Over 70,000 pieces of wartime ammunition found in South Moravia forest

The state enterprise Forests of the Czech Republic has finished clearing the Bor forest (Boří les) in the Lednice-Valtice Area of Second World War ammunition. In total, more than 70,000 items of ammunition and parts of it were found there.

The work was carried out together with foresters, who prepared the areas for searching, and with the Czech Police pyrotechnic service. Grenades, mines, aerial bombs and other munitions were found. Among the most significant finds is a 210-millimetre anti-concrete artillery shell weighing 125 kilograms.

Ammunition from almost every army

According to Radek Žemlička, head of the Brno branch of the police pyrotechnic service, the variety of finds was exceptional. During the war the German army also stored so-called captured material at the factory, so the forest held ammunition from practically all the warring sides of the time, from Soviet and German to Romanian, Hungarian, American and British.

The most dangerous, in Žemlička’s view, was British ammunition. “One of the most dangerous things was British ammunition: because of the compounds used at the time, even after 80 years it had to be destroyed on the spot in 90 percent of cases,” he said.

The forest stayed open

The Bor forest is part of the Lednice-Valtice Area. It was planted by the Liechtensteins on poor sandy soil. The forest attracts mainly cyclists, who ride along its trails to historic monuments such as the Temple of Diana, the Chapel of St Hubert or the Three Graces. It remained open to the public, except for the sections where pyrotechnicians were working at the time.

The work had been planned for completion last winter, but the foresters accommodated the Czech Prison Service and additionally surveyed the forests around the prison in Poštorná, added Miroslav Svoboda, director of the Židlochovice forest enterprise.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by ekolist.cz