Found on walk: 1.5 tonnes of Soviet ammunition discovered in Berlin forest

By Sonja Issel Published on 23/05/2026 - 16:21 GMT+2 Share Comments Share Facebook Twitter Flipboard Send Reddit Linkedin Messenger Telegram VK Bluesky Threads Whatsapp

A walk in Berlin’s Pankow district led to a surprise discovery: specialist LKA units unearthed 59 unexploded Second World War shells.

Unusual find in the north of the German capital: While walking through woodland in the Pankow district, a person discovered a suspicious object. Special units from the State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA) were soon on the scene.

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What the specialists then uncovered was something nobody had really been expecting: buried in the forest ground were 59 unfired shells of Soviet design, each with a calibre of 122 millimetres. The Second World War ammunition weighed in at around 1.5 tonnes in total.

The police responded to the discovery with a touch of humour. On Facebook they wrote about the operation: "There turned out to be a bit more than just timber lying around in Pankow’s woods…"

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According to police, however, the situation was not as dramatic as the find might suggest. There was no danger to the public at any point.

Even so, recovering the ammunition required a complex specialist operation. The shells were secured one by one and then removed for safe disposal.

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• Weapons
• World War II
• Berlin