Slowly and methodically, Dirk Schoenen descends to a massive cache of World War II ammunition resting deep on the floor of the Baltic Sea. With deliberate care, he extracts several corroded shells from the pile and places them into a basket, all under the close watch of a surface crew monitoring his head-mounted camera. After about an hour underwater, Schoenen is lifted back to the surface aboard the Baltic Lift, a mobile platform stationed 3.7 miles off the coast of Boltenhagen, a small town on Germany’s northern shoreline.
His haul includes several 12.8-centimeter shells, fragments of grenades, and a number of 2-centimeter projectiles. While a modest recovery, it’s just a tiny fraction of what still lies beneath the waves.
According to the Associated Press, an estimated 1.6 million tons of old ammunition remains scattered across the seabeds of the North Sea and Baltic Sea. Much of it is deteriorating, releasing toxic compounds like TNT into the water—and posing an increasing threat of accidental detonation.
The ammunition, mostly from World War II and some from World War I, was deliberately dumped into the seas in the aftermath of the conflict. Allied forces ordered the destruction of German ordnance to prevent any resurgence of military aggression, and at the time, ocean disposal was considered the fastest solution.
In 1946, trains transported munitions from across Germany to the coasts, where fishermen were tasked with dumping them into designated zones offshore. But records show that in many cases, the ammunition was discarded elsewhere. Powerful sea currents—especially in the North Sea—have since scattered it across a wide area of the ocean floor.
Now, with rising geopolitical tensions between Russia and NATO in the region, the urgency to address this long-standing issue has grown. Germany has allocated €110 million (about $117.4 million) to fund research, engineering solutions, and diving operations aimed at safely recovering and ultimately removing the munitions.
“This isn’t a routine job,” said Schoenen, 60, a veteran diver since 1986 and volunteer with the Baltic Taucher diving team. “Most of these items can be handled carefully, but you absolutely cannot strike or discard them carelessly.”
Beyond the environmental damage, there is also a physical danger. Though rare, some of the submerged explosives—such as sea mines or aerial bombs—remain volatile, and their fuses become more unstable with time.
As Europe looks toward the future, it’s still grappling with a deadly legacy of the past—one shell at a time.