The U.S. military's old Langerkopf radio relay station has been abandoned for years and is a frequent target for explorers and vandals. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
The U.S. military's old Langerkopf radio relay station has been abandoned for years and is a frequent target for explorers and vandals. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
Buildings at the U.S. military's abandoned Langerkopf radio relay station have been ransacked by vandals and punished by the elements. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
A decaying perimeter wall hasn't kept vandals from getting in and breaking windows at the U.S. military's old Langerkopf radio relay station south of Kaiserslautern, Germany. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
Vandals burned old manuals and other items left behind at the U.S. military's Langerkopf radio relay station, a Cold War relic that has been empty for years. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
Graffiti marks the entrance to a main building at the U.S. military's Langerkopf radio relay station, which has been abandoned for years. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
A 330-foot radio tower at the U.S. military's Langerkopf radio relay station is in good shape, though the post has been abandoned for years. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
Bullet holes pockmark the glass of a guard shack at the U.S. military's Langerkopf radio relay station. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
A plush toy rabbit lies on the ground at the U.S. military's Langerkopf radio relay station south of Kaiserslautern, Germany. There's no telling how long it's been there. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
A big room that looks to have once housed computers or other electronics has been roughed up by vandals and nature at the Langerkopf radio relay station, a Cold War relic. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
The woods behind the U.S. military's old Langerkopf radio relay station are haunting. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
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A tattered plush rabbit lies in front of the bullet-pocked guard shack at the Langerkopf radio relay station. There’s no saying why it’s there or how long it’s been there — maybe months; maybe years.
It looks like it belongs.
The station, a relic of the Cold War, is all but abandoned and rapidly crumbling. The roofs of wooden buildings that haven’t yet collapsed sag like the backs of old ponies. Its concrete structures are missing blocks, windows and doors. Vandals and nature are taking turns ravaging what’s left.
Tucked deep in Germany’s Palatinate Forest, the old base is a favorite haunt for graffiti artists, ne’er-do-wells and makers of bad German thriller flicks. Its fences, topped with barbed wire, are largely intact but do little to keep out the curious.
The rundown outpost played a central role in the 2013 German film “Lost Place,” a sci-fi thriller in which a defunct U.S. military mind-control experiment whirs back to life and ruins a teen camping trip.
There’s no indication the site ever served such a purpose. Mostly, the U.S. Army and Air Force used the hilltop site to bounce communication signals around Europe. The main tower, rising 330 feet, stands largely unblemished by time.
Usually closed, the gates to the site were wide open recently, allowing anyone brave enough to wander up to the prisonlike complex to walk right in and explore.
The scene is post-apocalyptic, suggestive of what will become of other U.S. bases after the zombies have their way with us. This is not movie magic. It’s just the way things go when left to the elements.
In an old barracks, toilets are in shards, 1970s-era carpets are littered with shattered glass. Hallways and stairwells are clogged with broken furniture and doors, as if its inhabitants had put them there in a last stand against a horde of undead.
In one building, old technical manuals in English are scattered on the floor. It appears to have once been a gym, but it was later repurposed for office space. Most of those rooms are gone — burned in a fire most likely set on purpose.
In a surviving room, a bank of cubbyholes bears a stencil that says it was built by the American Device Manufacturing Co. in 1970 and is property “of US government.” Soldiers probably once received their pay from the window, covered by a thick steel screen, next to it.
Amid the destruction, one corner of the base remains operational. A small, unmanned NATO communications tower hums inside its own small compound. Against the backdrop of destruction, this might be the creepiest part about Langerkopf.
And who knows? Maybe the folks who made “Lost Place” were onto something.
millham.matthew@stripes.com Twitter: @mattmillham
Langerkopf radio relay station Directions Google Maps coordinates for Langerkopf radio relay station are 49.300190, 7.845250. The base is accessible from a paved road off the L496 road about 13 miles south of Kaiserslautern in the Palatinate Forest.
Costs It’s free to explore the old base (if it’s open) and the surrounding forest, which is crisscrossed by hundreds of miles of well-tended but poorly marked trails.
Food If you want the full “Lost Place” experience, stop — as the teens in the movie did — at the Hotel-Restaurant Johanniskreuz on the B48 highway south of Kaiserslautern and about halfway to Langerkopf.
Information The site contains numerous hazards and graffiti that might not be suitable for children. Proceed with caution.
