Hohne Local Information

Hohne is an extremely large Station, it comprises many different units, members of which are quartered together.  This gives those of us fortunate enough to be posted here a chance to mix with Servicemen and women, and their respective families, from a wide variety of backgrounds.  In Hohne, you have the opportunity to make new friends from different regiments and backgrounds.

Hohne Station boasts a wide range of social and welfare agencies, all of whom have been established to ensure serving personnel and their families get the most out of their posting here.  Details of these agencies are contained in these pages.  

Within the camp, most service and retail outlets are located in the 'Village Centre', the Roundhouse Complex.  These include the NAAFI, YMCA Bookshop and Restaurant (with Internet café), HIVE, The Nearly New Shop, travel agents, hairdressers, building society and financial services representatives, Post Office, Petrol Coupon and Mehrwertsteuer (VAT) Office, SSVC and a furniture shop.  The village of Bergen is 3 km from camp and has a selection of supermarkets, shops, restaurants and bars and also an indoor swimming pool and sports centre.

Further afield, Celle is 25 km from camp and is a historic and picturesque market town, with all the usual amenities.  See Celle Station Local Information page. 

Within the Lüneburger Heide (Lüneburg Heath), there are many opportunities to participate in all manner of sports and recreation.  Canoe and kayak touring are very popular on the local rivers and all major roads in the area have cycle tracks along side them.  Rollerblading, horse riding, hot-air ballooning and walking and nature conservation are all popular also.  During the spring and summer months, the towns, villages and hamlets on the heath hold their traditional festivals which are a wonderful way to experience the local German culture. 

Hohne is well placed for the main shopping centres of northern Germany.  In addition to the local complexes in Celle and Soltau, the city of Hannover is 60 km from camp, the Dodenhof Centre at Posthausen is 75 km and the city of Hamburg is 95 km. 

In addition to the many and varied sporting facilities on camp, there a re a number of Anglo German sports clubs close by, including football, badminton, tennis, mens' and womens' rugby and the local Hashing club.

The History of Bergen

The Bergen area has been inhabited from early prehistoric times.  Proofs of Paleolithic settlement have been found in the shape of flints near Baven, Diesten, Eversen, Hermannsburg and Dohnsen.  Neolithic remains have been found along the course of the Aller and Oertze rivers in Klein-Helhen, Wolthausen, Eversen and Hermannsburg, Beckedorf, Barmbostel and Bleckmar.  On the Luhrsberg near Dohnsen, traces of houses, pottery fragments, weapons and tools were found.More strikingly, however, Neolithic times, which saw the erection of the pyramids. are marked in this area by boulder tombs on the grand scale. They were made out of granite and gneiss boulders which like the flints boned in chalk or limestone, had been brought down from Scandinavia during the Ice Ages. Intended for several corpses, they corresponded to our vaults and were provided with a gap in a side wall to permit entry as a fresh burial became  necessary. In Lower Saxony west of the Elbe there are come 300 of these remaining out of an esti­mated former several thousand, many of which ended up as roads, farmyard walls or foundations for farm buildings.   Flints, knives, scrapers, borers, sickles, arrowheads, axes, daggers, pike heads and fish hooks have been found on more than 80 sites around Bergen and are still being turned up by plough, spade and grabber. The area north of the Bergen —Wholde road is particularly rich in Neolithic finds while Mesolithic finds have been made in Tannensiecks Berg Nothing is known about the character and form of these Iron Age settlements in the area. Bronze Age houses are only known of through the charnel houses dis­covered in barrows near Baven and Hetendorf and these show every sign of being the same as Stone Age constructions.

After about 1200 BC settlements seem to have decayed and their population fall­en on evil times and dwindled considerably, while that round Celle increased.A study of local history reveals a common feature throughout the centuries, right up to 1945 — occupation, plunder, and tutelage. A factor which must have played a decisive part in the frequent calamities was that Bergen has always been located on the main North — South route from the Baltic and North Seaports to Hanover and beyond. Trade has thus not only come its way, but also invasions, marauders, occupying forces and disease. Its proximity to CeIIe, whose importance as a Ducal stronghold through the centuries has proved a prize worthy of capture or siege, has also ensured that the Heide should become the battlefield. Local feuds of the 13th century gave way to disaster in 1354 when Bergen was occupied and destroyed by French Cavalry on its way to East Prussia. Ravaging and plundering of the area went on through the century. Records show that in 1377, among other places, Hehlen, Stedden, Hagen, Garssen and Hoersten were attacked, and their cattle stolen by men from Gifhorn Castle. The war of the Luneburg Succession (1369-1388) ended with a battle near Oldau and Winsen.

The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) began in Prague but soon spread to Niedersachsen. No large-scale battles were fought here but the countryside was impoverished and its development delayed many decades by the ravages of a succession of marauding hordes of various convictions and nationalities. After the defeat of the Danish King Christian at Lutter, south of Hildesheim, in 1626, the northward-fleeing Danish troops ravaged and plundered through the Heide. In Bergen they stole the harvest, set fire to buildings, shot the farmers, and looted the churches. After the Treaty of Prague (1635), some 20,000 Swedish troops were encamped in the Duchy of Celle. Once again the local population were plundered. Wines, Bergen, Wholde, Sulze and Katensen all had to be abandoned. derelict farms as a result of the ravages of war. During the seven years war, wherein George II of England and Hanover was involved as an ally of Frederick the Great against the French, the latter occupied Hanover; Celled and Luneburg in l757, Richelieuu set up his headquarters in Celle on to which the French and German armies converged. Ferdinand of Brunswick had his headquarters nearby in Altenhagen, and Riehelleu attacked him from Winhausen, Schwachhausen, Gifhorn, Bergen, Hermannsburg and Oppernhausen. The encircling movement was abortive, and Richelieu left CelIe in January 1758, not before his French troops had died off like flies, and the Celle citizens were suffering from typhus in addition to their occupation. Malignant smallpox killed more than 100 children in Bergen, Becklingen, Hagon, Nindorf and Dohnsen.

In 1801, the electorate of Hanover was drawn into the Napoleonic wars. In April Prussia occupied Hanoverian territory with 24,000 men. This occupation, ending in December 1801. was followed in 1803 by that of the French who, on the withdrawal of Hanoverian forces to Luneburg, took up quarters in the villages and remained for ten years. Beedenbostel accommodated 4.771 men over some 32 occasions, of which 1,317 was the highest number of any one occasion.  The village consisted of 54 houses only. Over the ensuing years, as a result of the ebb and flow of opposing forces, the inhabitants of Bergen and the surrounding countryside found themselves con­trolled first by one army, and then another. In 1806 the Prussians laid claim to the area, and declared the locals Prussian subjects. After the Prussians’ defeat at Jena and Auerstedt, the bewildered population fell under French control once more. In 1807, Spanish troops stayed for five days in Bergen, and subsequently Russians were also to be found. In 1810 the population received the news that they were now Westphalia, though when part of Hanover was incorporated into France, the inhabitants of Fallingbostel, Walsrode, Sprakensehl and Hankenbustel became French subjects. In the same year conscription to the French was introduced Many men were conscripted but some escaped: of those who accompanied Napoleon to Russia, many died, or were killed, or fell into Russian hands. 0n 17th April 1813, the Russians entered Celle, and were greeted as liberators. By Easter the French returned and drove out the Russians. When at last peace was declared, and the French finally left Hamburg on 31st May 1814. the first to celebrate on 24th July 1814 were the people of Bergen, on the Burenbrink. renamed Friedenplatz for the occasion.

One of the first effects of mobilisation in 1914 was the requisitioning of some 500-600 Hanoverian horses, previously ear marked for such an emergency. From 1st April 1956, an English system of hoc government was introduced characterised by a council with a political complextion, headed by a Burgermaster and a non-political administrator, the Stadtdirektor In 1957, Bergen received civic rights.  

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