Overview
- The 50-year-old man and his 19-year-old son sought access to closed sections of the Kohnstein tunnel network at the Mittelbau-Dora memorial in Nordhausen, Thuringia.
- A concerned call from the father's ex-wife prompted a large missing-person operation that deployed officers on the ground, a tracking dog, and a police helicopter.
- The duo noticed the operation and hid, then later phoned a relative who informed police they were safe, bringing the search to an end.
- Authorities plan a trespassing complaint and say the two may be billed for the self-caused deployment under the Thuringian Police Tasks Act.
- Police warned against imitators and highlighted the lethal risks of old tunnels, noting a previous fatal collapse involving a treasure hunter in Annaberg-Buchholz.