Berlin Underground

Yesterday, after our placement exam and tour of the FU campus, we got a tour of the Berlin Underground. And I don't mean underground like music scene, but rather, bunkers that were used in WWII and the Cold War for civilian protection.

Verena and Luis, the two student assistants at FU BEST, took us across town to Gesundbrunnen, where and organization called Berliner Unterwelten runs tours of an old bunker complex that was used during WWII and the Cold War.


[Thomas, our tour guide for the bunkers]

We began in one of the gas locks, which would have been used when a there was a gas attack on Berlin, to get gas out of that chamber so that people could safely enter the bunker. But, gas attacks were not used on Berlin in WWII...


[The gas-lock doors]

Our guide explained to us the history of the bunkers, and also interesting facts about how they were operated, how they wouldn't have held up had they been directly hit by a bomb in WWII, how they definitely would not have helped against a nuclear attack, and how they only protected 10% of the population of Berlin.


[Walking through the bunker...]

One of the cooler parts of the tours was a demonstration of how the phosphorus covered walls worked as glow in the dark paint. Some rooms and most of the signs used this paint in the case of a black-out, so that people could still find their way in the dark.

Another pretty interesting part of the tour was how the bunker was connected to the subway station. At one point, we left what looked like a normal door from the bunker and ended up right at the U-Bahn station. We then walked through the station and into another door, which basically looked like it could be a door to a mechanical room, that lead to the other part of the bunker. Just makes you think about how many underground bunkers and tunnels there can be all over Berlin...


[Walking from the normal subway station into another part of the bunker]