Hostname: page-component-669899f699-tpknm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-26T14:49:32.401Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The destroyer of worlds hidden in the forest: Cold War nuclear warhead sites in Poland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 January 2019

Grzegorz Kiarszys
Grzegorz Kiarszys*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Szczecin University, ul. Krakowska 71–79, 71-017 Szczecin, Poland (Email: grzegorz.kiarszys@usz.edu.pl)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The material and documentary archive of twentieth-century global conflict is rich and diverse, but even for such a recent period, gaps in our knowledge remain. One of these concerns abandoned Cold War military sites, where secrecy and historical silence surrounding their construction and use has limited our understanding. This article reports on research that combines airborne laser-scanning data, historical cartography, archived aerial photographs and declassified satellite imagery to investigate three Cold War nuclear storage sites in western Poland. The results supplement and challenge extant historical narratives, and demonstrate the potential of archaeological data for creating persuasive narratives about the recent hidden past.

Keywords

PolandCold Warnuclear basesremote sensing
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 93 , Issue 367 , February 2019 , pp. 236 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Beck, C.M. 2002. The archaeology of scientific experiments at a nuclear testing ground, in Schofield, J., Johnson, W.G. & Beck, C.M. (ed.) Matériel culture: the archaeology of 20th century conflict: 65–79. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Burström, M., Acosta, T.D., Noriega, E.G., Gustafsson, A., Hernández, I., Karlsson, H., Pajón, J., Jaramillo, J.R.R. & Westergaard, B.. 2013. Memories of a world crisis: the archaeology of former Soviet nuclear missile site in Cuba. Journal of Social Archaeology 9: 295–318. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605309337884Google Scholar
Central Intelligence Agency. 1975a. Warsaw Pact forces opposite NATO. National intelligence estimate (CREST record number CIA-RDP09T00367R000500130001-9, approved for release on 17 August 2011). College Park (MD): National Archives and Records Administration.Google Scholar
Central Intelligence Agency 1975b. Warsaw Pact tactical nuclear forces in Central Europe (CREST record number CIA-RDP86T00608R000700070001-8, approved for release on 8 July 2003). College Park (MD): National Archives and Records Administration.Google Scholar
Central Intelligence Agency 1979a. Warsaw Pact forces opposite NATO. National intelligence estimate. Volume I—summary estimate (CREST record number 0005517771, approved for release on 22 September 2010). College Park (MD): National Archives and Records Administration.Google Scholar
Central Intelligence Agency 1979b. Warsaw Pact forces opposite NATO. National intelligence estimate. Volume II—summary estimate (CREST record number 0005517771, approved for release on 22 September 2010). College Park (MD): National Archives and Records Administration.Google Scholar
Central Intelligence Agency 1981. Warsaw Pact forces opposite NATO. National intelligence estimate. Volume I—summary estimate (CREST record number 0000281660, approved for release on 3 February 1996). College Park (MD): National Archives and Records Administration.Google Scholar
Cocroft, W.D. 2007. Defining the national archaeological character of Cold War remains, in Schofield, J. & Cocroft, W.D. (ed.) A fearsome heritage—diverse legacies of the Cold War: 107–27. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast.Google Scholar
Crawford, O.G.S. 1953. Archaeology in the field. London: Phoenix House.Google Scholar
Dolff-Bonekämper, G. 2002. The Berlin Wall: an archaeological site in progress, in Schofield, J., Johnson, W.M. & Beck, C.M. (ed.) Matériel culture: the archaeology of twentieth century conflict: 236–48. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203165744_chapter_21Google Scholar
Doneus, M. 2013. Openness as visualization technique for interpretative mapping of airborne lidar digital terrain models. Remote Sensing 5: 6427–42. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs5126427Google Scholar
Dziemba, R. 2018. Przesięwzięcie 3000. Tajna Historia baz atomowych w Polsce. Kołobrzeg: Wydawnictwo Kamera.Google Scholar
Fowler, M.J.F. 2003. The archaeological potential of declassified KH-7 and KH-9 intelligence satellite photographs. Aerial Archaeology Research Group News 26: 11–16.Google Scholar
Fowler, M.J.F. 2004. Archaeology through the keyhole: the serendipity effect of aerial reconnaissance revisited. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 29: 118–34.Google Scholar
Fowler, M.J.F. 2005. An evaluation of scanned CORONA intelligence satellite photography. Aerial Archaeology Research Group News 31: 34–37.Google Scholar
Fowler, M.J.F. 2008. The application of declassified KH-7 GAMBIT satellite photographs to studies of Cold War material culture: a case study from the former Soviet Union. Antiquity 82: 714–31. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00097337Google Scholar
Fowler, M.J.F. 2010. The Skrunda Hen Houses: a case study in Cold War satellite archaeology, in Cowley, D.C., Standring, R.A. & Abicht, M.J. (ed.) Landscape through the lens. Aerial photographs and historic environment: 287–93. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Fowler, M.J.F. 2013. Declassified intelligence satellite photographs, in Hanson, W.S. & Oltean, I.A. (ed.) Archaeology from historical aerial and satellite archives: 47–66. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Hanson, T.A. 2010. Uncovering the arsenals of armageddon: the historical archaeology of North America Cold War ballistic missile launch sites. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 25: 157–72.Google Scholar
Heuser, B. 1993. Warsaw Pact military doctrines in the 1970s and 1980s: findings in the East German archives. Comparative Strategy 12: 437–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/01495939308402943Google Scholar
IPN. 1966a. Protokół komisji mierniczej z 13.11.1966r. ‘Wisła’. Volume II (IPN BU record number 1405/323 approved for release on 2006).Google Scholar
IPN. 1966b. Dokumenty operacyjne pk. ‘Wisła’. Volume III (IPN BU record number 1405/324 approved for release on 2006).Google Scholar
IPN. 1967. Dokumenty operacyjne pk. ‘Wisła’. Volume I (IPN BU record number 1405/322 approved for release on 2006).Google Scholar
Johnson, M. 2002. Behind the castle gate: from medieval to renaissance. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kiarszys, G. 2016. Erased landscapes: conflict, memory and post-World War II landscape transformation in western Poland, in Stichelbaut, B. & Cowley, D. (ed.) Conflict landscapes and archaeology from above: 219–34. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
McWilliams, A. 2013. An archaeology of the Iron Curtain. Material and metaphor. Stockholm: Södertörns högskola.Google Scholar
Rak, M., Funk, L. & Starková, L.. 2016. A Cold War conflict landscape in the borderlands of west Bohemia, in Stichelbaut, B. & Cowley, D. (ed.) Conflict landscapes and archaeology from above: 235–52. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Schofield, J. & Cocroft, W.D. (ed.). 2007. A fearsome heritage—diverse legacies of the Cold War. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast.Google Scholar
Whorton, M. 2002. Evaluating and managing Cold War era historic properties: the cultural significance of US Air Force defensive radar systems, in Schofield, J., Johnson, W.M. & Beck, C.M. (ed.) Matériel culture: the archaeology of twentieth century conflict: 216–26. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203165744_chapter_19Google Scholar
Zakšek, K., Kokalj, Ž. & Oštir, K.. 2011. Application of sky-view factor for the visualization of historic landscape features in lidar-derived relief models. Antiquity 85: 263–73. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00067594Google Scholar