German radio towers – Power places? - June 2005
I have always liked the website of the Nite Crawlers of Centralia – especially the part where they go hunting for radio towers. This year I had a chance to replicate their adventures and visit some modern "places of power".
The first tower was right next to our base camp. It was situated along a calm country road with not much traffic – but when there was traffic, it drove like mad. So we (me and my son) didn’t take any risks by walking but took the car.
Then we turned left at a dirt road and I drove as far as I dared with my non off-road vehicle.

There was not much security (the whole countryside looks vandal-free). We could easily have climbed the gate, but it was not much use. We could see everything through the fence anyway.
But the place looked mysterious enough in the twilight. The mystery was enhanced by the loud hum we heard in the distance. We both thought about the “Zone” from the computer game “Stalker”. Were we near the zone?
After driving back and forth through the empty woods we found the side road going into the zone.
Here in the middle of the words was a huge switching station (UW Kühmoos). Later we found out that it was connected to the artificial water/energy storage lakes in the area.

It was an eerie place with the hum, crackling electricity and small sparks everywhere. And it was totally deserted, making it the ideal location for an alien movie.
The next day – during a walk through the woods – we saw another tower on the other side of an uninhabited valley. Next evening we decided to take a close look. This time there was no avoiding the crazy road and we hurried to be off it a quickly as possible.
We walked along a logging road through a ravaged forest (in 1999 the hurricane “Lothar” devastated the woods in the Schwarzwald) and noticed the warm and cold areas along the road. From the Steven King horror movies
we both knew that the cold places are inhabited by ghosts … this impression was strengthened by the monument (grave?) of the local forester (Helmut Brenner, Forstwirt, *1938 - +1998).
BTW: During this walk we also discovered the entrance to one of the artificial lakes. We were home at 22:30, in total darkness and my wife was quite worried. - I was visiting a cell phone tower, but had forgotten my cell phone at home!
My son poses by the gate to the “Eggberg Transmitter” in the fading twilight. This location was used by many providers (TV, cell phones) and every one had his own key. There was a small forest of “locks on poles”.
From the "Eggberg" we could already see the next exploration target, the biggest tower of all. (Jungholz, 800 m)
We visited this one during a long day's walk. We took a walk along the perimeter fence and admired the huge anchors for the guy cables. Everywhere were signs: “Look out for falling ice!”. But there was no sign with the name of the installation.
Again everything was locked and deserted. This was quite a big facility and it had an eerie atmosphere – all those closed humming buildings in the bright sunlight.
I would have liked to stay longer, but my wife was waiting for me – we had left her in the word with her thick detective novel. She wasn’t interested in tramping through the fields just to see a tower that she could see from miles away anyway …

The small bunker was an extra bonus. It was from 1961, could it belong to the tower?
In the holidays I had been reading German books about “power places”. (Quote: “Power places have the power to heal the body, enlighten the mind, increase creativity, develop psychic abilities, and awaken the soul to a knowing of its true purpose in life.”). Usually these are of natural origin: big stones, remarkable trees, river sources.

But I was wondering: “Why can’t an artificial site be a power place? Why should a transmission tower be a source of negative energy? Didn’t I feel stimulated and revitalized after visiting the radio towers? ”

This is an example of a “classic” place of power, the mysterious “Solfelsen”. Actually it is just a few hundred meters distant from the tall transmission tower!
According to the book Magical Schwarzwald: “The whole place has a magical atmosphere and is especially suited for tree-meditations. Almost all the trees of the Celtic calendar are present here.”
Notes:
  • http://lexikon.freenet.de/Altenschwand
  • Umspannwerk Kühmoos (großes Umspannwerk für 380kV, 220kV, 110kV)
  • Sendeturm der Deutschen Telekom AG zwischen Bergalingen und Jungholz (Geographische Koordinaten: 7°56'55" östliche Länge, 47°36'12" nördliche Breite)
Strange Places
Underground Places
Urban Adventure Home 		© Petr Kazil

August 2005