Garrison Towns in the Baltic Sea Area

essay feature interview reviews 27 GARRISON TOWNS IN THE BALTIC SE A ARE A BY BEATE FELDMANN Islands are symbols of both pleasure and danger. land that would have belonged to the Balto-German ven them urban values and ways of life. What, then, is Their function in surveillance and defense has influ- Baron von Buxhoevden. Dranske is on the northern a garrison town, and what kind of infrastructure can enced people’s daily lives for decades. The historian part of Rügen, and has a history both as a center of fish- be called “military”? According to ethnologist Aida John Gillis has illuminated how Alcatraz and Robben ing and as a military base. After having been, during Hachaturyan-Kisilenko, this specific type of town or Island, two of the best-known examples of historically the First World War, a fishing village with only a minor municipal construction includes guarded border areas controversial island landscapes, have been transfor- military presence, a “garden city” for German military around a military base with residential blocks, schools, med into attractive sites to visit and explore. I, myself, personnel and their families was built between 1936 daycare centers, commercial activities, and some kind have chosen to focus on some arenas connected with and 1941. In the 1960s, the garrison town was once of hospital or smaller healthcare center near the base. threats and unease in the Baltic Sea area — Gotland, again transformed, when the East German Nationale The Soviet garrison town from between 1950 and 1980, Rügen, and Saaremaa. Large areas of land on these Volksarmee built a large number of homes for both the she writes, islands were cordoned off for long periods because army families and civilian inhabitants. of military activity, and it was only after the end of the Islands are dynamic landscapes. They have mutual constituted a specific urban mode of life- Cold War that they became available for foreign visitors interaction with the mainland as well as with other is- style, the task of which was to guarantee the — when the islands’ geographical location in the cen- lands, while they also shape and are shaped by the life military and their families safe and satisfac- ter of the Baltic Sea no longer represented a military- playing out in people’s everyday existence. The posi- tory conditions of life. strategic borderland. Gotland’s role as a Swedish tion that islands have as borderland areas in the Baltic outpost to the east was greatly diminished when the Sea has been highlighted by social anthropologist Ina- The importance of the military activity in the commu- island’s four large regiments were phased out. Because Maria Greverus. From a mainland perspective, these nities manifests a clear continuity — in the case of Fårö- of Estonia’s independence from the Soviet Union, the islands have a peripheral location. But if the perspec- sund, starting with the Crimean War in the 1850s, in the military bases that existed on the island of Saaremaa tive is oriented towards the sea, the dual position of the case of Dranske, starting with the First World War. But it were dismantled. For Rügen, the structural chan- islands emerges: as national outposts, and as central is the world-historical events of the 1930s and ’40s that ges meant that the island was no longer a part of the nodes in the Baltic Sea: most strongly came to characterize all three communi- Eastern Bloc, but now belonged to the reunified Germany. ties in matters of urban planning and everyday life, and Until the beginning of the 20th century, Fårösund, on Insularity is the synthesis of particular col- this occurred in similar ways. After the Nazi takeover in northern Gotland, was a community centered mostly lective experiences which draws from all 1933, Rügen was seen as a strategic bridgehead for Bal- around the lime quarries and ship-piloting operations. the domains where humans shape their tic Sea domination. Gotland’s position in the middle of In connection with the Crimean War, Fårösund had be- lives and judge the future, based not only on the Baltic Sea, equidistant from the Soviet coast and the come a strategically important location as the English the present, but also on the past. Swedish mainland, meant that the island came to be in and French fleet base that was used against Russia. At the immediate line of fire, and it thus strengthened its the beginning of the 20th century, the Swedish Armed readiness when, in 1941, Germany attacked the USSR Forces bought up land in the area, and in 1938 a coastal on all fronts. In 1939, Saaremaa prepared itself fully artillery division, KA 3, was set up. In 1941, Estonia’s I have chosen to call these small communities with the arrival of Soviet troops, when thousands of largest military base was built next to one of Saaremaa’s garrison towns. The military presence has affected all soldiers were stationed in newly built garrisons around larger lakes on the northwestern part of the island, on three places both physically and culturally and has gi- the island. No island is sufficient unto itself. They are all dependent on one another and the mainland. 28 essay feature interview reviews 29 GARRISON TOWNS I N TH E BA LTIC S E A A R E A The expansion of the Luftwaffe at Bug, a peninsula ad- ergy, but in the end result was the construction of some housing for an estimated 6,000 soldiers in four stone tenbau) in the 1960s and ’70s have been razed. Among plans had been put on ice. According to CEO Joacim REFERENCES jacent to Dranske, began in 1934, and, during the next 60 houses with 125 apartments in the years 1939–1941, barracks, along with six two-story buildings for 1,000 those living here, despair is mixed with the hope that, Kuylenstierna, this was because of “the unwieldy build- five years before the start of the war in 1939, resulted in, both in the community and next to the regiment area. officers and their wives. The plans included, in addi- in the future, Dranske will be able to attract interna- ing permit bureaucracy”. That claim is contradicted by 1 Ina-Maria Greverus, “Islands as Borderland: Experiences and Thoughts on Rügen and Usedom”, Anthropological Journal on among other things, five hangars, ten barracks, a large The architecture was later described as functionalist tion, canteens, stables, ammunition storage facilities tional tourism because of its location on the Baltic Sea, the Housing Committee President, who interprets the European Cultures, 1997: 1, pp. 7–28. swimming center with 50-meter lanes, an officers’ ca- in a way that fit the period, with a design that posses- and roads. Electricity, telephone lines, and running and thus also attract new residents who could support shelving of the plans as a sign of the ongoing economic 2 Aida Hachaturyan–Kisilenko, “An Attempt to Describe Life sino, and housing for unmarried officers. Up to 3,000 sed a civilian character. In addition to creating flight water had already been set up — a house in the vicin- themselves in the district. In the fall of 2007, a planning downturn. For the approximately 960 residents of in a Soviet Military Garrison through Biographical Material” soldiers were active on these 500 hectares. Along with hangars, airfields, and a swimming center, the esta- ity of the lake with three beds, a kitchen, and a toilet workshop took place in Dranske. The aim was to gather Fårösund, the situation is precarious, with threats of in Pro Ethnologia. Eesti Rahva Muuseumi: publications of the expansion, there were plans for a sweeping physi- blishment of the regiment attracted private investors was already there, presumably put there by the von ideas and suggestions, in cooperation with residents, school closures and cuts in social services. Although Estonian National Museum,Tartu 2003:16, pp. 99–112. cal and cultural change in Dranske. The local popula- to the community. Among the major business esta- Buxhoevden family. Whether or not these plans were local politicians and planners, about the sustainable there is hope for the future, the confidence and trust 3 Sören Sörensen, Öarna i Östersjön: Förr och nu [The Islands in tion, which for the most part consisted of fishermen blishments, a modern cinema center, together with a fully realized cannot be determined. According to development of Dranske. The result was a vision for the in the private investors, compared with the previously the Baltic Sea: Then and Now], Visby 1992. 4 It should, however, be emphasized here that the and farmers, were informed that the existing buildings gathering-place, was opened in 1940. In an article in information in the Estonian newspaper Meie Maa, al- future centered on the restoration of the place as “eine existing trust in KA 3, is relatively weak. Several inform- ideology and construction style of the garden city cannot (thirteen single-family houses and four detached ho- Gotlands Allehanda, a local newspaper, from the fall of most 240 women and children lived in Dejevo as late Gartenstadt am Wasser”. ants manifest an awareness that the responsibility of unproblematically be linked to National Socialism. For mes) would be demolished — without any possibility 1940, we find a description of the bustling activities un- as when the rocket base was closed in the 1990s, and The vision implies, interestingly, an unproblematic the survival of the area depends, to a much greater further reading on the international history of the garden of appeal, and with minimal compensation. In 1936, derway in Fårösund at the time: in a conversation with Marko Trave at the Estonian For- look back at the townscape that was formed by the Nazi degree than before the closure of KA 3, on the residents city, see, e.g., Thomas Paulsson, Stadsplaneringen under construction of a garden city that would be inhabited est Agency, RMK, it was revealed that the total number military hierarchy in the community at the end of the themselves.

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