Faced with the deteriorating security situation in Europe, the Swiss army is examining the possibility of reactivating its former military bunkers.
Despite its longstanding policy of neutrality, Switzerland has thousands of old army shelters on its territory – some deactivated and others used for civilian purposes.
But now they could be re-deployed by the military.
According to a report by RTS public broadcaster, “The exact number of underground military installations in Switzerland is unknown. Historical sources mention approximately 20,000 “defence sites,”
In addition, there are about 9 million protected spaces distributed across approximately 370,000 private and public shelters, according to the website of the Federal Office for Civil Protection.
READ MORE: What does Swiss government want you to know about bomb shelters?
Underground facilities
Army bunkers – many of them concealed in the countryside or in the mountains – were once used as underground supply facilities, ammunition depots, command posts, and even military hospitals, as well as protected air bases.
They were ‘active’ during WWII and then during the Cold War, but the government began to de-mobilise’ them after the fall of the Iron Curtain in the early 1990s.
Many of them subsequently fell into private hands and morphed from army bases to underground hotels, banquet halls, seminar centres, museums, stables, storage rooms for cheese, and in at least one case, a shelter for sensitive digital data.
The return of the ‘Bunker Mentality’
Now, however, the army is considering resurrecting these bunkers again.
As the RTS reported, the Federal Defence Department’s “need for protection, resilience, and secure storage has increased.*
“A study will determine how underground military installations could be reactivated in a manner adapted to current needs and available resources,” the broadcaster added, but “the primary objective is to find secure storage spaces for supplies, spare parts, medicines, electronic equipment, hazardous materials, and ammunition.”
