Ahlhorn Highway Strip

The primary reason for closure was the end of the Cold War. These highway strips, known in German as 'Notlandeplätze' (NLPs), were built as part of NATO's dispersal strategy to ensure air power could be maintained even if primary air bases were attacked and destroyed. With the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the reunification of Germany, the direct military threat subsided, making the high cost of maintaining these specialized highway sections strategically unnecessary.

The highway strip itself has been fully returned to its primary civilian function as a public section of the A29 Autobahn, connecting Oldenburg and the JadeWeserPort. The central reservation now has permanent guardrails installed. The former military dispersal areas on both sides of the highway have been completely redeveloped into a large industrial and commercial park known as the 'Metropolpark Hansalinie'. Companies in logistics, manufacturing, and services now occupy the space where military aircraft were once parked.

The Ahlhorn Highway Strip was one of the most modern and last-built NLPs in West Germany. Constructed in the early 1980s, it was a reinforced, 2,500-meter-long straight section of the A29 Autobahn. Its key features included removable central barriers and large, paved parking and maintenance aprons (dispersal areas) concealed in the woods on both sides of the highway. The strip was strategically located to support operations from the nearby major NATO airbase, Fliegerhorst Ahlhorn (former ICAO: ETNA). Its most notable use was during the major NATO exercise 'Highway 84' in September 1984. During this exercise, the highway was closed to public traffic, and various aircraft, including American A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, F-4 Phantoms, and C-130 Hercules transport planes, as well as German C-160 Transalls, successfully landed, were serviced, and took off from the Autobahn, demonstrating the concept's viability.

There are zero plans or prospects for reopening the site as an airfield. The strategic military doctrine that required such strips is obsolete. Furthermore, the section is now an integral part of Germany's critical public transportation infrastructure, and its former support areas have been permanently repurposed for civilian commercial use, making a future reactivation unfeasible.