Subject: Haunted Barracks
From: (Robert Shaw)
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 13:47:39 GMT
Haunted Barracks
I was stationed in Berlin Germany many years ago. There were a number of interesting things happening that might interest this group. The barracks that we all lived in was originally built back in the early 1800s. There is a vast amount of history associated with this compound. There are pictures of Adolf Hitler giving a speech from one of the steps to the barracks. It is the same barracks that the troops came out of in what is known as The night of the Long Knives where the German Brown Shirts (SA) were killed by the group known as the Black Shirts (SS) to solve a political problem for Hitler. Part of the barracks was bombed out during WW II and there was a new section built in its place. The older section of the barracks had three floors and was incredibly long. The building was about 200 yards long in the center section. The ceilings in the rooms in the older section were about 16 feethigh. I was told the reason for such high ceilings was that the soldiers could practice marching with their bayonets attached to those old long rifles, but who knows! The new section was able to have 4 floors with the building being the same height as the 3 floor older section by simply having more normal ceiling heights.
The group of people I associated with in these barracks were rather intelligent, despite the fact that we were in the Army. At the time I was stationed there it was assigned to our group of Military Intelligence gatherers and analysts (no jokes please ... Ive heard them all!). But if you think about it, what better place to be a spy than Berlin, this was before the wall came down and they unified Germany again so we were 110 miles inside then communistEast Germany. Anyway, to the stories!
There were always strange things going on in these barracks. Most of the things I will relate here I can attest to as being a witness, I will try and avoid all the second hand stories. When I first got to Germany I did not disbelieve in ghosts but I was no advocate either. Being very analytical by nature I had no evidence to believe or disbelieve. That was quickly changed.
One day after shortly arriving in country I was cleaning the room to prepare for an inspection. I found a pencil on the floor and thinking nothing of it I tossed it up on the desk. A few minutes later I heard the pencil as it rolled down the desk and then heard it hit the floor. I again thought nothing of this and tossed the pencil back up on the desk. After a few more minutes I again heard the pencil roll down the desk and hit the floor. Now I was getting tired of this so I carefully placed the pencil in a cup that was on the desk. A few minutes later I heard something by the desk, I turned around only to see the pencil removed from the cup and rolling down the desk. Now this had me a bit worried but in order not to get dinged on the inspection I decided that if somebody or something wanted this pencil on the floor it was fine by me! I taped the pencil down and then put a throw rug over the top of it.
There was a small WC (thats Water Closet for those who may be unfamiliar - bathroom for the clue less) down the hall from where my room was. There seemed to be a lot of paranormal activity associated with this area for some reason. You could often hear the stall doors open and slam shut repeatibly with no one emerging from the room. Other weird things would happen in the area around this bathroom. One time there was some reconstruction going on and there was a large whole in the ceiling. A friend of mine just happened to throw a tennis ball through the opening only to have it thrown back at him a few seconds later. I mean THROWN back at him, not just roll back down from the hole. It came through the center of the opening and not from one of the edges. Well being brave souls and having enough good German beer we got a ladder and climbed half way up and proceeded to play toss with something. We would take turns throwing this ball as hard as we could in either direction and then a few seconds later it would be thrown back down at us. Remember that this building was extremely long and from where we were we could hear the ball echo as it bounced down the attic. The moment the bouncing stopped the ball would be tossed back at us. Well we had enough beer to play but nobody wanted to go look so we stopped there.
Another time I had to change shifts from swings (evenings) to mornings which meant I would get off work one night after midnight and have to leave for work at 3 am. Being incredibly stupid a bunch of us decided to just party our little time away and go back to work with a fresh attitude. During this time I had to go visit the WC right down the hall. The reconstruction was still going on and there was a window and frame removed. In a vain attempt to keep some of the cold German winter out there was a sheet of plastic over the opening where the window went. The wind was blowing hard enough that the plastic was almost vertical. I was standing there doing my duty when I looked out the window and saw a Nazi Gestapo Officer look right back at me! I will NEVER forget the face and those hollow eyes as long as I live. He stared straight threw me. He turned and proceeded to march down the length of the hallway, but on the outside of the building! I found this extremely bizarre! As he turned the corner and headed towards the rebuilt section of the barracks he just disappeared! Needless to say the incident had me quite shook up! I quickly made my way back to the room and recounted my story. A number of the other people had seen an officer marching around but their stories all had him inside the building.
Which leads to my next story. One night around 2 am there was a loud banging on our door. My room mate and I both jumped from our beds and headed towards the door. When we opened the door there was no one there. We stepped into the hallway and looked around. From one end of the building there was everybody else standing in their door way with this wild look in their eyes. We then heard the foot steps of somebody in boots marching just past us towards the next door. It stopped their and proceeded to bang on that door. After the door opened up the foot steps proceeded to the next door and did the same thing again. By the time it was done it had gone down the entire floor and banged on each and every door. The rooms that were unoccupied the spirit would make two or three attempts to get someone to open the door and then proceed on. Now a few of us had individual cases of weird things happening but now there were about 200 people standing in a hallway in the middle of the night listening to foot steps and wondering what was going on. A couple of people actually reported the incident but nothing was done about it. I mean, what were they going to do? post an MP so that a spirit doesnt knock on your door!?
I have a number of other stories associated with this building but for brevity sake Ill stop here. If your interested in these let me know and Ill continue to write them up. Ive told a few people some of the stories but this is the first time I've ever written them down.
Thanks Bob Shaw
bob.shaw@amd.com
Customer Applications Engineer
Advanced Micro Devices
Logic Products Division
