The riverside trail on the cliffs near Ahrenshoop has long been closed. Now many walkers nearby can see why: part of the surveillance system belonging to the National People's Army has now slipped into the sea.

An On the cliff between the Baltic Sea resorts of Ahrenshoop and Wustrow in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a former guard bunker of the GDR armed forces has slipped. As Ahrenshoop Mayor Benjamin Heinke said Monday, the slope gave way over the weekend under the weight of the massive concrete structure. “We have been waiting for this for a long time and had cordoned off the vulnerable coastal area. The steady rain of the last few weeks has now accelerated the process,” explained Heinke.

He repeated the call to take the warnings seriously, to stay away from the edge and not to enter the stretch of beach in the middle of the cliff, which is about three kilometers long. “There is a danger to life,” warned the mayor and relayed discussions with the responsible authorities.

According to Heinke, the current floating bunker is part of a larger facility built by the National People's Army in the late 1950s to monitor events in the Baltic Sea. The approximately 15 meter high cliff on the west coast of the Fischland/Darß/Zingst peninsula offered the best topographical conditions for this. As a result of natural coastal erosion, the facility was washed away over the decades. Some parts of the bunker complex had already collapsed into the sea years ago. The riverside path is very popular with tourists, but it has already had to be moved in several places for safety reasons.