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WWII Bomb Hunters 2018
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00:02Death lies hidden underground. Undetonated World War II bombs.
00:12It was like fire from the sky.
00:18It was the deadliest bombing raid.
00:21Over five million bombs were dropped on Nazi Germany by Allied forces during the conflict.
00:27One in ten didn't explode.
00:30It's a race against time, and if the timer has started ticking again, then that's a pretty nasty game to
00:36play.
00:39And for some, the price is a deadly one.
00:43We always assume that self-detonation is a possibility.
00:47You can only make a mistake once, and you don't usually survive it.
00:53The men and women of the bomb disposal team.
00:55Every day, all across Germany, they do battle with the lasting legacy of World War II.
01:24Every day in modern Germany, scenes like this unfold.
01:29Every year, 5,000 undetonated ordinances are found, and tens of thousands of people are evacuated.
01:36In other words, bomb disposal services clear an average of 100 World War II bombs every week.
01:44Simply put, bomb disposal technicians in Germany risk their lives 25 times a day to safely disarm these World War
01:52II relics.
02:03It's been almost 80 years since mankind faced Hitler's war of annihilation.
02:09In order to stop the German dictator, the Allies took an earth-shattering decision to launch a bombing campaign against
02:16Germany.
02:18Until 1944, the Western Allies didn't have the option of fighting directly against Germany or at the Western Front.
02:27So in 1939, they began bombing German territories.
02:34War. Against both soldiers on the front and industrial workers at home.
02:40Over five years, 600,000 civilians perish in the bombing.
02:47The British would bomb at night, the Americans would bomb by day.
02:50It's what they were both prepared to do, and it would put the Germans under 24-hour pressure.
02:56The American and British bombing campaigns dropped 1.4 million tons of bombs on Germany.
03:03You can, I mean, that's at least 5 million bombs.
03:07We estimate that between 10 and 15 percent of these bombs didn't explode.
03:14So there's still a whole lot of undetonated bombs lying in German soil.
03:19So there's still a whole lot of undetonated bombs lying in German soil.
03:28Enrico Schnick leads a team in Cottbus.
03:32Today's mission begins at 7 a.m.
03:38For the last five years, this 36-year-old father has worked full-time in bomb disposal.
03:53I started with the German armed forces.
03:56I first came into contact with bomb disposal teams in Afghanistan.
04:00It's been my dream job ever since.
04:04It's exciting, and every man likes things to go bang.
04:09Schnick's task today is to render a 50-kilo phosphorus bomb harmless.
04:14It was found during research work on the river Neisse on the border between Germany and Poland.
04:20The bomb is heavily damaged.
04:22It won't be possible to defuse it.
04:25So we've decided to detonate it on site.
04:29They can't afford any mistakes.
04:31Anyone within a 50-meter radius of the blast would be immediately killed by the shockwave alone.
04:36And the shrapnel can fly up to 1,000 meters.
04:40You really have to keep your calm.
04:42You can't let the stress get to you.
04:44If I showed up here at the bomb and I was stressed, I'd make mistakes.
04:48And we can't afford any mistakes at all.
04:51Because with our job, if you make a mistake most of the time, you only make it once.
04:56And it's the last mistake you'll ever make.
04:59The explosives expert defuses bombs that have been buried in the ground for over 70 years.
05:07They're dangerous and unpredictable.
05:14Bombs with long delay detonators are especially risky.
05:21When these bombs are dropped, an impeller wheel crushes a vial of acetone.
05:25This acid then corrodes the plastic ring that holds the firing pin.
05:30Eventually, the ring is so deteriorated that it can no longer hold the pin.
05:34So after a delay of up to six days, the bomb explodes.
05:40Well, you can't look inside to see if the explosives are defective.
05:44Or if the firing pin has jammed.
05:46There is no way of knowing if it has a long delay detonator with its chemical vial intact.
05:52Or if it's been destroyed.
05:55So it's unnerving.
05:56Because you don't know when the bomb might start ticking again.
06:01And tragic accidents do occur, time and time again.
06:05Since the turn of the new millennium, 11 explosive technicians have paid for their job with their lives.
06:10In 2010, in Göttingen, three experienced bomb diffusers died in an attempt to deactivate a long delay detonator.
06:19It's a race against time.
06:21And a race against time means that once the timer starts ticking again, then you can't be sure about anything
06:27anymore.
06:30Ultimately, that's a pretty nasty game to play.
06:35At any moment, innocent bystanders may also be in danger.
06:39There are several spontaneous detonations every year.
06:43In 2014, a construction worker died in Ustkirchen when his excavator struck a buried World War II warhead.
06:49Thirteen people were injured, some seriously.
06:53Men like Enrico Schnick and his team risk their lives daily to prevent this from happening.
07:01Today, they've been called to Baren on the Neisser River.
07:04Their first priority, the safety of the local residents.
07:09We've set up a thousand-meter perimeter to prepare the area for disposing the bomb.
07:16Access roads are closed and guarded, and the district of Baren has already been evacuated while the field specialist carries
07:22out another inspection.
07:2673 years ago, this location was the site of the final battle for the capital of the empire.
07:33Berlin, the last Nazi stronghold.
07:36Just three weeks before the end of the war, the Red Army launches its takeover of Hitler's capital with a
07:41two-and-a-half-hour bombardment of the Oder and Neisser.
07:51April 16, 1945 is ultimately the beginning of the end for the Third Reich.
08:01Of course, the Germans knew what was coming.
08:07The Red Army was stronger in numbers and also had superior air support and artillery.
08:13So it was an unequal fight.
08:16In the early hours of the morning, the Red Army crosses the Neisser.
08:20By 9am, they have already taken the city of Baren.
08:24An estimated 10,000 Russian soldiers against a few thousand Germans,
08:28many of them old men and children from the Volkssturm, or People's Army.
08:34They were supposed to block access to Berlin, where Hitler is hiding in his bunker.
08:39Over 2,000 Germans die in this futile endeavor.
08:44The Soviets are supported by small, single, and dual-engine aircraft.
08:53The Soviet Air Force was very tactical, very much like the Luftwaffe.
08:57There was a mass assault of the Oder and Neisser line to support the ground attack.
09:01Thousands of Soviet aircraft.
09:02They would have dropped smaller, a lot of high-explosive bombs.
09:05I can see them dropping some incendiaries, especially in the German rear areas,
09:09to cause some fires in supply bases, ammunition dumps.
09:14And here in Baren, it's exactly this kind of firebomb that the team finds.
09:24It's just a few minutes to detonation.
09:27No one should be within 400 meters of the bomb.
09:32Hang on a minute. Is there someone on the Polish side?
09:35Is that a vehicle over there?
09:39Someone just drove onto the riverbank.
09:54The deadly legacy of the Second World War also lurks off the German coastline.
09:59Here, the navy is responsible for safety.
10:02At 7am, the Sulzbach-Rosenberg, a minehunter with a crew of 44, begins a new mission in Kiel.
10:17Navigation.
10:19Copy.
10:21Course 310.
10:25In the Baltic Sea, this German naval ship searches for mines and bombs.
10:31For the last eight years, Corvette Captain Pierre Limburg has been hunting and destroying dozens of naval bombs and mines.
10:39Old aerial bombs and mines are still a very serious threat in these waters.
10:44Fishermen frequently catch old mines or bombs in their nets.
10:48And other people who work on the water come into contact with them.
10:51And that's when we get called in again and again.
10:55But the problem is not just undetonated bombs submerged off the German coast.
10:59There are also up to 1.3 tons of dangerous World War II waste and munitions.
11:05After the war, the Allies dumped tons of captured Nazi weapons, as well as their own bombs and ammunition, into
11:11the sea.
11:12There was a plan at the end of the war to try to get rid of a lot of the
11:15munitions that had been stockpiled.
11:17The Americans, the British, they kind of went by the rules and kind of put the stuff in the designated
11:21zones to dump it.
11:23The Russians weren't quite that careful.
11:24They just basically flung it wherever it was, which I'm not surprised if the Baltic is fairly filled with munitions.
11:32To save fuel, many boats dumped their munitions en route to their designated location.
11:37The process was completely unregulated.
11:40Today, tides and currents can wash the bombs into shipping routes,
11:43and the crews and container ships in the Baltic Sea could detonate them at any time.
11:51Of course, my family is worried about us going into all these dangerous areas.
11:56But I've tried to convince them that we're doing everything we can to make sure we're as safe as we
12:04can be.
12:07The crew scans the seabed with highly sensitive sonar to locate the dangerously contaminated zones.
12:14Captain, we've arrived at the search location. Request to extend the sonar.
12:20Yes. Extend and activate the sonar.
12:23Command, extend sonar. Sonar active.
12:26Attention officer in charge. We have new location findings from sonar.
12:29286, distance of 270 meters. Command pin.
12:33Captain, we have arrived at the hunting ground.
12:35Point has been measured. Point has been measured.
12:37Length 1.5 meters, width 0.3 meters, water depth is 25.3 meters.
12:43Length 1.5 meters, width of 0.3 meters, water depth is 25.3 meters.
12:49So, we have just received the possible location of some water bombs.
13:0120 meters below the surface, a 70-year-old terror lies dormant.
13:0920 meters above the surface.
13:14Is there someone on the Polish side?
13:17Is that a vehicle over there?
13:21Someone just drove onto the river bank.
13:23Maybe it's someone from Byron, do you think?
13:25But isn't that the Polish side over there?
13:28Yeah, but if anybody's over there, I'll have to abort immediately.
13:32We're trying to get in touch with the Poles now, but we keep getting transferred.
13:35if we don't get through we'll have to carry on we may not even see anyone else
13:40while the team hopes it's just a false alarm police and firefighters double
13:47check access roads and residential buildings the disposal team heads for
13:52the bomb site
14:02explosives expert enrico schnick skills will now be tested the unexploded ordnance is
14:08exactly where it landed 70 years ago and with the detonator still inside the bomb
14:12it's too dangerous to transport a 50 kilo russian firebomb this has a much smaller explosive charge
14:25because its aim is to kill the enemy not through explosion but through fire using a type of
14:30thickened petrol this type of bomb has a flammable material that can't be extinguished using conventional
14:36firefighting methods so water and sand are no help at all you just have to let the whole thing burn
14:42in
14:42a controlled manner that's why we need to try to get the bomb to explode in a way so this
14:46massive
14:47fire doesn't spread uncontrollably that's the dangerous thing about this explosion even the
14:54police have to leave the site now and then the bomb squad gets to work
15:11time after time citizens are reminded of the threat of unexploded bombs it's september 2017 and the
15:18biggest evacuation since world war ii is underway over 70 000 local residents are forced to leave their
15:24homes when a bomb one of the largest ever uncovered is found during construction work
15:31the hc-4000 nicknamed the blockbuster has an explosive force of 1.4 tons
15:39dieter schwetzler has worked for bomb disposal in hesse since 2010
15:44since then he's diffused between 30 and 40 undetonated ordinances a year but he's never handled the bomb this
15:50big before so we get davon aus dass in einigen hundred metern schon die gebäude zerstört werden
15:55und dann kommt natürlich der splitterfluch und material was durch die gegen fliegt dementsprechend
16:00wurde auch der radius von 1500 metern gewählt sicher zu gehen dass die bürger nicht geschädigt
16:08frankfurt was one of the most heavily bombed cities in germany allied forces attacked the city 75 times
16:20frankfurt was a key target because it's so much german transportation went through there americans
16:25especially were concentrating on transportation targets they want to destroy the german oil industry
16:31frankfurt city center was almost completely destroyed by around 30 000 tons of bombs
16:38particularly devastating with the air mines or so-called blockbusters
16:42the air mines were meant to destroy every construction to smash houses and shutter windows
16:48and raise buildings to the ground
16:53and it's just this kind of blockbuster that is responsible for the biggest evacuation of a
16:58residential area in post-war germany the operation to clear the streets is already well underway
17:04and more than 100 patients in the two local hospitals also have to be relocated
17:20it's noon four hours since the danger zone should have been evacuated
17:25one thousand policemen check that no one has decided to stay home
17:45it will be dark in five hours but some people still remain in their homes
17:54the area is finally declared clear at 2 30 pm two and a half hours behind schedule
18:17for four hours the bomb experts work on the undettonated device
18:21in the moment when you go to the situation you focus on the whole thing
18:26this is adrenaline pure but you live with it and you know how you have to go with it
18:45enrico schnik wants to crack the undetonated bomb open and destroy the flammable materials inside with
18:51c4 plastic explosives every weapon is different every situation is different every site is different
18:58there are so many factors that it mustn't become routine because in this job in this job routine is deadly
19:05it's ready the bomb squad moves back to a safe distance of 350 meters
19:12the potentially fatal flammable material shouldn't be able to reach them from here
19:26counting down three two one ignition two one ignition
19:54the bomb is destroyed the flammable material safely eliminated the first thing schnick does is to reach
20:01for his telephone that's why it's the sms i was just sending a text to my family because of course
20:07they worry
20:08with the job i do and it calms them down a bit to know that everything worked out it's one
20:14of the first
20:14things i do after a job the remains of the bomb are packed up to be sent back to the
20:21depot
20:22and the iron will be used to scrap metal the bomb squad's work is done for the day
20:41captain of the mine hunter vessel suits bag rosenberg pierre limburg searches the baltic sea for old world
20:47war ii naval bombs and mines using sonar they've just located three potential devices the plane was
20:54just surveyed water depth of 25 meters 1.5 meters long and 0.2 meters wide yeah okay prepare for
21:02drone
21:02duty on the starboard side command prepare for drone duty captain limburg intends to look for the
21:09three bombs on the seabed with an underwater drone a small remote control submarine equipped with a camera
21:15but conditions are not ideal
21:2527 year old mine diver sebastian scrutinizes the footage from the underwater camera if they find
21:31the bombs it will be his responsibility to go down alone and disarm them a job he has done with
21:36the german armed forces for the last six years we can see from the images that the seabed is pretty
21:43muddy there's a lot of mud and also a lot of floating particles visibility is maybe two meters which is
21:50not much you have to do a lot of this by touch but that's only possible to a certain extent
21:56because
21:57you don't know exactly what's there and you can't touch everything
22:07but first the 35 year old captain's crew needs to find and identify the unknown objects
22:26one wo command to the diving port diver to suit up
22:33water bombs like these were the most effective weapons against germany's much feared submarines during
22:38world war ii
22:44germany's u-boats terrified the allies the only time winston churchill was ever afraid during the entire
22:50war he said after the conflict was during the battle of the atlantic because those sea roots
22:56with the british empire's weakest link it's achilles heel
23:01the allies began to hunt mercilessly for u-boats and hunter became hunted
23:09the war on the u-boats continues practically until the end of the war patrolling the german
23:14area of the baltic sea especially heading to norway so in april 1945 it was extremely risky
23:22many of the routes used by the u-boats were infested with mines
23:26and the allied air force was also lying in wait to attack the subs so many submarines were lost on
23:33the way to norway
23:37it's one of these water bombs that mine diver sebastian must neutralize
23:42he will use c4 to trigger the old explosive material but first he needs to find it in the murky
23:49water
23:51three points were detected by the sonar but the underwater drone could only identify one of the objects
24:01so it's pretty unclear what i might find as we saw earlier on the sonar picture from the drone
24:07visibility is almost zero so i'll have to watch out while i'm diving i need to be careful
24:13go slow and keep my eyes open sebastian has more than 600 dives and countless detonations under his belt
24:32they head to the coordinates where the sonar detected three suspicious points in a dinghy
24:38at a depth of 20 meters visibility is so poor that mine diver sebastian will need to feel for the
24:44bombs with his fingers
24:50three two one and down
24:57once below the surface sebastian's only communication with the dinghy is by pulling on the rope attached to
25:02the signal boy a radio would disturb his concentration this way he can be more flexible and react more quickly
25:19if he tugs on the boy rope three times it means he has found the bombs
25:49the bombs
25:52coming command we've found all three
25:58attention commanding officer all three bombs have been found
26:10every technician goes through extensive training before being allowed to work on unexploded bombs
26:16andrej kowalczyk has disposed of more than 80 bombs in the last seven years
26:22next year mark neubauer a 23 year old mine diver who has previously spent seven years with the german
26:28armed forces hopes to disarm his first undetonated bomb there are a lot of jobs where people risk their
26:36lives and if those jobs weren't done then it all would still be out there and the population would be
26:41in
26:41danger mark has been training to become a bomb disposal technician for a year on today's training
26:48schedule phosphorus bomb disposal and for this lesson mark needs protective gear
26:57incendiary bombs have relatively thin walls so if the phosphorus benzene rubber mixture leaves
27:02we can take the suit self quickly and we don't get it on ourselves
27:05a lifesaver extinguishing a phosphorus fire would be impossible
27:12the bomb disposal crew practices disarming a 15 kilo world war ii incendiary bomb the allies
27:18launched over 213 attacks on the city over a period of six years the worst of all the night of
27:24july
27:24the 27th 1943 operation gomorrah was the code name for this attack and it comes from the old testament
27:34this is the mint concrete the fire fell from the sky on the cities of sodom and gomorrah it was
27:42certainly a warlike code name for a bombing raid with an intensity never before seen
27:50royal air force bomber command employs 739 aircraft in this particularly devastating attack
27:56hamburg with its harbor is a crucial industrial location and transport hub
28:01what's more it's within easy reach for the bomber squadrons the bombers came in a stream of planes
28:08maybe 100 kilometers long and they flew over the north sea over the islands of heligoland
28:13and over german territory heading directly to hamburg
28:18on a warm summer night hamburg is ambushed blanketed with a brutal firestorm
28:24the roofs of houses catch fire instantly
28:29over 40 000 people die
28:37to this day this type of incendiary bomb remains extremely dangerous
28:49the gas is poisonous and phosphorus self ignites on contact with the air once lit it's impossible to
28:56extinguish so these men train in conditions that are as realistic as possible when things really are a
29:02matter of life and death their every move must be correct
29:14good good everything worked out really well excellent so that's the end of today's
29:19the bomb disposal crew deals with small bombs every day but will only see one of this caliber
29:25around 20 times a year in a densely populated city even a control detonation would be too risky
29:31so the team has developed special machines that make the deactivation of deadly long delay detonators a
29:36little safer so what we have here is called a high pressure water cutting system
29:44and we use a mixture of water and sand at a pressure of 2400 bar well around 2400 bar and
29:52with this we
29:53can cut the detonator out of the bomb it's a case of high tech versus deadly relics machines like these
30:01were first used five years ago a magnet attaches the water nozzle holder to the metal body of the device
30:08in the danger zone right next to the bomb every move needs to be spot on any mistake would be
30:15fatal on
30:15this job the expression you learn from your mistakes doesn't apply to us no in our business you can only
30:24make a mistake once and if you do you don't usually survive it they start up the machine from a
30:34small
30:34mobile bunker at a safe distance at 2400 bars of pressure the fine water jet cuts through the outer
30:44steel body of the bomb
30:55so if you look you can tell once the jet of water fans out spreads out like that we know
31:01that the
31:01jet has penetrated the steel and that means we've got through the detonator is extracted from the
31:07unexploded device using a remote controlled manipulator the old bomb is itself now disarmed but the
31:14detonation charge which may be up to a kilo of explosive material could still be deadly
31:23andre kowalsik uses the robot to detonate it from a safe distance without putting anyone in danger
31:29but in all of germany there are only 10 of these high-tech devices currently in use
31:36so let's clean everything and the answers pack it all up and stand by good job
32:02you found all three yeah when i head back down i can get them all in one go you know
32:06we could
32:07actually connect them with each other yeah then we'll put two detonators on them we'll do that on
32:12board climb back in first the team preps the c4 plastic explosives for ignition their plan destroy
32:20all three bombs with a single blast we're at the gps location now my dove is already in the water
32:31i want
32:32to go ahead now permission to dive yeah here is the perceived command to be boat permission to dive granted
32:39copy that they're ready to go the diver swiftly descends the 20 meters to the bombs
32:59the boat the boat to command diver at bottom sebastian attaches the explosives to the water bomb
33:07calling all naval stations calling all naval stations calling all naval stations this is
33:12nato warship mike 1062 salzbach rosenberg a controlled underwater detonation will be performed at 1525
33:20at the following location maritime traffic is requested to maintain a safe distance of at least one nautical
33:28mile from this position over frank richter is an aerial photography analyst with the bomb disposal services
33:46in oradienburg many bombs and the remains of munitions still lie underground
33:51as a result the area must be investigated prior to any new construction project
33:58we're inspecting this site today because the city wants to build a new road here
34:02we've already checked the aerial photo around the henrietta bridge to the left and right
34:07and there's a couple of potential issues here
34:12richter uses allied world war ii photographs for his analysis
34:16these hitherto confidential image archives have only been available in the last 30 years
34:24aerial photographs were taken before during and after any strategic bombing
34:30before they looked at what could be destroyed and after clearly they looked at what had been destroyed
34:36richter compares the images a high number of craters means the bomb was probably a dud
34:43a small dot indicates that a bomb hit but didn't explode definite cause for concern
34:52at louisa henrietta bridge we expect to find fallout from one two three four five bomb craters and we
35:00have one suspicious area where we'll find fragments and maybe a bomb
35:05fully six weeks before the germans surrender the u.s air force launches 612 b-17 bombers on an
35:13especially important mission their target lies 25 kilometers north of berlin the our factory in oradienburg
35:22this is where the nazis are working to build an atomic bomb in late 1944 they uncovered intelligence that
35:28there was a german factory in iranienburg processing uranium and thorium radioactive metals
35:37the intelligence groups immediately went to the american air commanders and said we need a raid on
35:43iranienburg to destroy this factory these were the chemical elements necessary for building an atomic bomb
35:51deploying almost 6 000 of their own bombs the allies put paid to the nightmare of a german nuclear weapon
35:59they dropped a lot of delayed action bombs because they wanted to make sure they penetrated
36:06the roof of the factory and got deep into the rubble deep into the factory to cause destruction later
36:12they wanted to destroy every vestige of that particular facility
36:20for fear of delayed detonations no one dared re-enter the factory
36:28it's often one or two days before you know that the trams have gone untouched and if there's a bomb
36:33that does detonate that also affects public morale it's a huge hazard often with a high number of victims
36:40but much of this hazardous ordinance landed in soft sandy soil where the acid did not hit its target
36:46so their detonation is delayed indefinitely no one can know when the bomb will explode
36:52what's worse the bomb's designers built in a trick to prevent it from being diffused
36:59in my opinion these are the most dangerous devices we can still find today the chemical
37:06long-delayed detonators are much more risky compared to bombs that have mechanical detonators
37:12so i can't really allow myself to be fazed by them anymore the bomb disposal team in orarienburg
37:18suspects they are up against exactly this type of device andre muller has diffused 173 bombs in his
37:25career including 55 with long-term detonators of course things are tense first we don't know if
37:32it is a bomb we have to assume it is and proceed accordingly and second we don't know what state
37:37the
37:37bomb is in we assume that self detonation is always a possibility there's a suspicious object exactly where
37:44the aerial analysis indicated they should search if it's a bomb with a long delay detonator it could
37:50explode at any moment and that would be a certain death sentence for anyone within 900 meters
37:57they carefully dig deeper to identify the object
38:02so we're four meters down now is that right and the device should be at four and a half meters
38:08so we're about half a meter above the object from this point they cannot use excavators or shovels
38:18we have to avoid moving the bomb and causing any fluctuation in temperature the worst case would
38:24be if the bomb exploded that would not be good the last few centimeters require the utmost caution
38:32nothing but a thin layer of sand stands between the explosives expert and a deadly world war ii bomb
38:50how far apart are the bombs well two are right next to each other and the other one is about
38:5620 meters
38:57away ready to blast yes sir copy
39:05a controlled underwater detonation in the vicinity of schoonhagen will take place in 10 9 8 7 6 5 4
39:183 2 1
39:31very nice job fine well done
39:41so we detonated everything we wanted to and the team did a really good job so i'm really pleased with
39:56them
39:57you can be proud that you destroyed something that's been hanging around down there for years
40:02it's a good job
40:05for today their mission is complete but within a year at most the navy will have to search again for
40:11dangerous contaminated sites
40:27in orationburg the bomb disposal team continues its assignment
40:32yesterday they identified the suspicious object as an american world war ii bomb
40:36it weighs 250 kilos and has a dangerous long delay detonator studies of these long delay detonators
40:43have shown that they are becoming more and more sensitive around 40 percent of all
40:47detonators are considered highly sensitive and are prone to self-detonation with no time to lose
40:54the bomb squad is on its way meanwhile the civilian evacuation begins
41:02open up please 12 000 people must be cleared for a 900 meter radius around the bomb
41:09that's how far metal shrapnel might fly
41:15three hours later a signal the evacuation is complete
41:23now alone 66 year old muller can start deactivating the bomb
41:40energy news michael botley
41:42good morning sarah
41:43the 250 kilo bombe has another sharp long time
41:46zinder and the must be strengthened
41:4712 000 people must leave their houses and buildings
41:49many kitas, schools and mta in oraniburg
41:52remain at least for the time of the explosion
42:08that's all clear the bomb has been deactivated
42:13all clear the bomb has been deactivated
42:14people can return to their homes
42:16while bomb disposal expert andre muller talks to the press
42:39in brandenburg the bomb disposal team has a saying
42:43when you finish one bomb the next is just around the corner
42:51and estimated 100 000 undetonated bombs still lie hidden underground
42:57to find them and make germany safer hundreds of bomb disposal experts risk
43:01their lives every day
43:04no i don't feel like a hero but i am proud of the work that we do
43:08as a team and i'm proud of the responsibility that we take on with our work
43:15germany bears a heavy legacy the waters off the german coast will probably never be completely clear of
43:22all the contaminated sites even so these men face this hopeless battle
43:27we can all feel good about making the sea safer and pat each other on the back for that until
43:32the danger
43:33of these relics is finally eliminated once and for all generations to come will still have to contend
43:40with the iron legacy of the second world war
43:44so
43:54so
43:55so
43:59you
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