During the recording of The Mystery of Darp, the documentary series that was shown last year on TV Drenthe, it was a bit of a shock for the makers. They turned out to be an unintentional part of a military exercise.
The large sand plain in the forest between Darp and Havelterberg was once the place where dozens of nuclear warheads may have been stored and where tens of thousands of peace activists demonstrated on Boxing Day in 1982. RTV Drenthe took the viewer on a six-episode journey through the history of this unique place.
The creators returned to Darp, to the watchtower. That is all that remains of the American site, which now mainly serves as a military training area.
“On one of our first shooting days, we were talking to a professor in the parking lot,” says Ilona van Veen, one of the documentary makers at RTV Drenthe. Now she can laugh about it, more than a year ago there was a bit of a fright. “Then all of a sudden a military vehicle came up, a Jeep ripped into it and someone jumped out of it. “What are you doing here? Do you know that a command exercise is going on here? Do you know how many sights are on you?”
“Well, of course we didn’t know that”, Van Veen looks back. “That turned out to be a learning moment for next time.”
The makers of The Mystery of Darp look back on the documentary:
(Text continues below the video)