various units of the luftwaffe used the reinsehlen airfield for training and to test new equipment. plane types flying from reinsehlen included bombers like the heinkel he 111, transport planes like the ju 52 which pulled gliders of type "gotha" and fighters like the focke-wulf fw 190. after the air war moved to germany, messerschmitt bf 110 were stationed at the airfield. training involved inter alia bombing runs in which bombs made of concrete were dropped onto heath surfaces east of the railway line. among those housed on the airfield were forced labourers from eastern europe as well as soviet and polish pows. their labour was used to expand the facilities including road construction in and around the military area. eventually the military area stretched all the way to the "höpen" (a hill) in the southwest, extended beyond the reichsstrasse 3 in the east and was supposed to be bounded by a new ring road going north from schneverdingen towards wintermoor in the west and the wintermoorer strasse in the north.