This time, we are heading underground. We shot a relic from the Cold War: A secret nuclear bunker. Like an interactive museum, this forgotten bunker allows an unspoiled look into the time of the Cold War when the human race was facing the real possibility of extinction due to a nuclear war. For the most immersive experience, we did not only explore this facility but also slept there.
This is one of more than 30 telecommunication bunkers in Western Germany. Together, they formed a network and the backbone of military telecommunication at the very front of the Cold War. These expensive and technically well-equipped facilities were built to ensure that NATO troops can still communicate after a nuclear strike. In case of a hot war, personnel could have stayed underground for one month.
To make this a doomsday-proof fallout shelter the bunker has outside and inner walls that are several meters thick. This would guarantee operation in case of an atomic attack. The complex dates back to the 1960s when the Berlin Wall was built and the Vietnam War escalated - the Cold War had reached a critical stage at that point. As German forces constructed the underground facility, the population of the surrounding villages guessed that something was off here - but silence was ordered.
Even though the Cold War had already been over for some time, this telecommunication bunker was not decommissioned before the late 90s - only after the last troops of the once Soviet occupying forces had withdrawn from the country. Since there was not anything to hide anymore the former enemy came here to visit: ex-GDR soldiers from Eastern Germany, and they even brought hospitality gifts! Former Western and Eastern fighters were now all united in the Bundeswehr, which is the German armed forces. So, the bunker had no purpose anymore and was abandoned as a consequence - but not before parts of it were stripped. Luckily, there are many rooms left behind that seem to be fairly untouched.
For civilians, this facility is practically hidden. It is an abandoned NATO bunker dating back to the Cold War. Such structures are probably spread all over the world just waiting to get activated again in case of a major crisis. Unfortunately, still today, the nuclear menace is real. When the Cold War ended, the threat was suppressed but never removed. Just like this bunker it still exists even though it is hidden and forgotten - a dangerous combination.
After the Fall of the Iron Curtain, the area - including the bunker - was sold to a private citizen. In early 2021, he had to intervene and seal the underground structure because it was flooded. It seems like one of the many visitors after us messed with the pumps that should keep the groundwater away. After this was reported to the owner, he then turned the pumps back on and sealed the bunker for good. There is no way to enter it anymore. Today, it is uncertain if the owner will open the bunker for the public at some point. Right now, it does not look that way.
Posted by BoredFun27 Wow! Makes me wonder how many more cold war bunkers have been forgotten that nobody been in since they closed.
MANY in Germany! The cheaper & expedient thing for them (DDR, FRG, NATO & Warsaw Pact) to do was modify an old bunker left-over from WW-II, but those locations were known, so for really important sites during the Cold War, they were built new, ideally with some sort of 'cover-story' as to what the construction was.
Best thing to do is talk to Cold War military veterans and local old-timers.
To some of us, these sorts of places are amazing & we think they should be museums/tourist attractions, but to people who once worked at them or many locals who've known about them for decades, they're no big deal & something they tend not to put much thought into, unless someone asks. For some locals, they know that something secret was located into a forest, built into a hill, or down some gated road, but beyond that, they don't really know what it was.
These days, Google Earth can help locate 'suspicious' things to investigate further, but by the later days of the Cold War when everyone used satellites, some access roads were & above-ground support structures disguised. For buried sites in areas that would get snow in the winter, some of them had ground chillers above the underground bunkers so that heat given-off by the secret site wouldn't cause snow on the surface to melt and provide an aerial 'signature' of something suspicious being there.
/-/oolie
[last edit 6/10/2021 3:41 AM by /-/ooligan - edited 1 times]
There are no stupid questions, just stupid people.