ Complex attracted hefty maintenance funds.  It was more of a green site
than some UK new towns, but grass cutting,landscaping,
and MPBW*/PSA repair costs were high (a prestige
project but built on swampy ground)
- liability now lies with the Federal Government.  Of course they tried to a sell it on but;
too remote,
swampy ground
not what we (GE) need - the spec dates back to 1950s
at what maint cost  - buildings over 70 years old - rewiring overdue,
(and what "Alt Last" - buried hazards?),
how much is already sinking/getting damp/cracking, vandalism and scrap dealers
even migrants etc didn't stay long.  
THW - German Civil Defence, use the place for exercises and catastrophe training!

Other films include:

JHQ 1954  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d89RtFRPjO0
​JHQ Cemetery    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYxnN7gphwI
​Drone flight        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tam5eEMWNU0
​JHQ 2019           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puzy_klCweI
and


Rheindahlen & Elmpt Bulletin – July 2004 – 50th Anniversary Edition (46MB)

PDF copy of the July 2004 Rheindahlen & Elmpt Bulletin (50th Anniversary Edition) provided by Graham Fuery.
https://jhq-rheindahlen.de/documents/jhq-documents/rheindahlen-bulletin/

so the scrappies have been in - recycling metals of value!

Unfortunately many Barracks sites have suffered similar fates, or with insight (Paderborn Athlone, Osnabrück - Roberts) have been partially demolished and repurposed.  (Some reports on this Site!)

*MPBW = Ministry of Public Buildings and Works, precursors to
DWA/PSA and Babcock.