The federal police are highly respected. Also in the Berchtesgaden National Park, where she has been running a training center on the Kührointalm for decades. But now an open dispute has broken out between the federal police and the national park administration. It goes around this very training center. The federal police want to expand it with a large extension. New construction, additions and extensions are prohibited in the national park. Because nature conservation has priority there. The federal police do not want to accept this and have applied for an exemption from the ban. The national park is openly opposed to the project. National Park boss Roland Baier speaks of a “precedent”. The official statement from the national park administration states that the training center is already in conflict with the national park ordinance and the goals of nature conservation.
Such sharp words from the national park administration are a novelty. In the past she has been very reserved when it came to construction projects in the protected area or on its borders. For example with the new Jennerbahn on the mountain of the same name on Königssee. At the time, the nature conservation associations, above all the Bund Naturschutz, protested vehemently against their construction and even went to court. But there was no critical word from the national park administration itself. The argument about the new Salettl at the legendary Watzmannhaus was similar. Again it was the nature conservation associations that put the Munich Alpine Club section in its place in court. The national park administration itself did not comment on the controversial cultivation.
The open dispute between the federal police and the national park administration is also remarkable because the opponents are high-ranking authorities. The national park administration reports directly to the Ministry of the Environment. It can be assumed that the head of the national park, Baier, informed the ministers in Munich in advance that he would oppose the federal police project. The federal police are said to have a close connection to the state government and the CSU. Especially since the head of the training center, Thomas Lobensteiner, is also the head of the mountain rescue service in Bavaria and therefore knows the CSU politician Alois Glück well, for example. Glück was chairman of the mountain rescue service from 2002 to 2014.
From the Alm you have a spectacular view of rock faces
The Kühroint-Alm is one of the jewels of the national park. It lies at the foot of the Watzmann at an altitude of 1420 meters. From its meadows and pastures you have a spectacular view of the rock faces of the mountain range and the sparse remains of the glacier in its cirque. At the Archenkanzel, which you can hike to in just under 15 minutes, you can see the Königssee and the famous lake hundreds of meters down Pilgrimage Church of St. Bartholomä. On nice days, hundreds of hikers and mountain bikers are often drawn up to the spacious alpine pasture.
The federal police training center is housed in a former military base. It was built in the 1930s. More than 20 years ago, the federal police took over the area for mountain training for their police officers. In recent years it has been expanded and expanded again and again. On a website of the federal police, which is no longer online, it was said in December that “around 2,500 participants for one to two-week courses” came to the training center every year. Mountain training is just one aspect. Further content is therefore team training, active regeneration or health promotion. In addition, there would be “special events such as visits by delegations from foreign security authorities, security conferences, symposiums and state visits”.
Conservationists are convinced that most of these events do not belong in a national park where conservation is a priority. “We understand that the federal police have to train for operations up there under high mountain conditions,” says Norbert Schäffer, chairman of the state association for bird protection. “But all activities that don’t necessarily have to be held at Kühroint should take place outside of the national park.” National Park boss Baier expressly shares this assessment. “Here, a distinguished, representative training center was successively established from the mountain training center,” says the statement of the national park.
Federal Police President Dieter Romann, on the other hand, assured the nature conservation associations early on that the preservation of the “mountain hut character” had absolute priority in the project. However, the existing rooms and areas of the training center are no longer sufficient. Now it’s the Berchtesgadener Land district office’s turn. It must decide on the project.