Berlin clears central bomb scare after wartime ordnance evacuation

# Berlin clears central bomb scare after wartime ordnance evacuation

Event date: 2025-09-19

Berlin authorities ordered around 10,000 people to leave homes and workplaces on the event date after an unexploded World War II bomb was found in the Spree River near the capital’s Mitte district, prompting one of the city’s largest recent bomb-disposal operations.

Police established a 500-meter security perimeter in a densely populated part of central Berlin and went door to door to alert residents that they had to evacuate. The order affected a district that includes embassies and city administration offices, adding to the scale and sensitivity of the operation. Temporary shelters were opened, including one at the Mitte district town hall where long lines formed overnight, and another at a nearby school to handle the number of evacuees.

By early Friday, authorities said the central bomb no longer needed to be defused. A police spokesman said there was no longer any danger and that residents would be allowed back home in the morning after the all-clear. The bomb had been found during construction work near Fischerinsel, a reminder that clearing unexploded ordnance remains routine in German cities ahead of major building projects even decades after the end of World War II.

The discovery complicated response efforts because the bomb was found under four meters of water and was covered in silt and slime, making it harder for crews to work safely. During the evacuation, ship traffic on the Spree was halted, subway line 2 was suspended and nearby streets were closed. The disruption showed how quickly a buried wartime hazard can still affect a modern capital city that is built over sites repeatedly searched for old explosives.

At the same time, Berlin officials were also dealing with a separate wartime bomb in the Spandau district. That device, described as a 100-kilogram bomb found on Wednesday, was expected to be defused on Friday. About 12,400 people were evacuated there as police set up a safety zone and opened an emergency shelter at a local gym. In that case, police said the bomb did not pose an immediate threat, so crews planned the operation later rather than forcing an urgent intervention.

Taken together, the two incidents underscored the lingering public-safety burden created by wartime munitions in Germany’s urban centers. Berlin’s response relied on standard procedures: isolate the area, move residents out quickly, suspend transport links, and then determine whether the device can be rendered safe in place or must be removed. In the central case, the answer came sooner than many evacuees had expected, but only after several tense hours in which emergency staff, police and city services had to manage crowds, transportation disruption and the uncertainty surrounding an active ordnance alert.

Even with the all-clear in Mitte, the larger operation in Spandau remained unresolved on the event date. That meant Berlin was still coping with two separate wartime hazards at once, a rare but not unheard-of situation in a city where construction and infrastructure work regularly turns up explosives left behind from the 20th century.