Bunker in Albania

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Typical bunker in the Valbona Valley in the Albanian Alps in the north of the country

The bunkers in Albania were mainly built between 1972 and 1984, when around 200,000 bunkers were built under the rule of Enver Hoxha in socialist Albania . The bunkers were intended to defend the country in the event of an invasion by foreign troops. The round, mushroom-like pillbox bunkers , visible everywhere, were, along with other bunker structures, the most important military facility built in Albania during the socialist regime. They shaped the landscape in many places during the 1980s and 1990s and can still be seen frequently today.

background

Bunker on the coast of the Ionian Sea

After Albania broke with the socialist states of Eastern Europe in 1961 and withdrew from the Warsaw Pact in 1968 as a reaction to the invasion of Czechoslovakia , the rulers in Tirana feared that Albania could also be occupied by the former allies. Alongside the revisionists in the east, the Albanians had long feared the American and British imperialists in the west. All neighbors were viewed as enemies in Albania: with Greece in the south they were still at war, with the Yugoslavs in the north the relationship was also very tense and Italy in the west across the Adriatic  had already invaded Albania in 1939. In the 1950s, agents and anti-communist resistance fighters, supported by the USA and Great Britain, repeatedly came across the sea. The government felt it was imperative to prepare against a possible invasion, and not only had to be self-sufficient in times of war.

"Defending the fatherland is a duty above all other duties."

- Albanian state propaganda in the 1970s

The alliance with the People's Republic of China in the second half of the 1960s also resulted in an ideological and cultural revolution in Albania. A major purge of military and administrative bureaucracies followed in the 1970s. The personality cult around Enver Hoxha, whose paranoia steadily increased for fear of foreign intrigues and conspiracies, grew stronger and stronger. Foreign, especially Western influences were openly combated in all areas of life and especially in culture; The highest military officials were tried, for example Defense Minister Beqir Balluku , who had prepared plans with the Chinese to withdraw into the mountains in the event of an attack. Hoxha, on the other hand, took the position that every inch of Albanian soil must be defended. At the 7th Party Congress in 1976 it was reaffirmed that great and determined work was necessary to fully understand the dangers of encirclement by the imperialists and revisionists. The party congress demanded that the party and the people should always be alert and vigilant and consider the defense of the fatherland as the highest duty above all other duties, based on the Marxist-Leninist principles of arming the whole people and preparing them for defense. “All this turned the early 1970s into the era of a new domestic political ice age with a series of comprehensive purges.” ( Michael Schmidt-Neke : Südosteuropa-Handbuch Volume VII: Domestic Policy).

In 1976, Albania adopted a rigid Marxist-Leninist constitution that strengthened the Labor Party's position as the leading power in state and society and prohibited foreign loans. In 1978 Albania reacted to reforms after Mao's death (1976) by breaking off relations with China completely. The small country of less than three million people had completely isolated itself from the rest of the world and was launching an extensive, guerrilla- based defense program that included massive piles of weapons, including chemical weapons , and the construction of hundreds of thousands of concrete military bunkers.

Construction of the bunker

Group of three small pillboxes in Durrës
Larger artillery bunker

Hoxha's goal was to build a bunker for every four Albanians, for a total of 750,000. There is no evidence as to whether this figure has actually been achieved. The exact number is unknown. Estimates ranged from 350,000 bunkers to 745,145 bunkers and more. A list that emerged in 2014 noted that by 1983, shortly before the end of the main construction phase, only 173,371 fortifications had been built.

With the bunkers scattered everywhere, the tactics of guerrilla or partisan warfare that the Albanian resistance  pursued in the mountainous regions during World War II should be able to be implemented throughout the country. Every Albanian, a large part of the population were reservists , was assigned a bunker which he had to go to in the event of an attack. The small bunkers were within sight of a larger one, which was supposed to be constantly manned and from which commands were passed on to the small bunkers.

The bunkers were built all over the country, especially along the borders and the seashore and thus also in remote mountain regions. In addition to the border areas, bunkers were built in a concentrated manner in other strategic locations such as passes, bridges and around cities or military installations. Several parallel lines of bunkers were built in some places. Most of the construction time fell between 1972 and 1984. The bunkers were built to be solid and mobile with the intention of being able to place them in a previously dug hole with a crane or helicopter.

The concrete elements for the bunkers were prefabricated centrally. The costs represented an immense burden for Albania. According to calculations, between 1977 and 1981 they cost two percent of the net domestic product annually . Other sources put the cost at twice the amount of the French Maginot Line built before World War II . Three times as much concrete was required for the bunkers. Defense spending in Albania amounted to an estimated eight to ten percent of national income in the 1980s .

The development of a prototype for the bunker took two years and was completed in 1968. According to tradition, Enver Hoxha then asked the chief engineer how confident he was that he would withstand a tank attack. The engineer replied that he was very confident. Hoxha then demanded that he stay in his bunker while he was being shot at by a tank. After the successful test, the bunkers went into mass production. People involved in the construction, however, said that a test with human subjects never took place.

An important role in the construction of the bunkers is generally attributed to the later President Alfred Moisiu . Moisiu embarked on a military career after graduating in military science in 1958. From 1971 he was Deputy Minister of Defense. Under the ministers Beqir Balluku , Mehmet Shehu and Kadri Hazbiu he held this post until October 1982. During this time Moisiu was also head of the directorate for engineering and fortifications. Moisiu had received the order from Enver Hoxha to build bunkers all over the country. The bunkering of Albania, which overused the weak economy, resulted in disaster, and less than a year after Shehu's death, Moisiu was the victim of a final wave of party cadre purges in the wake of Hazbiu. Moisiu was ousted and sent to Burrel , where he commanded an engineering company from 1982 to 1984. As president, he later suggested  using the bunkers for mushroom cultivation .

consequences

Bunker in the city center of Shkodra (2001)

The many bunkers, a contaminated site that characterizes the country to this day, underlined the xenophobic party doctrine of constant danger from abroad and the country's policy of isolation. Above all, it was an expensive challenge for the weak, underdeveloped and self-sufficient Albanian economy. The necessary reinforced concrete could have been urgently needed for building houses or for other infrastructure projects.

Types

There are three main types of bunkers: small bunkers for one soldier, small bunkers for around four people and larger bunkers, which mostly housed artillery pieces . They all have their own round lids on circular floor plans. The round shape was supposedly chosen so that bullets ricochet off it. Other authors distinguish between six different types of combat bunkers and the larger combat bunkers, which existed in three types.

The small bunker, a machine gun pillbox, was three meters in diameter. An opening that was often enough aimed at another bunker served as a loopholes . The dome was on a circular wall that was usually sunk into the ground; In the small cavity about 1.80 meters high, a person could stand up straight. The space in front of an external wall was filled with earth. Access was through a short concrete tunnel, which partly led to a concrete corridor, which connected three bunkers with each other.

The large bunkers consisted only of a large dome, which was composed of various prefabricated segments. These segments each weighed around eight to nine tons and were around 1.3 meters thick. The interior has a diameter of six meters. The concrete domes only had one exit, some of which could be closed with concrete gates.

Scheme of a small bunker Scheme of a large bunker
Scheme of a small bunker
Scheme of a large bunker
Aircraft cavern in Gjadër in Northern Albania

There were also many other types, each adapted to the particular circumstances of the locality: observation stands on the beach, caverns dug into the mountain and ammunition depots, rectangular concrete bunkers covered with earth, large underground command bunkers such as that of the Politburo in Linza , underground facilities for them Navy such as the submarine bunker in Porto Palermo and a facility in Shëngjin as well as underground aircraft caverns for the air force in Gjadër in northern Albania and in Kuçova . The construction of the first defensive structures began on a modest scale at the end of the 1940s.

today

Bunker used as a residential building between Durrës and Tirana (1994)
"Bunkeri" restaurant in Durrës

The bunkers are no longer used for military purposes. Most of them rot to themselves, slowly decay, were filled with waste or sought out to relieve themselves. They are hardly destructible witnesses of the socialist regime, even if many have slipped or are overgrown by the vegetation. In a poor country like Albania there is often a lack of funds to remove the bunkers. They are used by lovers for rendezvous and in some extreme cases as a home for internal migrants. Farmers use them as stalls for chickens and other animals or as material stores. In individual cases, bunkers were painted, larger ones were used for restaurants or shops, and in Gjirokastra a bunker was marked with a cross and used as a chapel.

The bunkers are less and less visible in Albania. Some of them are removed to make room for new buildings, or they disappear behind new buildings or under plants. In 2011, the Albanian government passed a decree calling for the destruction of bunkers: owners can remove the bunkers that are actually owned by the state from their properties. Unemployed people deliberately destroy bunkers in order to get to the steel in them, which is then resold. Around six meters of steel rods , but sometimes even two tons of steel, are stuck in a bunker. For this purpose, bunkers are illegally blown up in remote areas.

The Albanian Army used Type 59 tanks in 2009 to remove bunkers from beaches. The bunkers, which are now partially in the water, generated currents that could be dangerous for bathers.

Again and again, the bunkers are the subject of artistic work. The film Kolonel Bunker by Kujtim Çashku, produced in 1996, is about the construction of the bunker and the colonel responsible for it. The film was shot in 1995 in Tale on the northern Albanian coast. In Tirana, a bunker became part of the Postbllok monument , commemorating socialism, and three bunkers were used to create a temporary stage for an alternative art space. An annual music festival near Tirana has made Bunker its motto and integrated some functionally into the festival area.

The large Enver Hoxhas guide bunker at the foot of the Dajtis near Linza east of Tirana was temporarily opened to the public at the end of 2014. The history and art museum called Bunk'Art in the complex with over 100 rooms from the 1970s has been permanently open since April 2016. On November 19, 2016, Bunk'Art 2 was opened in the center of the capital . In this former bunker of the Interior Ministry, the focus of the exhibition is on the history of this Ministry and the Sigurimi , the political police.

For foreigners in particular, the bunkers have become a kind of national symbol of Albania, which is sold to tourists in replicas made of stone or wood. Locals are far less interested in the bunkers than tourists. Albania's booth at Expo 2000 in Hanover was modeled on a bunker. Two Albanian students developed concepts for using the bunkers as accommodation, kiosks, information centers, toilets or cafes. In Gjirokastra the underground command bunker can be visited. In cooperation with Albanian colleagues, German students realized tourist accommodation in larger artillery bunkers on the northern Albanian coast in 2012. They would like to expand the project across Albania, but there were major problems even before the opening, which was ultimately canceled.

  • Painted bunker in Pogradec

  • Converted, painted bunker with extensions on the Adriatic coast

  • Undermined bunker in Valbona , Albanian Alps

  • Part of the Postbllok memorial in Tirana

  • Bunk'Art - underground passage in the facility

literature

  • Elian Stefa, Gyler Mydyti (Eds.): Concrete Mushrooms. Reusing Albania's 750,000 Abandoned Bunkers . dpr-barcelona, ​​Barcelona 2012, ISBN 978-84-615-9870-0 ( preview on Google Books ).
  • Gyler Mydyti, Elian Stefa: Concrete Mushrooms: Bunkers in Albania (monograph) . Milan 2009 ( blog.concrete-mushrooms.com ).
  • Olia Miho: Concrete Cathedrals: Reinterpreting, Reoccupying, and Representing the Albanian Bunkers . University of Cincinnati, Department of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, Cincinnati 2012 ( issuu.com ).
  • Hetum Gruber : htmrbr: Cold Front - Bunker in Albania . In: Kulturhaus Osterfeld (ed.): Osterfeld booklets . No. 2 . Penn-Club 2000, Pforzheim 1999, ISBN 3-89259-010-9 .

Web links

Commons : Bunker in Albania  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Miranda Vickers, James Pettifer: Albania - From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity . New York University Press, New York 1997, ISBN 0-8147-8794-0 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Gyler Mydyti, Elian Stefa: Concrete Mushrooms: Bunkers in Albania (monograph) . Milan 2009 ( blog.concrete-mushrooms.com ).
  3. ↑ Overview of Greece. In: kreta-reise.info. Retrieved December 29, 2011 .
  4. ↑ a b Gillian Gloyer: Bradt Albania (Bradt Travel Guide Albania) . 2nd Edition. Bradt Travel Guides, Chalfont St. Peter 2006, ISBN 1-84162-149-8 .
  5. ↑ a b c Paul Lendvai : The lonely Albania. Report from the land of the Skipetars . Edition Interfrom, Zurich 1985, ISBN 3-7201-5177-8 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e Michael Schmidt-Neke : domestic policy . In: Klaus-Detlev Grothusen (Hrsg.): Albanien (=  Südosteuropa-Handbuch ). tape VII . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-525-36207-2 , pp. 57-85 .
  7. ^ Neil Olsen: Albania . Issue 21 of the Country Profiles Series. Oxfam, Oxford 2000, ISBN 0-85598-432-5 ( Google Books ).
  8. ^ Victorious March Toward Communism Described (Zëri i Popullit, 27 Nov 1977) . In: US Joint Publications Research Service (Ed.): Translations on Eastern Europe - Political, Sociological, and Military Affairs . No. 1489 , December 28, 1977, p. 4–7 ( online version ).
  9. ^ Joby Warrick: Albania's Chemical Cache Raises Fears About Others . In: The Washington Post . January 10, 2005 ( article online ( Memento from May 30, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )).
  10. ^ A b c d Daniel Howden: Albania's Relics of Paranoid Past . In: BBC News . July 5, 2002 ( article online ).
  11. ↑ Elian Stefa, Gyler Mydyti (Ed.): Concrete Mushrooms. Reusing Albania's 750,000 Abandoned Bunkers . dpr-barcelona, ​​Barcelona 2012, ISBN 978-84-615-9870-0 ( preview on Google Books ).
  12. ^ Stephan Ozsváth: On a night under Albanian concrete. In: tagesschau.de. September 22, 2012, archived from the original on September 25, 2012 ; Retrieved December 9, 2012 : “One of several hundred thousand scattered across the country - memorials of paranoia. How many there are is difficult to say. 'We have now agreed to say that there could be a total of 350,000 bunkers. The size and design of the bunkers are different, 'says FH lecturer Markus Pretnar. "
  13. ↑ a b c d e f g h Markus Pretnar (Ed.): Bed & Bunker Documentation . Conversion of a former gun bunker in Albania. Köllen Druck & Verlag, Mainz January 2013 ( issuu.com ).
  14. ↑ It's too hard to record the bunkers over the Albanian map! In: Concrete Mushrooms. October 19, 2009, accessed October 21, 2012 .
  15. ^ Solveig Grothe: Bunkerland Albania. All for cover . In: One day . August 6, 2012 ( article on Spiegel Online [accessed October 21, 2012]).
  16. ↑ a b Admirina Peci: Ekskluzive / Hapet dosja, ja harta e bunkereve e tuneleve sekrete. In: Shqiptarja.com. December 5, 2014, accessed December 6, 2014 (Albanian, video report ).
  17. ↑ Duncan Geere: Albania's nuclear bunkers given new life. (No longer available online.) In: Wired.co.uk. July 16, 2010, archived from the original on January 5, 2012 ; accessed on January 1, 2012 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wired.co.uk
  18. ↑ a b c d Albania's legacy: “Indestructible” bunkers become love nests (picture gallery). (No longer available online.) In: Der Standard . April 3, 2009, archived from the original on September 12, 2011 ; Retrieved January 11, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / derstandard.at
  19. ↑ a b c Blendi Fevziu: Alfred Moisiu, President i Republikes. In: Koha Jonë . November 28, 2002, archived from the original on April 17, 2012 ; Retrieved January 12, 2012 (Albanian).
  20. ^ Alfred Moisiu: Curriculum Vitae. Archived from the original on November 27, 2010 ; accessed on December 29, 2011 .
  21. ^ Rüdiger Schaper : The Albanian friend. In: Der Tagesspiegel . December 21, 2002, accessed January 12, 2012 .
  22. ↑ Elira Çanga: Albania's Stalinist Bunkers Gain New Lease Of Life. In: BalkanInsight. December 3, 2010, accessed January 12, 2012 .
  23. ↑ Siobhan Darrow: Albania littered with symbolism in the form of bunkers. (No longer available online.) In: CNN . March 18, 1997, formerly in the original ; accessed on January 1, 2012 (English).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / articles.cnn.com  
  24. ^ Report from France 3 from 2008 Documentary FRANCEZ Per BUNKERET SHQIPETARE ABCStory Nentor 2013. Retrieved on April 3, 2012 .
  25. ↑ Vera Sacchetti: Mapping Bunkers - Photo-essay Alicja Dobrucka. In: Domus. April 3, 2012, accessed April 3, 2012 .
  26. ↑ Witold Szabłowski: The departure of Hoxha's bunkers. In: VoxEurop.eu. August 3, 2012, accessed February 5, 2016 .
  27. ↑ Albanian tanks rid beaches of 'nightmare' Cold War bunkers. In: Space War. July 22, 2009, accessed December 29, 2011 .
  28. ↑ Colonel Bunker. In: Orafilm. Retrieved January 1, 2012 .
  29. ↑ Colonel Bunker. Internet Movie Database , accessed May 22, 2015 .
  30. ^ Sign on the memorial with a description of the work
  31. ↑ Concrete In Common - Albania's Bunker Legacy. In: Kunstraum Riehen. Archived from the original on June 9, 2012 ; Retrieved September 23, 2012 .
  32. ↑ Bunker Festival. Archived from the original on June 10, 2014 ; accessed on June 20, 2012 .
  33. ↑ Bunk'Art - Info. In: Facebook. Retrieved May 30, 2016 .
  34. ↑ Albania. Bunkers. In: Didier Ruef Photography. 2003, accessed January 12, 2012 .
  35. ↑ AlbInfo: Gjirokastra. In: albanien.ch. 2015, accessed May 30, 2016 .
  36. ↑ Stephan Ozsváth / ARD radio: On a night under Albanian concrete. Architecture students convert bunkers. In: tagesschau.de. September 22, 2012, archived from the original on September 25, 2012 ; Retrieved September 23, 2012 .
  37. ↑ No Big Opening. In: Bed & Bunker. University of Applied Sciences Mainz, September 28, 2012, archived from the original on February 21, 2014 ; Retrieved on December 9, 2012 (English): "For unclear reasons and circumstances we had to stop our work and leave Tale at the 20th of September."