I arrived at Birkenfeld Air Force Base on Sunday evening, January 29th, 1989 after driving for miles through what seemed like the middle of nowhere. I kept thinking, this isn't probably much different from Goosebay, except for maybe the perpetual cold.
The following Monday morning I spent mostly getting settled in, and then it was already off to the bunker at Boerfink. The bunker was built in the 60s, nicknamed ERWIN and served as Primary War Headquarters Allied Forces Central Region (PWHQ AFCENT). We had NATO minibusses pick us up at Birkenfeld, and made numerous stops on the way to the top secret mountain facility, picking up more bunker personnel on the way, including U.S. Air Force members... wow, this was the first time I saw American military from up close. I recall my first bus ride with a female Captain with huge glasses, I forgot her name, and Sgt Richard Babb, who turned out to work with me at Sector Operation Center 3 Admin. My predecessor, a German guy named Stefan (I can't recall his last name) was to train me in my duties, and then he'd be off to his new assignment at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
When we arrived I learned, that Sector Operations Center 3 was in the middle of a SYSEVAL, a System Evaluation exercise conducted by NATO HQ to evaluate - as the name suggests - the system readiness and effectiveness over a period of about a week. Readiness and effectiveness of the system... what system? What did a Sector Operations Center actually do? I had no idea, except it had something to do with monitoring air traffic in order to defend NATO air space. Excited about my new assignment, I passed the gigantic steel gates of the facility, eagerly anticipating the world of secret air space defense.
We proceeded through a very long and spacious corridor, more like a tunnel until we arrived at a set of relatively steep and narrow stairs. Down we climbed. Once we were at the bottom of the stairs, there was another set of very heavy looking steel doors, and a checkpoint, with U.S. Military Police checking IDs, and entry credentials. I had received my USAFE ID already earlier that day, so confident, yet nervous at the same time, I showed my ID to the heavily armed guard.
We walked through a steel door and stopped at a large room with some British airmen in their blue-grey Royal Air Force uniforms. This was the Comms Center, where NATO messages were received and sent out. The guy in charge was an RAF Sergeant named Alan, a friendly and cheerful chap. I had taken the time to learn both the U.S.A.F., as well as RAF rank insignia before. I was told, that I would be working with personnel from all major NATO countries, but mostly U.S. and Royal Air Force. Stefan picked up some "traffic", messages flagged Confidential, Secret and even Top Secret, signed for them and we continued to dive even deeper into the bunker complex, which was designed to not only house major European NATO heads of government, but the entire NATO command structure during a nuclear war, and was therefore designed to withstand a nuclear bomb detonation. We continued to move through more tunnels, climbed down more stairs, and passed additional steel doors until we arrived at a large and somewhat noisy room with lots of computer terminals, radar screens and German Air Force personnel. Stefan explained, that this was the Control and Reporting Center (CRC), an airspace monitoring facility under national German Air Force command. He explained, that we would have nothing to do with "them", as we are their superiors at NATO level.
Later I learned that there was a distinction between Germans and NATO allies being in charge of German Air Space. Inspite of Germany's regaining sovereignty in 1954, since the end of World War II German Airspace was still under the ultimate control of the four victorious powers, Great Britain, France, and the U.S. in the West, and the Soviet Union in the East. Hence, no German military aircraft was allowed to conduct interceptions over German airspace, and there was also no German military command in charge of German Airspace. This changed in 1990 with Germany's reunification and the signing of the "Two-Plus-Four" Treaty, practically and ultimately ending World War II and all the restraints Germany was (rightfully, I may add) placed under since the collapse of the Third Reich. But this was the reason, why the executive air space defense responsibilities were with NATO, rather than with the West German military. A CRC was allowed to watch, monitor and report any violation of NATO airspace, but to intercept illegally penetrating aircraft with possibly hostile intentions was reserved exclusivly to the Allies, Great Britain in the North (Sectors 1 in Aurich, and Sector 2 in Goch), and the U.S. (Sector 3 at Boerfink, and Sector 4 at Messtetten). The French had relinquished their aerial responsibilities when they left the military part of NATO in the 60s, but still had liason officers present, at least at our Sector.
