People like us builders, who dig deep down into the ground for a living, unearth all manner of objects over the course of our working life: rusty bikes, for example, an entire car and enough household objects to fill a home. Once I even discovered a historical burial site that was then cordoned off by archaeologists. The only thing my spade hasn’t come up against so far is treasure.

Special precautions and care are always called for when a bomb is found. Even the most experienced among us start getting nervous then. I already had a peculiar feeling in the pit of my stomach when my mobile rang. It was my workmate Karl. “Armin, guess what we’ve found…” I could tell what was up from his voice. “I think so, I’ll be right over.” I set off straight away and rang the explosives experts of the Berlin police force as I may my way over.

Two unexploded bombs from World War II that had lain hidden in the ground for a good 60 years were what my co-workers had discovered during a routine search of a field near Kienberg. The railway line that will link our BBI with the main line is set to cross that field. Naturally, we had to give the site a thorough once-over first and that is how we ended up finding the duds that had gone unnoticed for so long.

The explosives experts from the police soon turned up and disposed of the bombs by detonating a controlled explosion. An amazingly quiet “poof!” and that was that. Now we are yet another step nearer to our new Capital City Airport.

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