World War II Bomb Is Defused Near ECB Headquarters in Frankfurt
ECB Clears Its $1.5 Billion HQ as Frankfurt Defuses Wartime Bomb
(Bloomberg) -- A World War II bomb discovered near the European Central Bank’s headquarters in Frankfurt was defused by ordnance experts on Sunday, avoiding disruption to the ECB’s regular workweek.
Frankfurt police lifted an evacuation order for the ECB’s 1.3 billion-euro ($1.5 billion) glass-and-steel tower and a surrounding perimeter after the deactivation of the U.S. bomb, which was unearthed on a construction site.
Discoveries of unexploded ordnance from World War II are commonplace in Germany, and increasingly so in Frankfurt as it undergoes a building boom. Two years ago, 60,000 people were evacuated for a bomb disposal. On Sunday, a runway at Frankfurt Airport was closed as a precaution while the 500-kilogram (1,100 pound) device was defused, Frankfurter Rundschau reported.
The ECB’s five-year-old headquarters by the Main river also includes an historical landmark, the former wholesale fruit and vegetable market dating from 1928 that was a deportation center for Jews during the war.
City officials ordered employees and residents in a 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) radius to leave the area, begging the question of whether the guardian of the euro would leave its gold reserves and offices unsupervised for hours.
In short, no. The ECB had 18.2 billion euros worth of fine gold at the end of last year, but none of the holdings are on site. They’re stored in London, Paris, Lisbon, New York and Rome. Nor was the euro zone at risk of suffering from a lack of support for services such as payment systems.
“The functioning of the ECB will not be affected by this evacuation,” a spokesman said before the bomb was defused. “We have arrangements in place for staff to work from other locations as necessary.”
--With assistance from Leonard Kehnscherper.
To contact the reporters on this story: Catherine Bosley in Zurich at cbosley1@bloomberg.net;James Amott in London at jamott@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O'Brien at fobrien@bloomberg.net, Tony Czuczka, Andrew Davis
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