Berlin THW rehearses during the holidays for emergencies

By Bjorn Trautwein

Holidays? None! While Berlin is still in the summer break, there is a lot of activity on a small site in Charlottenburg. Instead of lying on the beach, volunteer disaster workers are rehearsing here for emergencies: lubricating oil instead of sunscreen!

Despite the summer holidays, almost 50 volunteers came to the exercise this Tuesday. Like every week, this evening from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. there will be hammering, screwing and pumping in case of an emergency!

Three young women and a man jump onto a van in the dark THW blue. “We explore the staging areas in the event of an operation,” someone quickly calls out before the vehicle’s sliding door closes and the quartet drives off. Goal? “Still unknown!”

Five of the 14 vehicles of the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf local group are parked in the large hall next to the large THW building. Next to it, four men and two women in blue dungarees are putting up tents.

Precisely on 80 centimeter wide lanes: “Otherwise they wouldn’t fit on the containers,” says Dennis Bartl (25), a medical technology student from Tempelhof. He has been with the THW for eleven years, since he was 14 years old and is a group leader of specialist group N – emergency supply and emergency repairs.

“It’s just a good feeling to be able to help people in need”

“Grandpa took me to THW and explained to me what they do,” he says. “Even as a teenager I was fascinated by the technology and that’s why I’m still involved today.” What drives him? “It’s just a good feeling to be able to help people in need,” he says. “In our society, that happens far too little, that’s why I get involved.”

And plenty of it. He was on duty for three months last year if he adds up all the working days. Extreme volunteering. “Among other things, we helped with the care of the refugees from the Ukraine and with the many forest fires in Brandenburg,” he says.

As a group, they supply the fire brigade with petrol and diesel, among other things. “We have a trailer that acts as a mobile gas station. It is filled and then we can supply several vehicles. This means they can continue to be used and extinguished.”

The Charlottenburg team was also involved in the fire at the blast site in Grunewald. In addition to Bartl’s group, everyone else is practicing for emergencies that evening. And not only that. Shortly before the end of the practice evening, things get serious.

In Spandau, the facade of a residential building is crumbling, a tenant was hit by plaster parts. 16 men and women climb into the transporter, in the trailer the ASH wood support system. On site: all clear. “It wasn’t quite as dramatic as feared,” says spokeswoman Daniela Reiter (49), herself part of the THW rescue team. “We still built a small canopy out of plywood for protection.”