Working three shifts, up to 1,000 vaccinations per day are possible at the facility in the town of Lebach, in the small state of Saarland on the French border, the Ministry of Defence announced on Twitter.

Around 110 soldiers have been deployed for this purpose.

More than 14,000 night appointments have been made until May, the ministry said on Sunday.

The vaccination centre on the grounds of a barracks is one of four in Saarland where the residents of the state are vaccinated against Covid-19. It has been in operation since the beginning of March.

So far, there is another Bundeswehr vaccination centre in Berlin, and a third is under construction in Bonn.

Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer was on site to see the launch, as was Saarland Premier Tobias Hans.

Hans had previously announced a “vaccination marathon” after Saarland received a few days ago 81,900 additional vaccination Pfizer/BioNTech doses from the EU quota for border regions.

The other vaccination centres in the state are also open over the Easter holidays, including Easter Sunday.

The Saarland Ministry of Health had requested the operation in Lebach from the Bundeswehr.

A good 500 soldiers are already involved in the Saarland within the framework of administrative assistance requests: The missions range from contact tracing in health offices to support in vaccination centres to rapid tests in old people’s homes and in municipalities.