civil protection
The head of the Federal Office is skeptical about the new construction of bunkers
In Hamburg there are still hundreds of underground and above-ground air raid shelters – like here in Feldstrasse. photo
© Daniel Bockwoldt/dpa
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the question of protective bunkers has also come up again in Germany. BBK boss Tiesler sees an alternative to new buildings.
The President of the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK), Ralph Tiesler, is skeptical about building new bunkers for civil protection. “Building new bunker systems with a very high level of protection costs a lot of money and, above all, a lot of time,” he told the “Tagesspiegel”. “It takes years.” He thought it would make more sense to think about other concepts. “Which subway stations or underground car parks are suitable, for example, to seek shelter? We want to get an overview of that too.”
The Russian attack on Ukraine and its consequences have raised the question of how well civil protection in Germany is prepared for crisis situations such as power failures or even a war scenario. One cannot avoid the question “what it would mean if one day there was war again on German soil,” Tiesler said in the interview.
Shelter processing stopped in March
Not only the sirens to warn the population were dismantled in many places after the end of the Cold War. In 2007 it was decided to wind down the public shelters – this process was halted in March of that year. An inventory of the remaining bunkers and protective cellars is currently being carried out.
“By the end of the year we want to have an overview of which shelters are still there,” said Tiesler. “Over the course of the next year we want to know which of these can theoretically be reactivated. It would certainly make sense to include the remaining shelters in the civil defense system again, so that the federal government can also use the spaces in the event of a crisis.” But that is a political decision. At the same time, Tiesler pointed out that in the past there had “never been more shelters for more than three percent of the population”.