Overview
- Nine specialist divers from the Lower Saxony ordnance disposal service and police began Tuesday and continue Wednesday to scan about 450 square meters near the boathouses, up to 20 meters from shore.
- Officials have not ordered a large evacuation, with only short-term area closures and brief evacuations planned if items must be neutralized on site.
- Cold water of roughly 4–5°C and variable visibility shape the tactics, with divers starting visually, then carefully probing the sediment, and deploying an underwater search device if required.
- The operation was triggered by a 2021 time‑witness report of six to seven truckloads of munitions dumped after the war, supported by historical imagery and 1960 documentation of remnants.
- The search fits a broader national pattern of rising ordnance discoveries, with more than 220 tonnes found in 2024 compared with about 66 tonnes a decade earlier, and Göttingen among cities that regularly carry out evacuations.