WWII Bomb Hunters

Death lurks beneath the earth.

Dud bombs from the Second World War.

Fire will fall from the sky.

It was the deadliest bomb raid.

The Allies drop over five million bombs on Nazi Germany.

One in ten does not explode.

It is a battle against time

when the time detonator has started ticking again.

Then it is a very dangerous game.

Which some pay for with their lives.

We must always assume that it can come to a self-detonation.

Here, you only make mistakes once.

You don't tend to survive them.

The men and women of the explosive ordnance clearance service

are still struggling with the consequences

of the Second World War today.

Every day, in the middle of Germany.

WWII BOMB HUNTERS

Scenes like these take place every day in Germany.

Five thousand dud bombs are found every year.

Tens of thousands of people are evacuated.

On average, explosive ordnance clearance services

recover hundreds of old world war bombs every week in Germany.

Statistically, bomb disposal personnel risk their lives twenty-five times a day

to clear the legacy of the Second World War.

It is almost 80 years

since Hitler plunged the world into the greatest war of annihilation in history.

To stop the German dictator,

the Allies made a momentous decision.

The bomb war against Germany began.

Until 1944, the allied forces

had no opportunity to fight Germany directly via the Western Front.

So they started bombing German territories in 1939.

A war against soldiers at the front and industrial workers at home.

600,000 civilians fall victim to the five-year bombing raids.

The British flew their attacks at night, the Americans during the day.

This way, they put the Germans under pressure around the clock.

they dropped a total of over 1.4 million bombs

during their bombardment of Germany.

That's at least five million bombs.

We estimate that ten to 15 percent of these bombs did not explode.

There is still quite a lot

of bomb material in German soil.

Enrico Schnick leads a team in Cottbus.

Today's mission begins at seven o'clock in the morning.

The 36-year-old family man has been defusing bombs full-time for five years.

That has to do with the Bundeswehr.

I came into contact with explosive ordnance clearance in Afghanistan,

and this has been my dream job ever since.

It's the suspense and the show. Every man loves a good explosion.

Schnick's mission: to destroy a 110 lb phosphorus bomb.

At the Neisse, the border river between Germany and Poland,

it was discovered during a search.

The bomb is too heavily damaged,

so defusing it is impossible.

That's why we had to decide to blow it up on site.

They cannot afford any mistakes.

A shock wave would immediately kill anyone within a radius of 164 feet.

Splinters can fly up to 3,281 feet.

You really shouldn't let yourself be disturbed.

You must not let yourself be stressed.

If I would arrive stressed at the bomb,

I would make mistakes.

And we absolutely can't use mistakes, because...

In our jobs, you only make mistakes once for the most part. No second chances.

The demolition expert defuses dud bombs

that have been underground for over 70 years.

That makes them unpredictable and dangerous.

Particularly deadly

are long-term fuses.

During the discharge, the impeller crushes an ampule with acetone.

The acid then attacks the plastic ring that holds the firing bolt.

After up to six days it is so badly damaged

that it can no longer hold the bolt.

The bomb explodes.

I can't look inside.

I can't see if the explosives are defective

or haven't worked, or if the ignition needle is jammed,

or if the ampule is intact or destroyed in long-term chemical detonators.

Then, we have to be on alert,

because we do not know whether the bomb will start ticking again.

Again and again, tragic accidents occur.

Since the turn of the millennium,

eleven demolition experts have been paying for their jobs with their lives.

Three experienced explosive ordnance removers die

trying to defuse a long-term detonator in Göttingen 2010.

It is a battle against time.

And battle against time means,

when the time fuse has started ticking again,

then it is no longer reliable.

Then it's basically a very dangerous game.

MUNICH, AUGUST 28, 2012

It can also hit uninvolved people at any time.

Every year, there are several self-ignitions.

A construction worker dies in 2014.

His excavator hits a world war bomb during earthworks.

Thirteen people are injured, some of them seriously.

To prevent this from happening,

men like Enrico Schnick risk their lives every day.

Arrival in Bahren an der Neisse.

The most important thing comes first. Security for the population.

We have prepared this,

for the bomb detonation. We have set up a 3,281 feet barrier circuit.

Here we have access roads, which we secure with guards.

The Bahren district has already been evacuated,

our colleagues are now carrying out another check.

Where the bomb was found, 73 years ago,

the battle for the Reich's capital Berlin began.

The last gasp of the Nazis.

With two and a half hours of artillery fire,

three weeks before the war ends, the red army launches

its pincer movement on Hitler's capital on Oder and Neisse.

April 16, 1945 is finally

the beginning of the end of the so-called Third Reich.

Of course, the Germans knew what was to come.

The numerical superiority of the Red Army was so immense.

Also the air support, the artillery superiority.

It was an unequal fight.

In the early hours of the morning, the Red Army crosses

the Neisse River in several places.

Already around nine o'clock, Bahren has been taken.

Estimated 10,000 Red Army soldiers against a few thousand Germans,

some of them old men and children of the Volkssturm.

They are to defend the access to Berlin,

where Hitler hides in the Führer bunker.

More than 2,000 Germans die in this hopeless endeavor.

The Soviets are supported by small, single- and twin-engine aircraft.

The Soviet air forces proceeded very tactically.

To support the ground attack, they launched a mass attack

on the Oder-Neisse border.

One thousand Soviet planes dropped many highly explosive bombs.

Fire bombs started fires in the supply bases

and ammunition depots.

The men from the explosive ordnance disposal service

found exactly such a bomb here in Bahren.

Only a few minutes left until the detonation.

Nobody should be within 1,312 feet of the bomb.

Is that the Polish side?

That vehicle over there?

A vehicle just drove onto the dam there.

The deadly legacy of the Second World War

also lurks off German coasts.

Here, the German navy is ensuring safety.

At seven o'clock in the morning, the minehunter Sulzbach-Rosenberg

with a crew of 44 man starts its mission in Kiel.

Five.

Course zero-nine-zero.

In the Baltic Sea, the ship goes on a mine and bomb hunt.

Captain Pierre Limburg has been in the mine hunting business for eight years

and has destroyed dozens of them since then.

The threat from aging aerial bombs

and mines is still immense.

Very frequently, fishermen find mines or old bombs in their nets.

Or you have contacts during other underwater work,

and then we are in demand as well.

The problem is, there are not only dud bombs off the German coast,

but up to 1.3 tons of dangerous world war ammunition.

After the end of the war, the Allies sank tons of them into the sea.

Captured weapons of the Nazis as well as own bombs and ammunition.

At the end of the war, the accumulated ammunition was to be disposed of.

The Americans and British disposed of them in the designated areas.

The Russians were not as prudent.

They just dropped them somewhere.

That is why the Baltic Sea is full of ammunition.

Many boatmen dump the ammunition on their way to the restricted areas

to save fuel.

Today, tides and currents still wash bombs into shipping lanes.

Cruise ships and container ships sailing into the Baltic Sea here

could trigger them at any time.

How does my family feel

about us going to this dangerous area?

Of course they are concerned about it, but I am trying...

to convince them with several arguments

that we have the best possible protection.

To locate this dangerous legacy,

the crew scans the seabed with highly sensitive sonar.

Message from the captain. We arrived at the search area.

I suggest deploying the sonar and becoming active.

Yes. Command, sonar deployed, sonar active.

Command, sonar deployed, sonar active.

Message. Contact was measured with a length of 4.6 feet,

a width of one foot

and a water depth of 83 feet.

Message. Contact was measured. Length is 4.6 feet...

- Sonar operator. - Operator.

Message. New contact in bearing.

Two-eight six, range 885 feet.

New contact in bearing. Two-eight-six, range 885 feet.

We just got a position where there may be water bombs.

At a depth of 66 feet, a 70 year old danger lurks.

Is that on the Polish side?

The vehicle over there?

A vehicle just drove on the dam there.

It could be someone from the municipality, we don't know. It could be in Poland.

I have also considered that it might be on the Polish side.

The Neisse comes first.

If I were to see anyone over there, I would have to interrupt immediately.

We'll try talking to the Poles again,

but other than that, they should be informed.

The men hope that it is an inspection vehicle.