The Physical Plant (heating and power production) was operated by German civilians. Daredevil dependents like myself would challenge our courage by sneaking into the coal storage building, climb down the coal piles to the point where small coal cars on a small set of tracks were located to transfer coal beneath the street above and into the furnace/powerplant area under Building "E".

There’s an identical coal storage building in the picture at the far end of the parade field just to the right of building "T". In my time, just beyond that building was the fenced boundary of the German military base. The "T" building shown was no longer there in 1958, replaced by a fairly good sized movie theatre.

Oh, the "U" building was mostly used as the Officer’s Club, while the closest wing of the building served as the post chapel, as well as occasional playhouse for amateur theatre productions.

I never considered the (kaserne) setup as a "shared" facility. They (the German Army) had their own guarded entry gate further to the east of the US main gate. As I recall their gate on Niedermayer Strasse (though the road passing by the main gates in those days was called Schonbrunn Strasse) was maybe 300 yards from the US gate.

To the left of the German gate they had at least one of the barracks buildings in the photo, and behind that was a concrete wall separating the two camps. At the far end of that building the boundary became a standard 8' wire fence that ran east aways until aligned with the east side of that second coal storage building I mentioned in the photo, and then went left (or north, I guess) along side the coal building, the future theater's parking lot and theater.

Beyond the theater was an East-West road that Pinder Kaserne's 11th Armored Cav vehicles (tanks, personnel carriers, trucks, jeeps) would use to get to their motor pool. We kids were confused about whether the US troops were entering the German camp (or a "shared camp) or maybe they just made a left turn soon after passing the theatre building and stayed on Pinder Kaserne property. (The Isar River was probably only 200-300 yards to the left past the back of the theatre.)

To this day, I (and my friends) wondered why the coal storage building was on the American side of the fence (?). It definitely solely served the German facility, because it too had an underground coal transport "train" that went south under the boundary fence toward a German army's building with its own basement power/heating plant. It took ALOT of nerve for us American kids to sneak very far down THAT track !!!

Hope this will be of some help....Regards....Sp3 Bill Beumer formerly of 237th Engr,Bn.(C) B Co. HQ platoon, Passau, Germany

Webmaster note: The Flugplatz (airfield) was established in the early 1930s at Kohlbruck, for use by small motorized aircraft and gliders. I have found no records on the use of the airtsrip during WWII.

The webmaster assumes that the airstrip was used by the US Army soon after the war as troops occupied Passau.

In 1950, a German flying club (gliders) was formed in Passau and - it is assumed - the club was given permission to use the airfield.

In 1956, a new airfield - adjacent to the old airfield - was constructed for use by the Germans.

At some point, the original airfield was returned to the local government and torn down. Apparently, the new airfield was also soon torn down (early 1960s) to make way for construction of a new German kaserne.