Germany takes inventory of its bunkers from World War II and the Cold War in the face of a possible nuclear conflict

There are many ways to sow panic in the population and the most radical and unexpected in Germany has come from the Ministry of the Interior. In anticipation of a nuclear conflict in the context of the war in Ukraine, the authorities have drawn up a protection plan in bunkers throughout the country that would force rehabilitate those left over from World War II build new ones.

The plan, in which the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) participates, includes the development of a special application for mobile phones that citizens can use to register the distance to nearest bunker. The BBK also wants to encourage the population to build shelters in their own homes. Los basements could be as suitable for this as garages.

BSSD Defense is the name of the Berlin-based company that manufactures so-called shelter systems for private, commercial and military applications. Business is booming and the company can barely keep up with orders. A panic room costs about 20,000 euros. A full-fledged bunker almost 200,000 euros. “There is great demand and great interest. Nobody would have expected another war to be fought in Europe, but history keeps repeating itself, unfortunately,” says Mario Piejde, technical director of BSSD.

Although the political class considers Russia’s threats to be a “bluff”, fear has permeated the population and voters, which explains the rise of parties that advocate a negotiated solution to the conflict. The German Association of Cities and Municipalities, which represents the country’s 14,000 municipalities, has asked the German Government to invest 10 billion euros in civil protection over the next 10 years and thus be able to recover the 2,000 bunkers from the Cold War era.

It won’t be an easy task. According to the BBK, only 579 of these bunkers are still designated as public shelters, although their renovation would be necessary. Still, they are few. They would only provide space for about 478,000 peoplejust 0.56% of the German population. According to the Government, to protect the entire German population, it would be necessary 210,100 additional bunkers . The investment would be almost 140,000 million euros and the estimated duration of 25 years. And even so, Germany would be far behind Switzerland, the country of bunkers par excellence. Since the 1960s, all Swiss municipalities have built nuclear bunkers for their residents. Shelters are also mandatory in houses and buildings over a certain size. Switzerland theoretically has 360,000, enough for all its inhabitants.

The key points of the bunker protection plan were agreed at a meeting of senior officials in June and a special group is now investigating it, an Interior spokesman explained. The origin of this plan comes from the German intelligence chiefs. They warned in October that Russia would likely be capable of launching an attack against NATO in 2030.

Hans-Walter Borries, director of the FIRMITAS Institute for Economic and Security Studies at the University of Witten in West Germany, doubts that the bunkers will be really useful in the event of a war between NATO and Russia, since Moscow now has hypersonic missiles that could reach practically any European city from Kaliningrad in two to five minutes.

“This is no longer like World War II, when bombers flew from the Hannover area to Berlin and there was a 15 to 20 minute warning time to find a bunker,” explained Borries, a colonel in the Army Reserve. Bundeswehr. “Now there is no time for warnings.”

The German Government has recognized this problem. In the event of war, large central bunkers would be much less useful than decentralized shelters in residential buildings, according to the government report. For this reason, the Government wants to recommend to citizens that stock up on cheap construction materials and easy to obtain and set up shelters in their basements.

But Borries does not believe in these plans either, if only because of the enormous destructive power of today’s nuclear weapons. “The effect is no longer comparable to that of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Current missiles with nuclear warheads would be enough to completely annihilate the entire Federal Republic of Germany with nine or 12 missiles.” Bunkers that could withstand such an attack would have to be buried thousands of meters deep in the Swiss Alps. Therefore, instead of investing billions in building a network of bunkers in the event of war, governments should invest in protection of the population in the event of natural disastersincreasingly frequent and virulent.