1979:The Ihlenberg becomes a landfill

On January 30, 1979, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED made a decision that should lead to the construction of one of the largest hazardous waste dumps in Europe. The planners found what they were looking for in the exclusion zone between Selmsdorf and Schönberg (today the district of Northwest Mecklenburg) - only 14 kilometers as the crow flies from Lübeck and 200 meters from the nearest settlement. An area around the 82 meter high Ihlenberg was selected, and later the "VEB Landfill Schönberg" was founded. You didn't have to spend long with tough citizen participation. An assessment of the soil conditions with regard to location, depth, groundwater and layers was either missing or kept secret.

First rubble, then hazardous waste

As early as May 1979, the first trucks - loaded with rubble from the Lübeck area - rolled onto the landfill. 15,000 tons were brought to the Ihlenberg in the first few months. From 1980, hazardous waste was also added. A base seal, as required today, was not necessary at the time. As early as the early 1980s, voices were raised that the high levels of dioxin in the waste could have an impact on employee health, but the toxic waste continued to be accepted.

Brisk east-west border traffic

Years before the collapse of socialism, the laws of the free market were in force on the Ihlenberg. Because the procurement of foreign currency for the notoriously tight treasury of the GDR was the real purpose that the landfill was supposed to fulfil. So did she. On the Ihlenberg, the Commercial Coordination Department (KoKo) of the Ministry for Foreign Trade of the GDR established a business idea that was as simple as it was successful:turning waste into money. The refuse collection at a permanently low price, many times cheaper than in the west, met with great demand. In no time, a lively border traffic developed from west to east - for garbage transports from Germany and later all of Europe.

Dump and gold mine

Pretty much everything that people in the West wanted to get rid of quickly ended up in the landfill:building rubble, household waste - even toxic waste. Contaminated soil from the old Dublin port as well as contaminated shredder dust from car recycling. Barrels with the Seveso poison dioxin were and are suspected on the Ihlenberg. What is buried there is not exactly known to this day. In GDR times, the motto seemed to apply:the main thing was that the cash register was right. And she was right:KoKo is said to have earned around 250 million DM from the landfill for the GDR state treasury until the fall of the Wall. The rubbish trade, like art export and the ransom of prisoners, became a questionable and flourishing business area for KoKo.

The Shadow of the Garbage Mountain

Of course, the garbage millions in Mecklenburg could not avert the collapse of the GDR. The VEB went into trust, and the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania bought the landfill for ten million Deutschmarks. The "VEB Landfill Schönberg" became the Landfill Ihlenberg. The garbage business promised bubbling income even after the reunification. But now the downside of the mountain of rubbish was becoming ever clearer. A non-transparent network of business partners in East and West had already formed in the GDR era, whose actors organized the procurement of the waste even after reunification. In 1993 the state audit office complained about a "profit skimming system". Due to the unfavorable contracts concluded from a state perspective, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania lost income of around 100 million Deutschmarks. The supposed gold mine initially turned out to be a million dollar grave.

Political consequences

Wolfgang Kubicki, a lawyer from Schleswig-Holstein and FDP politician, advised the state during the negotiations at the time. In 1994, an investigative committee of the state parliament found considerable inconsistencies in the conclusion of the contracts. Kubicki received a fee of 860,000 marks for his work. The country sued Kubicki for damages, saying it was badly advised. Years of litigation followed, which the BGH decided in favor of Kubicki. In the meantime, Kubicki resigned from his position as FDP state chairman because of the affair, but this should not prevent him from making a comeback. In the course of the affair, the then Environment Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Petra Uhlmann (CDU), and State Secretary Peter-Uwe Conrad (CDU) lost their posts in 1993.

Lying Dangers

The old part, which was filled between 1979 and 2005 and on which around 18 million cubic meters were deposited on 60 hectares, has been extensively sealed since 2011. Since then, the dumping has been carried out under modern technical standards at a new garbage dump next door. In 2011, 622,000 tons were disposed of there, 426,000 tons were highly polluted waste from waste incineration, building rubble, asbestos and excavated soil. Citizens' initiatives, environmentalists and political parties have repeatedly called for the landfill to be closed. In 2008, a study showed that the cancer rate among employees is almost double that of the general population. However, there is still no long-term monitoring demanded by experts.

Citizen protests prevent asbestos sludge delivery

The surface water is also classified as a possible threat to drinking water due to the lack of base sealing in some areas. Another problem:Elevated levels of radioactive tritium were detected in the leachate from the old part of the landfill. In 2011, the landfill hit the headlines again because of planned asbestos sludge transports from the Hanover region. But after violent public protests, the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania stopped the delivery of the toxic, unpackaged waste.