Athlone Bks history.

I spent 4 years at Athlone in the early 80s but left knowing very little about the place. Does anyone know or have links to any information about the pre war and WW2 history of the place? In the 'locations' page it says that it was occupied by the Canadians just after the war. I've tried searching the internet but cannot find any information as to that occupation nor what the Wehrmacht would have used it for or which German units were based there in the run up to and during WW2.

Rocky

I do not have any records for the early occupants of Athlone Barracks from May 45 to Mar 49, however clearly not the Canadians:

29 May 45 – HQRA 3rd (British) Infantry Division relieved 29th Infantry Division US Army, HQ Kirchplatz Delbruck north-west of Paderborn with responsibility for Landkreis Paderborn
16 Aug 45 – 52nd Divisional Artillery Brigade relieved HQRA 3rd Infantry Division until disbandment
19 Apr 46 – responsibility to 147th Infantry Brigade of 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division until disbandment
21 Oct 46 – relieved by 131st Lorried Infantry Brigade of 7th Armoured Division
31 Dec 46 – redesignated 31st Infantry Brigade of 7th Armoured Division
28 Jul 47 – responsibility now to the British Army of the Rhine Training Centre
15 Jan 48 – responsibility returns to 31st Independent Infantry Brigade of Hannover District
17 Feb 48 – responsibility to 7th Armoured Brigade of Hannover District
1 Sep 48 – All Arms Training Centre formed
15 Sep 48 – British Army of the Rhine Training Centre disbanded

Cannot find any major units in Athlone Barracks up to Mar 49, therefore must have been minor ones and probably part of the 21st Army Group Training Centre known as British Army of the Rhine Training Centre from 25 Aug 45.

Hope this helps

https://britisharmyingermany.com (under construction)

Cheers Steve! That's been very helpful! I'm now miles ahead of where I was.

Athlone Barracks, Sennelager on the edge of nowhere was a Brit build in the early post war era to meet a specific requirement for tanks and tracked vehicles (and heated hangars).  A hardened road route-in was constructed between the old B1 road and in to the Trg Area (Road is called Diebesweg !)

http://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A87564    
Paderborn 1:25,000 Map sheet for 1933!
Look NO Athlone planned N of Firing Range  




Timeline:    1951/54  Athlone Barracks purpose build completed for
occupation by Tank Regiment.  Build cost 6.8 million pounds.  No cellars - water table
less than a metre below surface - extensive and essential oil separators to prevent
pollution - storm drain escapes direct to R. Thune.  Specialist Washdown built outside camp across Diebesweg.
(Refurb 2004 - single to multi storey accn blocks).

2020 taken in to use as Training Fleet Barracks in the revitalised BFG  

(Army Bus drivers collecting pax at RAF Guetersloh offered transports of delight to "Att Loney" Barracks  - needed a sign to work out the destination!   (Route was Raf GT >  to Mansergh Bks thence via GT Town to Normandy Sennelager > Athlone > Dempsey > Crocker > Alanbrooke > end station Barker Bks then the driver vanished back to Schl. Neuhaus!)

https://www.army.mod.uk/deployments/germany/

See also (anticipating the next question):

Site and Athlone   Site Guard - Site Guard (on this site) 23/7/2019, 20:39 Reply :

Simply put the Forestry decides where plantations are to be placed in agreement with Range military managers.  
Timelines:
1945  Diebesweg (N-S lies between Athlone and Ammo site) was a country lane between B1 Trunk Rd and Staumühle Lager meandering through the heath around a different range configuration.  Just South of current Athlone location had been a rifle range with bricked butts south of  Husraenstrasse.
1951/54  Athlone Barracks completed included Tank Washdown on opposite side of Diebesweg - hardened road access to old B1, enhanced when new B1 Clearway/bridge built
([b]Refurb 2004[/b])
1963  First specialist ammo compound inserted east of Paderbon Water Pumping station
1965  New compounds (2 weapon and rocket motor) completed and in-loaded 1 - 1,5 km East of Athlone.  Tree clearance at distances from compound to meet German (Bw) licence requirement, and timber beyond the periphery left until Forestry felling for crop sale.  (Foresters found inside cleared zone often arrested!)
1966  Southern Military Ring Rd inserted to service the ALMAs and keep TCV traffic (ie NOT for tracks) out of Bad Lippspringe
1969/71  Tank Washdown at Athlone (there are 3 on trg area) to wash down traffíc in to Athlone or being transported on to B1

Pre 1990 1:25,000 & !:50,000 map sheets had blocks of woodland inserted to cover sensitive installations (not so the Range Map) after this date (russian) satellite imagery was on the market that could not be censored to the same extent.

Thanks again! That'll explain why there's no Wehrmacht antecedence. When I was a young Trooper, the only 'history' that I picked up was an old war story about there being a Wehrmacht medical centre under the Regt'l square. Obviously total horse shit, but like most at that age, I was gullible enough to take it in. I'm currently looking at the Luftwaffe airfields around Paderborn if you know of anything. So far I've got Bad Lippspringe and Stormede, but I've just stumbled over a mention on the internet that there was an airfield at PB/Monkeloh?

Fliegerhörst Störmede by Geseke!,  and
https://www.zeitreise-paderborn.de/detail/10016;jsessionid=19klqvkobtbqxaghu8vw6s4s7?0

Monkeloh was a WW1 airfield set up in WW2 mode in October 1944 and bombed flat by the allies in 1945, although the US Army used the field/strip untilearly 1946 for freight and pax.

https://www.teutoburgerwald.de/wandern-radfahren/in-der-natur/tour/haxterberg-und-haxtergrund-bei-paderborn      Haxtergrund a glider field these days

Night attack airfield at Bad Lippspringe (beside the current Golf Course and former Parachute Centre) (one aircraft came down with less than 5 hours on the clock 200 m East of Dubeloh Str Schl Neuhaus) and was excavated in 1980 by GE authorities - EOD in attendance no bombs but full ammo belts,  some bones and ID discs recovered  then all the bits incl  a  75 mm steel plate behind the pilot's seat.  the propeller boss gear for trimming the prop was slightly waxed (degradation of lube) but in perfect condition) taken away.

and how about the former glider field (like the big Hamilcars) in the Senne north of Haustenbeck where  troops and vehicles for the assault on Rotterdam were assembled - a certain Max Schmelling was a soldier there!

Across the road and just South of Athlone Barracks there was a classification 400 m rifle range (firing S to N) Wehrmacht pattern belonging to the Kaiser's and Wehrmacht Paderborn Garrison, with an impressive bullet catcher (ots of lead). Destroyed by the Brits in 1945 and  butts blown up by Brits around 1980, although that strip of land has been taken out of BR use the Federal Forestry authority still holds it pending maturity of trees on site (never been shot at!)

Across Diebesweg from this strip of land - visible from the road, is an extensive Paderborn Stadt set of Drinking Water boreholes - still in business and on the training area boundary.

Rocky  - Athlone Barracks - the water table in that area is so near the surface the imaginary Med Cen under the square would have been a submarine one! The storm drain taking the run-off from the camp (after passing through two oil separators) you will find run due North to a pond in the woods and into to the Thune stream.

Steve - No elements of the Training Centre were located there (Athlone) it was a UK funded build in 1952/54 for a Tank Regiment / or Armoured Recce.  (When Stables were re-located from Horrocks Barracks (Schl. Neuhaus) and because the HCavR from Detmold was re-located to Sennelager - the replacement horse accn new build was placed at the rear of Athlone).   Only became part of the trg area facilities in 2020 in a re-think/re-purposing  by DIO.

I have seen an old map of the camp with the office blocks at the West side of the parade square marked as being Battery offices, but I was not aware of any artillery units being based there.
Any ideas?

I know of no RA units ever intended for Athlone Barracks!   As far as I know the garages were designed/intended for tanks - and back then heavy artillery was towed not SP.  In fact I know of a couple of barracks that later housed SP Artillery from which the muzzles always protruded.
BUT 4 kms west of Athlone is the Dempsey Barracks, which became a 6 battery regiment in the 1980s and because of the need to increase accn for livers-in; extra buildings designated in the drawings as "Battery Offices" were built on the parade square behind the RHQ Block  (on the West side of the square and between RHQ Bldg  and Sgts' Mess/ US Msl Det Accn)!

https://www.paderborner-konversion.de/standort/dempsey

The singlies then moved in to the former offices on the ground floor of the accn blocks - lucky; the 2 IC wanted either hot-bedding with one bty on exercise at a time, or tents.

Ref Dempsey, do you know what (type of) German units were based there before the war ended?

map pic

Arbitrary now vis a vis Battery Offices?  the drawings have a number of spelling mistakes in the legend  (Miniatur, and Bycicle?) wonder if the whole drawing set  is a draft from CRE Paderborn not yet costed by Staatliche Bauamt nor re-drawn to German spec?  Planning for a new Build would have started a few years before shovels in the ground,  wishful thinking by some Staff Offr intending to improve the accn lot of the RHA/RA unit in Balaclava Bks, Schlangen.  In the end Arty rôle for Paderborn/Sennelager precluded firing on that range - altough there was a Gun Position in the Southern Fields area (behnd MQ and J Buchan School) used by 40 Regt RA for a fire power demo in to the Belle Alliance.

Lookng at manuscript comments on drawings - they look like a buckshee set of location outlines handed to a contractor who was making his own drawings to cover the  "Rainwater Plan"  that had most rain water run-off to soakaway pits and depressions, near buildings in the camp, except where interceptors required for storm drains and contaminated run-off from garage, servicing bay and workshop aprons, cookhouse/NAAFI waste handling areas/kitchen drainage.   An interesting project, expensive and not just linked to premises that would be retained, contractors were heavily in to re-lining  with glass fibre sleeves and epoxy resin glue the inside of foul and drinking water pipes and mains.  Wonder how the soakaway pits are gonna work when buildings demolished in Dempsey, for example.

New look:  https://bfg-locations.editboard.com/t62-skc-location?highlight=Normandy#36492  

scroll down to entry from Nov 2017 (amended for May 2020 - ATHLONE Barracks not being handed back to be a kind of BATUs accn and veh fleet base for units in training  - Tank Wksps ideal, accn quite new. Distant from Sennelager and Paderborn and Bad Lippspringe (local Taxi firms will soon have that sorted!)

Quote Tankie 96

Ref Dempsey, do you know what (type of) German units were based there before the war ended?

Unquote

as far as I can make out last units to use the Wilhelmsberg Kaserne (Dempsey) were reinforcements and their last action was on Bielefelderstrasse near the rail crossing just South of Sennelager (opposite the Pink Schnellie - which was built far later /junction with Thune Weg) - later on Easter Saturday/Sunday all remaining combatants were taken to the North of the Trg area to fight at the Dörenschluct between Pivitsheide and Detmold.
See also: https://www.lwl.org/westfaelische-geschichte/txt/normal/txt1385.pdf

cheers again!

Athlone Barracks
was a new build for a Garrison Tank Regiment (Build 1951-54 Cost 6.8 million pounds)
-  and miles from nowhere on the edge of the training area/range.  In most recent years
(around 2010) or so the single soldier's living accn has been vastly improved, new build
four/five storey blocks even, flatlets.  The pine trees around the camp have been harvested thrice since the build.
May 2020  ATHLONE Barracks being retained as a training estate asset ;
to be accn for units in trg (from UK and elsewhere) a kind of BATUs accn and Veh fleet base with mobility packets to suit trg purposes. - Tank and Veh Wksps ideal, heated hangars for vehs, Offrs'
and Sgts' Messes and soldiers' accn,
modern well heated sldrs' accn quite new, tank washdown outside camp withj special separator due to high water table (Diebesweg).
Socially distant from Sennelager and Paderborn and Bad Lippspringe/Marienloh (local Taxi firms will soon have that sorted!), ideal cross country run routes North and West of camp - Golf course nearby, classification ranges within marching distance.
Tank proof road/bridge to B1 Clearway to South

The high water table meant there were NO stiorage in cellars ´-there were NO CELLARS
etc - therefore
the small windows in the attics of refurbished blocks were the storage areas
for  soldiers' kit not kept in the flatlets - MFO boxes, suitcases,  spare kit,
SQMS crash out kits.