Cologne-Kalk civil protection bunker

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The Kalk Post underground station of the Cologne light rail system (2008)

The civil defense bunker Köln-Kalk (civil defense multi-purpose facility on Kalker Hauptstrasse) was built in 1979 for 2366 people who were supposed to survive there for 14 days in the event of a nuclear war . The bunker is a relic of the Cold War and the only completely preserved civil defense system in Cologne.

history

At the end of the 1970s, nine to ten underground civil defense systems were planned in Cologne. In the Rudolfplatz underground station , there were still some parts of the building that are no longer accessible. The Kalk plant was the only one to be completed. The building was not designed as protection against direct hits with nuclear weapons , but it was intended to provide protection against falling debris and radioactive fallout.

The civil defense bunker was built in 1979 at the same time as the Kalk Post underground station on Kalker Hauptstrasse and, together with the railway station, forms the multi-purpose civil defense facility on Kalker Hauptstrasse over two floors . The construction of the plant cost an estimated seven million marks. It was able to be hermetically sealed with gas-tight tunnel closures and sealed off by around 40 centimeters thick, armored steel doors from the Heintzmann ironworks in Bochum .

Inside, 2366 people should be able to get to safety for two weeks in the event of a nuclear attack ; the facility should also protect against biological and chemical weapons . In the actual bunker, which is encased with 1.40 meter thick concrete, a 75 meter long corridor leads to the rooms in which the care of the people was to be organized: a first aid room , an infirmary - also suitable for operations - and 354 four-story seat-lounger combinations and food rations. The area of ​​the bunker extends over 4000 square meters, which corresponds to 1.7 square meters per person. According to the emergency plan, camp beds for 354 people should be set up in front of the kiosk in the entrance area and on the platforms, and trams should enter the stop from both sides in an emergency and also serve as quarters for 432 people. In the event of a breakdown in the public supply system, pumps should pump drinking water from their own well and a huge ship's engine should generate electricity, including for the complicated ventilation system.

Robert Schwienbacher, the chairman of the Cologne Documentation Center for the Cold War, assumes that the bunker could only have served its purpose as a shelter for people if the nuclear attack had been announced two weeks in advance. He assumes that it could not have been put into operation if the operating team had not arrived on time. Only those passing through the Deutz / Trimbornstrasse traffic junction should be allowed in, while residents should have their own private shelters . It remained unclear how people would have survived in a destroyed and contaminated environment after two weeks in the bunker after an attack.

Documentation site of the Cold War

In 2005 the bunker was decommissioned and the technical systems have not been serviced since then. The rooms were originally intended to be used as storage from 2014. However, the bunker has been open for inspection since 2016, currently on the first Sunday of the month (as of 2019). Since there is a long waiting list of interested parties, a virtual 3D tour was created that can be viewed on the Internet. The property is looked after on a voluntary basis by the association "Documentation Center Cold War", a spin-off of the Cologne Fortress Museum, which looks after Prussian forts and bunkers from the Second World War.

literature

  • Robert Schwienbacher: Civil defense survive in the Cold War in the multipurpose Kalk-Post facility . Self-published, Cologne 2016.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Insights into the Museum Night: This is the nuclear shelter in Cologne-Kalk. In: Kölnische Rundschau . October 23, 2017. Retrieved January 26, 2018 .
  2. ^ A b c Tobias Christ: Atomic bunker in Cologne-Kalk: Survival in the Kalker underground. In: ksta.de. January 27, 2013, accessed January 26, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Entry by Franz-Josef Knöchel on the civil defense system and nuclear bunker in the Kalk Post underground station in the " KuLaDig " database of the Rhineland Regional Association , accessed on January 26, 2018.
  4. ↑ a b Tobias Christ, Charlotte Möllers: Searching for traces in Cologne: The secret of the Kalk Post underground station. In: ksta.de. August 19, 2016. Retrieved January 26, 2018 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 15 ″  N , 6 ° 59 ′ 55 ″  E