German bunkers of the Second World War. German bunker during the Cold War (30 photos)

The noise around Hitler's "golden train", in which the Nazis allegedly hid the looted treasures of the "Third Reich" underground in Poland, has not yet subsided, and the German media are already reporting on a new possible sensation. This time we are talking about underground adits discovered in the vicinity of the Brandenburg village of Genshagen, south of Berlin. During World War II, one of the factories of the Daimler-Benz concern was located here, which produced, however, not cars, but engines for military aircraft - mainly for Messerschmitt 109 and 110 fighters.

An underground bomb shelter for workers was built nearby. For some reason, underground work took a surprisingly long time, and construction did not stop until the very end of the war, when there was an acute shortage of cement, bricks, steel and other building materials even for direct military needs. Another oddity: according to local residents, the entrance to the adits was guarded by SS soldiers, even as if from the elite Death's Head division. Conventional bomb shelters had nothing like this.

Why did they blow up the entrances to the bunker?

A few days before the surrender of Nazi Germany, in April 1945, the surrounding area was rocked by several powerful explosions. The Red Army was very close, but it had nothing to do with the explosions. The SS blew up all five entrances to the bunker. The underground tunnel was so blocked that these entrances were discovered only seven decades later!

Context

This was possible thanks to the efforts of historian Rainer Karlsch. His attention was attracted not only by these facts, but also by the fact that the underground bunker was not shown on any maps of that time. Even in the well-preserved archives of the Daimler concern, he did not appear. True, they knew about its existence from local residents, and twice, in the fifties and eighties, they tried to find it. They dug in different places, including with the help of excavators, but to no avail.

It took Karlsch two years and the help of another enthusiast, vice-burgomaster of the district center Torsten Klaehn, to first discover the ventilation shaft, and then gradually explore the adits themselves - more precisely, so far only 6 kilometers of an extensive system of tunnels, stretching presumably for several dozen kilometers.

What did you find underground?

It turned out that we were not talking about a large vaulted hall (this is how underground bomb shelters were usually built), but about adits diverging in different directions, approximately 2 m 30 cm high and one and a half meters wide. They were dug at a depth of 15 meters, reinforced with solid concrete blocks connected to each other. The construction was clearly not completed: the researchers discovered stacks of bricks, facing tiles, and so on stretching for several tens of meters.

There's nothing more interesting, really. Rusted metal cabinets, half-rotten wooden furniture, ancient medical equipment, steel doors bent from explosions - that's all. No hidden treasures, no secret files of the "Third Reich", no plans for the first jet fighter Messerschmitt 262, which was assembled at the Genshagen plant at the end of the war...

This doesn't bother Rainer Karlsch at all. He reminds again and again that only a small part of the underground adits has been explored. And he draws attention to the fact that just 15 kilometers from the bunker, next to the personal estate of the Minister of Post of the “Third Reich” Hakeburg, there was a scientific laboratory of the ministry. It sounds almost anecdotal, but the fact is that the Reich Postal Minister was Hitler's old comrade in the Nazi party, holder of the NSDAP "golden sign" Wilhelm Ohnesorge. His department conducted very important research. According to Spiegel magazine, under the leadership of Ohnesorge, in particular, remote-controlled surface-to-air missiles were created. In addition, its scientists worked on the creation of nuclear weapons.

Eyewitnesses talk about trucks that allegedly transported some heavy cargo from Hackeburg to Genshagen in April 1945. What were they carrying? Blueprints for “weapons of retribution”? Secret files of the "Third Reich"? Nazi gold? You can assume anything. By the way, Ohnesorge, who died in Munich in 1962 and never spent a day in prison (although all his property was confiscated after the war), never spoke about the underground bunker, or about any treasures or secret documents. This can also be interpreted in any way you like.

See also:

• Warehouse No. 12

  This secret warehouse was the largest bunker in East Germany. Up to 20 thousand tons of ammunition, shells, uniforms, as well as diesel fuel, anti-aircraft guns, camp kitchens, bakeries, and other equipment and machinery in case of war for the armies of the GDR and its allies under the Warsaw Pact were stored here. To transport everything at once would require 500 railroad cars.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

underground plant

The warehouse was located near the German-German border near Halberstadt. For the construction of the bunker in 1979-1983, they used adits cut by prisoners during the “Third Reich”, when the production of Junkers aircraft from Dessau was going to be transferred here. On the territory of the concentration camp, a few kilometers from the underground complex, there is now a memorial complex.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

Disarmament

After German reunification, the Bundeswehr used the warehouse, but in 1994 the garrison was disbanded and the bunker was sold to a private investor, who never figured out how to use it. The complex suffered greatly from vandals and metal thieves, for whom the gates, bars and locks were not a hindrance. With the permission of the owner, excursions are sometimes conducted into the bunker.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

Dark, cold and dry

Pitch darkness, everything is without power. Light comes only from flashlights. Dry and cold, 12 degrees. There is a thin layer of soot everywhere. Several years ago there was a fire underground, which apparently arose due to careless handling of the autogen with which the thieves were cutting metal. At one time, 250 military personnel served in the bunker. Now it is practically unguarded.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

"Dolphin"

The warehouse began to be filled in 1983. The arrangement cost 190 million GDR marks. It was part of the Dolphin program, which planned to build nearly seventy nuclear shelters in East Germany for government, military, and civil defense purposes. The total cost of the program exceeded two billion Eastern marks.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

Dismantling

What happened to the complex over several decades from the spring of 1945 until the opening of the warehouse? Halberstadt was located in the Soviet occupation zone. The equipment that had been installed underground for aviation production was taken to the USSR. After this, they decided to blow up the adits, during the construction of which thousands of prisoners of a specially created concentration camp were killed.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

Preparing to blow up

Preparations for the explosion began in 1949. Soviet miners managed to plant more than 90 tons of explosives, but to completely destroy them they needed nine times more. With such a powerful explosion, a crater would form in place of the mountain. The new German authorities turned to the Soviet command with an urgent request to abandon the plan with such consequences.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

After the war

Instead of blowing up, the Germans proposed to fill everything up, but as a result they agreed to blow up the tunnels at the entrances. Around the same time, a memorial complex was opened nearby on the territory of the former Malachite concentration camp (Langenstein-Zwieberge). Now in one of the adits leading to the underground bunker, an exposition of his documentation center is equipped.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

Eyewitnesses

According to local residents, the remaining accessible part of the underground complex was used for some time by units of the Soviet Army. One excursion participant recalls how in 1959, as a boy, he and his friends crawled into a restricted area, where they came across Soviet tanks in a dark tunnel.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

In case of nuclear war

In the 1960s, the GDR authorities remembered the existence of the complex and began to consider options for its use for the benefit of the national economy. In particular, it was planned to place a cold storage plant in the tunnels, but with the exacerbation of the Cold War, the facility acquired strategic importance, since on both sides of the German-German border they began to actively build underground shelters in the event of a nuclear war.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

Seventeen kilometers

"Warehouse complex number 12" (Komplexlager KL-12) of the National People's Army of the GDR was put into operation for the May holidays of 1984. The total length of the tunnels, including new ones, was about 17 kilometers. Half of the old tunnels that could not be restored were walled up.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

underground city

The scale is amazing. Trains stopped underground to unload. In one of the tunnels, a 500-meter platform was equipped for this purpose. From there, cargo was transported to storage compartments. The total storage area was almost 40 thousand square meters, and the volume of underground space was 220 thousand cubic meters.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

At the combat post

“I prefer to show the bunker by car, you can see more. You quickly get tired of walking on concrete,” says the former commandant of the complex, Hans-Joachim Büttner. The retired lieutenant colonel served here from the first to the last day. He started in the GDR and ended up as a Bundeswehr officer.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

Questions for the commandant

This is what the bunker looked like in 1993. The former commandant patiently answers the group's questions. They ask about the Soviet SS-20 nuclear missiles? “We definitely didn’t,” he says, smiling. Did you know who cut down the old tunnels? "Yes. Everyone who served here has been to the memorial complex at least once." Where was the money? ...



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

One hundred billion

The bunker played a role in one of the final acts of the history of the GDR. After the exchange of Eastern marks, all the cash currency of East Germany withdrawn from circulation was brought here - 620 million banknotes per 100 billion with a total weight of three thousand tons, as well as savings books and checks. They decided to bury the money by mixing it with rock in the hope that it would rot over time. The entrance was securely walled up.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

Money graveyard

The location was kept secret, but a few years later strange-smelling East German banknotes began appearing at numismatic auctions. Among them were banknotes of 200 and 500 marks, which were not put into circulation at all. Someone climbed into the bunker and punched a hole in a multi-meter layer of concrete. It turned out that in a dry and cold bunker, socialist stamps did not rot, did not decompose, did not deteriorate.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

The Irony of Fate

Several treasure hunters were caught and sentenced to suspended sentences. In order to stop the amateur extraction of priceless money, in 2002 they decided to remove it from the bunker and destroy it in a garbage incineration factory along with household waste. Ironically, the Eastern brand, so to speak, outlived the Western brand. By this point, the Germans were already using the euro.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

Bunker in a bunker

Inside the storage bunker there was another one - for personnel. It had more serious protection and had all life support systems. After a nuclear attack, this bunker-in-a-bunker could operate autonomously for 30 days. In the event of a military conflict, the shipment of ammunition here could begin within 70 minutes after receiving the order.



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

What to do?

A private owner wanted to use the bunker to store mining waste. The business is profitable, but the authorities have revoked the permit already issued. The bunker hung, as they say, as a dead weight. Plans to set up an underground disco here were seriously considered, but they were abandoned. Dancing in the adits, the construction of which claimed the lives of several thousand concentration camp prisoners?



Secret bunker near Halberstadt

P.S.

We talked about the memorial complex on the site of the former Langenstein-Zwieberg concentration camp in a separate report. An interview with retired Lieutenant Colonel Hans-Joachim Büttner can be read at the link at the end of the page.

Berlin. April 1945. Red Army troops are on the outskirts of Berlin, and there are only a few weeks left until the end of the war. The Wehrmacht command these days is going deeper and deeper underground - into pre-built bunkers, where German generals, together with Adolf Hitler, sitting behind thick concrete walls, give the last orders to the troops...
Map of surrounded Berlin; last award order; an ashtray full of cigarette butts; empty bottles of alcohol and a Luger on the table of the polished Major General of the Wehrmacht...
Who knows what his last days were like...

(Total 23 photos)

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1. These days, in the Sheremetyev Museum, in the Mikhailovsky Battery of Sevastopol, the installation “In the Lair of the Fascist Beast” was opened. The installation recreates the workplace of a German general in one of the Berlin bunkers in the spring of 1945.

2. The installation uses both authentic objects of that time and very accurate copies of some exhibits, which, due to their dilapidation, cannot be placed in an open exhibition.

3. Bunkers like this one have been built at depths of up to 40 meters throughout Berlin since 1935. The walls were erected from 1.6 to 4 meters thick, and the floors from 2 to 4.5 meters. Ceiling heights ranged from 2 to 3 meters in different rooms. The outer corners of the bunkers were made beveled to disperse the shock wave. The bunkers were built hermetically sealed and provided complete protection against the penetration of poisonous gases. Taking into account the possible disabling of nearby power plants and the destruction of the city power grid, the bunkers were equipped with autonomous diesel generators. A heating system, as a rule, was not provided. Normal temperature could only be ensured by heating the air supplied to the ventilation system.

4. When creating the installation, Hitler’s bunker was taken as a basis. It was from it that the main points were copied - walls, equipment on the walls (ventilation shafts, phosphorus strip intended for orientation in rooms in the absence of lighting). A Wehrmacht major general works here, occupying a certain position at headquarters.

5. Judging by the stripes and awards, this person is associated with the National Socialist Party of Germany and has services to the Reich. The red ribbon on the right breast pocket means that the general is a Knight of the Order of the Blood, a highly honorable award in the Nazi hierarchy. It was given for participation in the famous Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, from which Hitler’s path to power actually began. Quite a few people received this award, and it indicates that the general is one of the Fuhrer’s long-time associates. However, there is no party badge on his uniform, which means that this person never joined the party. Apparently, this is why his position is quite modest, as for a longtime ally, just a major general (the first general rank in the Wehrmacht)

6. Order bar, 2nd class cross and medal for wounds. Such a “gold” medal was given for a serious wound or for 5 minor ones. Because The award has a swastika, which means it was received during World War II.

7. On the table we see a number of objects that were with the general in his last days. On the right side of the table is a photograph of the eldest son, a submariner, and just below, under the pistol, is a postcard from the youngest son, which came from the front. Directly in front of the general is the paper he is working with. This is an award sheet for Eugene Valot. Eugene Valot was the last person to be awarded the Knight's Cross, Germany's highest award, for the Battle of Berlin. The documents are ready, all that remains is to sign. And the date is April 29, 1945.

8. Another award sheet is being punched out in the typewriter, but the award, apparently, never reached the soldier or officer..

9. German typewriter "Ideal". It’s interesting that on the number “5”, instead of the % icon we are used to today, there is an SS icon

10. A soldier’s book on the general’s desk

11. An interesting set of items on the general’s desk - citron candies, a pack of cotton wool, a lighter, a Cuban cigar, a teapot, playing cards...

12. The ashtray is full of cigarette butts, even despite the inscription on the wall of the bunker. But these are the last days, and no one cared anymore. The inscription on the stub of the cigar reads “only for the Wehrmacht.”

13. Cigarettes and matches. The inscription on the matches is One Reich, One People, One Fuhrer. On Sulima cigarettes there is a German excise stamp of that time.

16. Near the telephone set - some money, a grenade, a Luger pistol. Judging by the scantly displayed cartridges for him, the general was thinking about something for a long time at that moment. Perhaps over the fact that all he had to do was load the gun, and...

17. Map of encircled Berlin on the general’s right hand. It is she who leads him to more and more inevitable thoughts.

Today's post is dedicated to the story of one of the largest bunkers of the German defensive line, the West Wall, built in 1938-1940 on the western borders of the Third Reich.

A total of 32 objects of this type were built, which were built to protect strategically important points and roads. Only two such bunkers have survived to this day, of which only one B-Werk has reached our time intact. The second bunker was blown up in 1947 and covered with soil. Only decades later, a group of volunteers took up the task of restoring the blown up bunker with the aim of creating a museum inside. Volunteers did a huge amount of work to restore the bunker and today it is available for visiting to anyone interested in military history.

B-Werk Katzenkopf is located on the top of the mountain of the same name, located near the village of Irrel, a couple of kilometers from the border with Luxembourg. The facility was built in 1937-1939 with the aim of controlling the Cologne-Luxembourg highway. For this purpose, two B-Werks were built on Mount Katzenkopf, located close to each other. The second B-Werk Nimsberg, like B-Werk Katzenkopf, was blown up in the post-war period and destroyed to such an extent that it could not be restored, in differences from its brother.

01. View from Mount Katzenkopf to the village of Irrel.

B-Werk Katzenkopf was destroyed in 1947 by the French as part of the agreements for the demilitarization of Germany and lay in a state of ruins, covered with earth, for thirty years, until in 1976 it turned out that the explosion had destroyed only the upper level of the structure, and the rest of the underground part was not damaged. After this, the volunteer fire brigade of the village of Irrel took over the excavation of the site, through whose efforts the B-Werk was restored and since 1979 has become available to visitors as a museum.

02. The photo shows the preserved part of the ground level with one of the two entrances inside, not damaged by the explosion, but changed during the reconstruction process.

All B-Werke were built according to the same standard design, but could differ in details and interior layout. The name B-Werk comes from the classification of bunkers of the Third Reich, in which objects were assigned a letter according to the thickness of the walls. Class B corresponded to objects with a wall and ceiling thickness of 1.5 meters. In order not to give the enemy information about the thickness of the walls of the structures, these objects were then called Panzerwerk (literally: armored structure). This object was officially called Panzerwerk Nr.1520.

Before the explosion, the above-ground level of Panzerwerk Nr.1520 had the following appearance. I marked the part of the upper level destroyed by the explosion as dark.

03. The preserved wall of the left flank with one of the emergency exits. A dummy armored machine gun turret is visible on the roof. The facility's armored turrets were dismantled before the explosion.

04. To give the object a shape close to the original, volunteers built dummies of both machine-gun armored turrets from brick and concrete. Now the roof of Panzerwerk Nr.1520 looks like this:

Each Panzerwerk had a standard set of weapons and armored domes, which I have indicated in this diagram. During this photo walk I will tell you more about them. To date, the only Panzerwerk with surviving armored domes is the B-Werk Bessering.

05. On the rubble of the destroyed part of the facility, a wooden cross and a memorial plaque were installed in memory of the fallen soldiers of the 39th Fusilier Infantry Regiment (Füssilier-Regiments), who fought from 1941 to 1944 on the territory of the USSR. The soldiers of one of the battalions of this regiment formed the garrison of Panzerwerk Nr.1520 in 1939-1940.

06. In front of the entrance to the Panzerwerk there is a small park with numerous benches and an excellent view of the village of Irrel.

07. The entrance to the building in the original was a hatch about a meter high, but now in its place there is an ordinary entrance door of standard height, so that when going inside, you don’t even have to bend down. An embrasure is traditionally located opposite the entrance. The design of this part underwent significant changes during the restoration of the blown up bunker. Initially, the floor was much lower and the embrasure was located at the chest level of the person entering.

08. Around the bend in the entrance corridor there was a hole 4.6 meters deep and 1.5 meters wide. In peacetime, the pit was covered with a steel sheet 2 cm thick, forming a kind of bridge.

09. In a combat position, the steel bridge rose and acted as an armored shield, for which an embrasure was built into it. Such a system made it almost impossible for the enemy to penetrate inside the facility. The photo shows a hole in front of the second entrance, located in the destroyed part of the structure.

The diagram shows the structure of a similar system in B-Werk class buildings of the Western Wall. Each such object had two entrances, behind which there were pits covered with armor plate. Both entrances led to a common vestibule, which was also shot through another embrasure.

For clarity, I will give a plan of the upper floor. The holes at the entrance hatches are marked with the number 22, the general vestibule is 16. I marked in gray the rooms destroyed by the explosion, among which: the guard casemate (17), the filter and ventilation casemate (19), the grenade launcher armored dome shaft (21), the casemate flanking the entrances to the bunker (23) and a number of utility and technical premises.

Premises that have survived to one degree or another: a machine-gun armored dome (1), an observation casemate with an armored observation dome (3), a command center (4), a communications point (5), an artillery armored observation dome (6), a flamethrower casemate (11), a staircase to lower level (12) as well as several technical rooms and personnel rooms.

10. Now let's look at the preserved part (more precisely, the partially preserved part) of the upper level of the bunker. In the center of the photo you can see a room closed with a screen door.

11. Behind the net there is a heavily damaged flamethrower casemate and part of the flamethrower barrel. The jar contains the original flammable mixture for the flamethrower.

The fortress flamethrower was intended to protect the roof of the facility in the event of enemy soldiers penetrating it, as well as for the close defense of the bunker. The control of the flamethrower was completely electric, but in the event of a power failure, a manual option was also provided. At one time, the flamethrower ejected 120 liters of a fiery mixture, spraying it through a special nozzle and turning hundreds of cubic meters of space in a given direction into fiery Gehenna. Then he needed a two-minute pause to charge the new mixture. The fuel reserves were enough for 20 charges and the range of the flamethrower was 60-80 meters. The installation was located on two levels, its diagram is shown in the figure:

13. All armored turrets, containing tens of tons of metal, were removed from the site in the post-war period before the bunker was blown up. Today, in their place are brick and concrete dummies.

Six-recessed towers of type 20Р7 were developed by the German concern Krupp and are made of high-strength steel. One such tower cost 82,000 Reichsmarks (about 420,000 euros today). You can imagine how much the construction of the Siegfried Line cost, because there were 32 such objects and each had two towers. The turret's crew consisted of five people: a commander and four gunners. The commander observed the situation around him from a periscope installed on the roof of the tower and commanded fire. Two MG34 machine guns were placed inside the turret, which could be freely rearranged from one embrasure to another, but could not simultaneously occupy two adjacent embrasures. There should always be a minimum gap between them - one embrasure. The thickness of the turret armor was 255 mm. Towers of this type were also used on the East Wall and the Atlantic Wall, two major defensive lines of the Third Reich, more than 800 of them were produced in total.

In the destroyed part of the bunker there was another armored dome for the 50-mm M 19 fortress mortar, whose task was the close defense of the Panzerwerk. The range of the mortar was 20-600 meters with a rate of fire of 120 rounds per minute. The diagram of the mortar armored dome is shown in the figure.

14. In the picture you can see numerous consequences of the 1947 explosion, in particular the lopsided ceiling that fell into the bunker.

15. The personnel accommodation room is the only fully restored room in the bunker.

16. The facility was equipped with a forced ventilation system in which air was forced inside by air pumps, if necessary passing through the FVA. Thus, excess pressure was maintained inside the bunker, which prevented poisonous gases from penetrating inside. In case of power loss in the network, manually operated reserve fuel units were placed in many places inside the bunker, one of which you see in the photo.

17. Stairs to the lower level, behind which the destroyed part of the bunker is visible. To the left of the corridor are the command center and communications rooms.

18. The command center premises were not damaged by the explosion, but the inside is still empty.

19. From the command center you can get into the observation casemate, which was once equipped with a cone-shaped observation armored cap of the Type 90P9 type.

The armor thickness of this small armored dome was 120 mm. The dome had five slits for all-round observation and two optical instruments. This is what the observer's position looked like before the bunker exploded:

20. This is how it looks now.

21. At the end of the corridor there is another room in which the personnel were located. This room is located near the destroyed part of the bunker and was also damaged by the explosion.

22. Adjacent to the room is the lower level of the 21P7 type artillery observation armored tower, which was designed to accommodate artillery observers with optical rangefinders. Thus, the bunker could also be used for aiming and adjusting artillery fire. Unlike the machine gun turret, the 21Р7 turret did not have embrasures, only holes for observation devices and a periscope. By the presence of this turret, the B-Werk Katzenkopf differed from the standard design, according to which a similar structure was equipped with two identical six-embrasure machine gun turrets. This panzerwerk also had two machine-gun turrets, but the second one was located remotely and was connected to the underground tunnel bunker.

23. Absolutely nothing has survived from the artillery observation tower to this day.

24. The remaining rooms on the upper level were destroyed by the explosion. We go down to the lower level.

25. The lower level should be more interesting, since it was not damaged by the explosion.

At the lower level of the structure there were: ammunition depots (24, 25, 40), a kitchen (27) with a food warehouse (28), barracks for personnel equipped with emergency exits to the surface (29, 31), a lower level of a flamethrower installation (32) , staircase leading to the tern system (33), fuel storage for diesel generators (34), toilets (36) and shower (37), infirmary (38), engine room with two diesel generator sets (39) and a reservoir with a reserve water (41).

Let's see now what's left of all this.

26. In the corridor (35) there is a ladder leading to one of the rooms on the upper level.

27. The infirmary room was slightly damaged by the explosion.

28. At the end of the corridor there was one of the ammunition storage warehouses, across the wall from which there was an engine room with two diesel generator sets.

29. The bunker received electricity from an external network; diesel generators served only as a backup source of electricity in the event of a loss of voltage in the power cable. The power of each of the two four-cylinder diesel engines was 38 hp. In addition to lighting, electricity was needed for electric drives of the ventilation system, heating resistors, which was electric (and was supplemented by ordinary potbelly stoves). The kitchen equipment was also completely electric.

30. The diesel generator room also contains traces of an explosion. Almost nothing has survived from the equipment.

31. Ammunition depot.

32. Remains of the shower room.

33. Toilets.

34. Sewage equipment.

35. In this room (34) a supply of fuel for diesel engines was stored in the amount of 17,000 liters, with the expectation of a monthly autonomy.

36. We move to the second corridor (30) of the underground level.

37. Traces of destruction from the explosion are also visible here. The transition to the upper level through a ladder ladder is bricked up here

38. One of two rooms on the underground level, which housed beds for resting personnel (29). In the corner of the room there are two original filters from the facility’s filter and ventilation unit. In total, the bunker had six such filters in case of a gas attack. Behind the grated door is an emergency exit to the surface. It was originally of a completely different design, but as part of the bunker's restoration as a museum, it was remodeled to meet modern safety standards. It is also visible from the outside in photo 03.

39. The former ammunition depot houses modest displays to compensate for the emptiness that reigns around.

40. Information stands tell about the events of 75 years ago.

41. A kitchen room, only the sink remains of its equipment. Adjacent to the kitchen is a warehouse for storing food.

42. The second of two rooms for rest of personnel. Each room had eighteen beds in which the soldiers slept in shifts. In total, the bunker garrison numbered 84 people. Beds like the one in this picture were typical of all siegfried line bunkers from the smallest to the B-Werke.

43. This room also contains one of the emergency exits to the surface. It had a design that made it impossible to penetrate into the object from the surface. The D-shaped emergency exit shaft leading to the roof of the bunker with a ladder ladder inside was covered with sand. If there was a need to leave the bunker through the emergency exit, the wedges blocking the valves inside the barrel were pulled out and the sand poured out into the bunker, freeing the exit to the top. Approximately the same emergency exit design was used at Fort Schonenburg on the Maginot Line, only there was gravel instead of sand and it spilled not into the fort, but into a cavity inside the trunk.

This completes the inspection of the lower level. Everything that I have described up to this point was typical for all 32 Panzerwerke built, the differences were only in the details. But B-Werk Katzenkopf had an interesting feature that significantly distinguished it from the standard project, namely an additional third level, located deeper than the main structure.

The diagram below clearly shows the structure of the bunker and the lower underground level, located at a depth of twenty-five meters (the diagram is not to scale).

44. There is a ladder leading down like this.

45. This is perhaps the most interesting part of the bunker and the largest. There are no such open spaces anywhere else inside the facility.

46. ​​Initially it was planned to connect this panzerwerk with the Nimsberg panzerwerk. , located a kilometer away. The plans called for an electric narrow-gauge railway to be laid between both structures. Thus, both panzerwerks could form something similar to the forts of the Maginot Line or the objects of the Eastern Wall. But in 1940, Germany captured France, Belgium and Luxembourg and the need for the Western Wall disappeared, all construction work on the defensive line was stopped, including the construction of this postern.

47. To the side of the staircase, two posterns diverge, located at right angles to each other. The larger one was supposed to connect both panzerwerks. The smaller one leads to the combat block, located away from the main structure and consisting of a machine gun turret and an emergency exit.

Layout of the underground bunker level:

48. First, I headed along the smaller one. Its length is 75 meters.

49. The turn ends with a guard casemate covering the approach to the combat block. There is no armored door, as are all armored doors at the facility.

50. Inside the guard casemate there is an embrasure from which the tunnel was shot through and a device for manual ventilation of the casemate in the event of failure or stoppage of the bunker's electrical ventilation system.

51. This is what the apparatus for manual ventilation of a casemate looks like. Similar devices were installed at all important points in the bunker.

52. There is also a staircase leading to the combat block.

53. Climbing the stairs we find ourselves on the lower level. There is an emergency exit portal in the wall, which has a design typical for such objects. Through a hole in the ceiling, access was made to the machine-gun armored turret. This tower was a standard six-ambrasure type 20Р7, exactly the same as that installed in the main building. On the wall you can see fastenings for three beds - the tower crew was located in this room.

54. The tower itself was dismantled, like the rest of the armored domes of the facility, immediately after the end of the war. Now a concrete dummy has also been built here.

Here's what it looked like in the original:

55. There’s nothing more to see here, let’s go back to the fork.

56. Along the way there is such an opening in the blind. Apparently, the plans were to replenish the facility with another warhead, or one of the small bunkers located on this mountain was to be connected to the system. There is no way to know now.

57. Beautiful.

58. The ceiling height of the main porch is 3.5 meters. After the cramped interior of the Panzerwerk, this underground location seems simply huge.

59. Inside the unfinished main postern there is an exhibition of various WWII bombs and shells found in the region. There are information plaques on the wall telling the history of the site and the Siegfried Line as a whole.

60. Here in the wall there is another opening (on the left in the photo) similar to what we saw in the neighboring postern. But unlike the opening that is located in the turn leading to the armored turret, the purpose of this one is known. Fifty meters below the bunker there is a railway tunnel. At the time when they began to build this postern to unite both panzerwerks, there were plans to connect the underground system of passages with the railway tunnel that is located under the bunker. In this way, it was possible to transport ammunition and other ammunition into both bunkers completely unnoticed by rail. These plans were not destined to come true for the reasons described above.

61. At the end of the terna there is a small water supply casemate. Inside there is a well, 120 meters deep, and a powerful electric pump that pumps water from the well into the bunker’s water supply.

62. In the place where the postern breaks off, a small diorama has been built, which is not related to the bunker.

63. The bunker water supply pump has been preserved in relatively good condition.

64. The remains of some electrical equipment hang on the wall.

65. The inspection of the facility has come to an end and we are heading to the exit.

Finally, a few words about the history of this building. Combat duty at the facility began in August 1939 and lasted until May 1940, when France was captured. Service at the facility lasted from four to six weeks, after which the garrison went on rotation. After the capture of France, combat duty in the bunker was canceled, the facility was completely disarmed, and in order to maintain the technical systems in good working order, only one soldier was left in it to look after the facility.

In December 1944, an order was received to prepare the bunker for battle and move a garrison into it. But due to an acute shortage of people, it was possible to gather only 7 Wehrmacht soldiers and 45 people from the Hitler Youth, aged 14-16 years. In January, American troops approached the village of Irrel and began heavy shelling of the village and surrounding area, which continued for several weeks. In February, the Americans set to work on both panzerwerks, inflicting numerous air and artillery strikes on the targets. The demoralized garrison of the Panzerwerk left the facility at night through the emergency exit and the Americans who went inside found absolutely no one there, after which they blew up the entrances to the bunker so that no one could use it, and in 1947, as part of the demilitarization of Germany, all the metal was removed from the bunker and the bunker itself The bunker was blown up and covered with soil. It remained in this state for about thirty years, until in 1976 the local volunteer fire brigade took on its restoration and did a Herculean job to make the object accessible to visitors.

Huge armadas of Allied bombers literally leveled German industrial areas. To maintain production, the Nazis had to hide it underground, building cyclopean structures. The site has selected the five largest bunkers that the Germans built during World War II.

A giant for Hitler

The word Riese translates from German as “giant”, and it was the code chosen by the Nazis for the project to create a network of huge underground bunkers between 1943-1945. They were located in the territory of the Owl Mountains and Księż Castle in Lower Silesia, formerly Germany, now a territory of Poland.

Complex Rzeczka. Photo: wikipedia.org

It is believed that Project Riese was built as one of the giant weapons factories, but the lack of documentary evidence that survived World War II has historians still debating the purpose of this huge structure. Some sources suggest that all structures were part of the Fuhrer's headquarters.

In total, several huge complexes were built, which were supposed to be connected by tunnels. The approach of the Red Army prevented the Germans from finishing the construction of the complex. By this time, nine kilometers of underground tunnels had been built with an area of ​​25,000 m² and a volume of 100,000 m³.

Castle Ksenzh. Photo: wikipedia.org

The tunnels were supposed to connect the following objects: Księż Castle, the Rzeczka complex, a bunker inside the Włodarz Mountain, structures inside the Osówka Mountain, tunnels inside the Gontowa Mountain, a bunker inside a mountain near the village of Mittelberg, a complex in the Sobon Mountains, Jedlinka Palace and factories in Gluszyca.

"Giant" was one of the largest and most expensive projects of the Third Reich. Many underground rooms are completely or partially blocked, many are still simply unknown, and every now and then new evidence is found in the forests of the Owl Mountains that the Nazis were building something truly grandiose there.

Bauvorhaben 21

Another secret Wehrmacht dungeon, which was intended to house V-2 missiles, with which the Germans fired at the capital of England. The site chosen for the development was an abandoned quarry near the French village of Vizernet in the Pas-de-Calais department.

Photo: guerreshistoire. science-et-vie.com

The Germans planned to build a giant reinforced concrete dome with a thickness of 5.1 meters and a diameter of 71 meters, weighing 55,000 tons. Such a structure was invulnerable to conventional aerial bombs.

Under its protection, a huge underground complex for refueling and pre-launch preparation of V-2 missiles was to be built with a system of tunnels with a total length of 7.4 km, along which it was planned to lay a railway line leading to the launch pads in the quarry itself.

The expected rate of launch of V-2 missiles from under the dome was 30-50 missiles per day. Hitler wanted the construction to begin its work already in 1943, but this did not happen.

Having learned what a danger Bauvorhaben 21 posed, the Allies threw all their efforts into destroying it. Their constant raids greatly slowed down the progress of work. For example, in May 1944 alone, due to constant air raids, construction was interrupted 229 times. Despite this, the dome was not damaged, but the surrounding buildings and construction equipment were completely destroyed.

Desperate to destroy the dangerous structure, the Allies launched a series of attacks in June and July 1944 using the new 5-ton Tallboy seismic bombs. These bombs accelerated to supersonic speed and pierced the ground to a depth of 30 meters before detonation, producing the effect of an artificial earthquake. Although none of them was able to break through the dome, all construction sites were destroyed, making further work impossible.

Bauvorhaben 711

Bauvorhaben 711 is the name of a World War II military underground building built by the Nazis in 1943-1944. It was supposed to house a battery of V-3 cannons for shelling London.

It was originally codenamed Wiese ("Meadow") or Bauvorhaben 711 ("Building Project 711") and was located in the commune of Landretun-les-Nords in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France.

The complex was built mainly by German workers who were previously employed in large engineering and mining enterprises. The hardest work, which did not require high qualifications, was performed by concentration camp prisoners and prisoners of war.

The complex consisted of a network of tunnels dug under a chalk hill, connected to five inclined shafts. They were equipped with special V-3 guns. This name hides the ultra-long-range gun - Hochdruckpumpe ("Hochdruckpumpe") - a 150-mm multi-chamber artillery gun, also called the "High Pressure Pump", or, in soldier slang, the "Centipede".

Two batteries, consisting of 25 guns each, could fire 600 shells per hour (75 tons of steel and explosives) and literally bombard the entire coast of England with shells.

Work on the Bauvorhaben 711 was curtailed after the Allied landings in Normandy. Soon, on September 5, 1944, the complex was captured by the 3rd Infantry Division. The Allies did not encounter any resistance - the Germans abandoned the once secret structure in advance.

Keroman submarine base

This huge structure, built in 1941-1942, consists of giant reinforced concrete hangars capable of protecting thirty submarines from any weapon that existed at that time. The base is located at the tip of the Keroman Peninsula in the port of Lorient (Brittany, France) with access to the Bay of Biscay.

The very last bunker to be built was Keroman III; its construction lasted from October 1941 to January 1943. This made it possible to create seven more docks, they had direct access to deep water and could be used as “wet” or dry. The length of the docks was 170 m, width 135 m, depth 20 m; each dock was equipped with an overhead crane. The thickness of the concrete roof was more than 7 m.

Between 14 January 1943 and 17 February 1943, Allied aircraft dropped as many as 500 high explosive bombs and more than 60,000 incendiary bombs on Lorient. But it was all to no avail; they could not cause much damage to such massive fortifications. After the war, Lorient was used by French submarines as a protected repair base until 1997.

Bunker Eperlec

The construction of this structure was associated with Hitler's obsession with the "Retribution" weapon. The large underground complex was intended for pre-launch preparation and refueling of V-2 missiles. The bunker was supposed to be able to house up to 100 missiles and produce enough liquid oxygen to launch 36 missiles daily.

This is a German bunker in northern France, on the territory of the commune of Eperlec (Pas-de-Calais department). It consisted of three rooms. Its main part was 92 meters wide and 28 meters high. There was an oxygen plant and a hall for pre-launch preparation and assembly of missiles delivered from the warehouse. The top tier of the bunker was only six meters underground, so its walls were seven meters thick. Up to 108 disassembled missiles could be stored in the central part of the bunker.

Intense bombing by British and American air forces in 1943 led to partial destruction of the structure, and construction was eventually stopped.
The second room of the bunker was a fortified railway station where trains carrying missiles, warheads and fuel tanks into the complex were unloaded. The third element of the bunker was a 2,000 hp underground power station located separately in the north. With. and capable of generating up to 1.5 MW of energy.

When the Allies discovered the construction of a bunker, they could not determine its purpose, but decided to destroy it just in case. On August 27, 1943, 187 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers attacked the construction site.

During the half-hour bombardment, a total of 368,910 kg bombs were dropped. The Allies finally finished off German weapons on July 17, 1944, when they used their new weapons for the first time - 5-ton Tallboy bombs.

Switzerland was also preparing for World War II, fearing an attack by Nazi Germany. For this purpose, a whole network of bomb shelters and bunkers was created in the Alps. In total there were about eight thousand. It was a secret fortress in case of Hitler's attack. During the Cold War, this underground world only flourished: the government actively invested in maintaining existing bunkers and building new ones.

Only towards the end of the 20th century did this process cease as unnecessary, and many military facilities were opened to the public. I present to your attention photographs by photographer Reto Sterchi, who studied the Swiss dungeons in detail.

Camouflaged bunker entrance, Fort Ospizio

As a child, Reto often played near the river at the foot of the Alps, where one of the bunkers could be seen from the water. “It looked like a boulder, but there was a machine gun sticking out of it,” says the photographer. “I thought: what the hell could be inside? But we were forbidden to approach him.”

Descent into the bunker, Fort Waldbrand

He managed to find out for the first time what this “boulder with a machine gun” was only at the age of 20, when he served in the army. During the training, the sergeant ordered the soldiers to go down into the bunker: “We walked three hundred steps down and suddenly we were inside the mountain.”

Rifle corridor, Fort Waldbrand

“One day my friend and I got lost. It took a long time to find our way back."

Officer's office, Fort Waldbrand

In 2010, Reto began exploring the dungeons in earnest, wanting to uncover all their secrets.

Soldier's sleeping quarters, Fort Waldbrand

There was very little information on the Internet about Swiss bunkers: “I realized that there are practically no photographs of bunkers on the Internet and I should be the one to fix it.”

Entrance to the underground hospital, Fort Langnau

Although the government declassified the bunkers in the late 1990s, they were still difficult to access. The military was reluctant to reveal their secrets.

Medical bed, Fort Cindy

“Soldiers and officers told me stories about the imminent Russian invasion and tried in every possible way to prevent me from entering.”

Telephone booth, Fort Naters

Some bunkers and bomb shelters were sold. They were converted into museums, hotels, cheese factories and mushroom farms.

Underground hospital, Fort Langnau

The first bunker that Reto visited as part of his “Swiss Mountain Myth” project belonged to an eccentric entrepreneur. He loved driving through tunnels in his Ferrari, and one of the rooms was a James Bond-style armory.

Observation post, Fort Greenau

“I was forbidden to film inside this bunker.”

Soldiers' Mess, Fort Furggels

While working on the project, the photographer realized how many stories these walls hold. Since the cessation of operation, nothing has changed in the bunkers, as if people had left them just a few days ago.

Control Centre, Fort St. Stephen

Menu signs still hang in the canteens, and first aid stations are equipped with the necessary equipment.

Meeting room, Fort Sasso da Pigna

Regardless of the size and location of the bunkers, they all looked kitschy. The walls inside are painted either pistachio, sometimes pink, sometimes mustard, which in no way fit with the military strictness.

Radio system, Fort Waldbrand

According to Reto, this was done not at all in pursuit of beauty, but so that a long stay underground would not be so oppressive. Everything else has been very well thought out and organized with a focus on functionality.

Entrance to Fort Sasso da Pigna

Now that Reto has studied the dungeons of Switzerland in detail, he realized that there is no sacred meaning in them. These are ordinary military installations, built to protect the government and population of the country from the Nazi invasion.