ABSTRACT
The crisis during the summer before the outbreak of war in 1939 increased the pressure by the Navy for production by GEMA, but now the Luftwaffe wanted an accelerated production of radars too. Along with this came major requirements for the training and orientation of personnel on the equipment being delivered to both Wehrmacht branches. While GEMA set up a training centre on Wendenschloss Strasse across from the plant, the Navy built a radar school with GEMA support in the so-called ‘BG-tower’, next to a testing ground for radar equipment at the Navy Docks at Kiel. This allowed their operating and maintenance personnel to be trained further after their basic introduction in Berlin. This tower had served the Navy of the Kaiser and later of the Republic for the adjustment of optical equipment. Such optical devices for heavy naval artillery, made primarily by Zeiss, were by then adjusted and tested in a modern-equipped building on the mole of the Naval Arsenal. After the beginning of 1939 the top floors that had been made free in the tower served Communication Department VIII of Kiel Naval Arsenal for testing. The radars were installed on the seventh of the total of nine floors, surrounded by glass walls. The antennas were mounted outside on the tower with their radiation patterns directed toward the Kiel Ford and the open sea. A lighthouse 15 km away at the entrance to the ford served as a calibration mark.
