An afternoon walk in Lockdown

Big excitement in the neighborhood this week: the local Impfzentrum (vaccination center) has opened. Residents 80 years and older have been invited to request an appointment via Email or postal mail.

And it’s conveniently down the street from us in the General-von-Stein-Kaserne. This barracks complex was constructed in the 1930s*, and named after a Bavarian general from the First World War. After the next war, the complex was used by the US Air Force 604th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron until 1957, when they turned it over the Luftwaffe who used it until 2002. All the buildings were then torn down except the main staff building, which has been used periodically by the Landkreis for a variety of purposes.

Now part of it has been set up to give residents their shots. There is a video on Facebook where you can view the inside, or you can view still photos from the official website. At 250 appointments per day, I expect to be invited to see the inside of the center approximately January 2023.

Here are a few photos I took from across the street and outside the courtyard wall (if anyone stopped me to ask why I was out of my house, I was walking to the store next door to buy some groceries, which is allowed under Total Lockdown…).

Finally, a gratuitous art photo:

* Yes, those 1930s. As soon as the complex was surrendered to the Americans in 1945, it was stripped of all “names, paintings, and sculptures” with Nazi symbols along with all the other buildings in Freising. Local children watched US soldiers throw the statue of the Nazi eagle from the courtyard fence into a truck to be hauled off. There’s a postcard of the building during the war at the link.