Echelon Bad Aibling Station

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The Bad Aibling Station (abbreviated BAS, which had an official designation as the 18th United States Army Security Agency Field Station, or as the pseudonym used by BND: Hortensie III) was until 2004 a large monitoring base of the US intelligence organization NSA in Bad Aibling, Bavaria.

History

In 1936 a military airfield was established on the site. After the Second World War, troops of the United States Army seized a military airport ("Fliegerhorst" and flight training base) that had been built in 1936 by the German National Socialist government on the grounds of a sport airfield in Bad Aibling-Mietraching. Initially, it was used by the occupying Americans as a camp for prisoners of war, a displaced persons camp, and as an orphanage under supervision of the UNRRA. Günter Grass and Joseph Ratzinger are alleged to have met there as prisoners.

In 1952, the area was taken over by the US Army. During the Cold War it was converted by the United States Army Security Agency ("ASA") to a communications monitoring station for American intelligence.

In 1971 the National Security Agency (NSA) and the United States Department of Defense took over command from the U.S. Army. Simultaneously, the Army Security Agency transferred most of its activities in West Germany from its field stations located at Rothwesten, Bad Aibling and Herzogenaurach to Augsburg.