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“USA versus Soviet Union, Federal Republic of Germany versus GDR.
East against West.
That was the situation at the time, ”explains Peter Pfeifer right at the beginning of his bunker inspection in the Cond district of Cochem.
Break.
“The Cold War was raging back then…” Pfeifer looks serious before smiling and briefly changing the subject: “Speaking of cold: it's always cool in the bunker.
Twelve degrees all year round. "
Pfeifer is one of twelve tour guides for the Bundesbank bunker, which was perhaps the best-kept secret in Germany between 1966 and 1988.
In 1966, Freddy Quinn sang “Hundert Mann und ein Orders”, Germany lost with Uwe Seeler in the final of Wembley, the almost forgotten Kurt Georg Kiesinger just became Federal Chancellor, and dark vehicles from Frankfurt drove up in Cochem.
The three keys and the combination for the combination lock for the safe were ultimately only available to the auditors at the Bundesbank headquarters in Frankfurt, who came to Cochem in Rhineland-Palatinate at irregular intervals.
For example, the following was noted: “04.
December 1966, 100 sacks of 20,000 DM each added. "
Emergency money was stored in the bunker in Cochem
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Peter Pfeifer tells the bunker story like an agent thriller.
Even when he was at the Bundesbank he was a caretaker, he knows every corner of the underground fortress.
Today he takes his guests into the 80 meter long access tunnel to the heart of the bunker on a journey back in time to the years of the Cold War and the fear of an atomic attack that was circulating at the time.
"The task of the bunker was to be a secret and technically well-secured storage facility for an emergency currency so that politicians could have acted immediately in the event of an absolute crisis."
View into a corridor of the underground bunker in Cochem
Source: picture alliance / dpa
Petra Reuter, the owner and operator of the bunker, adds: "The secret and still little-known emergency series should help, for example, to cope with a national crisis in the Cold War - triggered by hyperinflation, in other words, counterfeit money glut from the East." The Germans demonstrated this in World War II when they brilliantly forged English pound notes, an action that later became known as "Enterprise Bernhard".
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German emergency currency?
Cold War?
Crisis?
Sounds like it was out of time, but from 1966 the bunker in Cochem was actually the depository of the substitute currency worth 15 billion D-Marks.
Your name: BBkII - Bundesbank, II. Series.
“You can purchase facsimile sets of BBkII banknotes at the cash register,” says Pfeifer.
"7.50 euros for four notes of ten, 20, 50 and 100 DM is a good deal, isn't it?"
Before Corona, fear of viruses on bills
The facility officially functioned as a training and recreation center for Bundesbank employees until 1994, which was located in two camouflaged houses.
On sunny days they had a good time by the outdoor pool with a bottle of Moselle wine and guarded the facility without their knowledge.
The pool and plain exterior facade offered perfect camouflage, while sensitive alarm sensors kept watch inside the bunker.
The bunker itself was only known to everyone in the village as an air raid shelter.
The communication devices in the bunker were up to date at the time they were used
Source: REUTERS
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"In any case, the emergency currency should ensure that confidence in the mark and in the economy would not have been lost." Pfeifer pauses for a moment: "The fear of viruses and bacteria on banknotes was also a reason to have the replacement series ready." Corona sends its regards.
As the highest currency guardian, the Bundesbank had to take care of all of this.
Similarity to the D-Mark should encourage trust
Every year around 35,000 visitors come to experience the globally unique bunker and vault system.
In 35 to 40 minutes you will be guided through the underworlds of the former billionaire empire.
Heavy steel vault doors open.
The reinforced door to the main safe is even made of eight tons of reinforced concrete.
Peter Pfeifer smiles: He opens the heavy safe door with just one finger - “really easy!
You just have to know the code. "
While the backs of the BBkII notes showed geometric shapes, the fronts were designed similarly to those of the D-Mark
Source: REUTERS
Then the time has come: the BBkII copies are neatly stacked and nicely presented in the bunker treasure - almost like the real replacement series once did.
“15 billion is a number that is easy to say, but difficult to imagine.
The enormous amount can only be guessed at in this 60 meter long main safe, where the money was piled up to the ceiling, ”explains Petra Reuter and shows one of the replacement hundred bills.
Even if the replacement series is intuitively familiar to many, you will look in vain for monuments like those on the Deutsche Mark, such as the Lübeck Holstentor on the 50 DM note.
Geometric shapes determine the look of the back.
The front side, however, was deliberately designed to be similar to the D-Mark in terms of motif and color, in other words: it was designed to promote trust as possible.
The nuclear shelter was strategically located
“In an emergency, the plan was to swap the current D-Mark for the replacement series within 14 days.
The bunker was also a nuclear shelter in which it would have been possible to survive much longer, ”says the bunker operator.
With a water supply of 40,000 liters, a deep well, bunkered food supplies, diesel tanks, communication, electricity and ventilation technology, it could have been months.
Months in which up to 175 people, completely cut off from the outside world and self-sufficient, could have survived.
There were only beds for the bankers, however, and even they should have slept in shifts.
The Bundesbank's nuclear bunker stood on the Moselle
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The bedrooms in the former Bundesbank bunker in Cochem (Rhineland-Palatinate).
Source: dpa
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The underground fortress had a decontamination room to protect against nuclear radiation.
Source: dpa
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The ventilation was also designed to withstand a nuclear attack.
Source: dpa
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The communication room of the bunker, in which around 15 billion D-Marks were stored in a substitute currency.
Source: dpa
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If the D-Mark had lost its value, the money would have replaced the German currency through smuggled counterfeit money.
The photo shows the dining room.
Source: dpa
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An office space.
Source: dpa
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The former "billion dollar safe" is opened to visitors by the owners Petra and Manfred Reuter.
Source: dpa
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The Bundesbank and the federal government, which at the same time built their own government bunker near Ahrweiler near the then capital Bonn, planned the project under Federal Chancellor Adenauer in the mid-1950s.
Construction began in 1962.
The location was deliberately chosen strategically and logistically on the tranquil wine village, as the Moselle valley would first have offered very good protection, for example from an atomic pressure wave.
Second, the bunker was in an easily controllable dead end street that could easily be cordoned off at any time.
The Stasi did not know the Bundesbank's storage facility
“Even the direct neighbors had no idea of the huge underground vault and a 15 billion dollar emergency currency in it.
Everyone thought it was a normal air raid shelter, ”says Petra Reuter.
At the beginning of the 1960s, an air raid shelter was nothing unusual.
“It was only gradually, when trucks rolled in under police protection, that there were rumors that something valuable, maybe even gold, was being stored there.
It was rumored that the Cochem bunker was an unknown German Fort Knox - deep under the ground in Rhineland-Palatinate. ”Even the Stasi remained - as we know today - unknown as a money store.
In 1988 all BBkII notes were removed from the Bundesbank and shredded near Frankfurt.
The stylish "Hotel Vintage" has moved into the Tarnhäuser, which has been a listed building since 2011;
the connecting tunnel to the bunker still exists today.
And since 2016, after 15 months of renovation, restoration and research, the Bundesbank bunker has been a museum and can be visited as part of a guided tour: "I hope you enjoyed the trip to the Cold War", Peter Pfeifer ends the tour.
"Yes, of course," replies one guest, "but hopefully this Cold War will never come back."
Source: WORLD infographic
Tips and information
Accommodation:
The "Hotel Vintage" is part of the bunker facility;
Double rooms from 85 euros (hotel-vintage.de, possibly open again from May 1st);
"Hotel Keßler-Meyer", double room from 65 euros per person (hotel-kessler-meyer.de)
Bunker tours:
The facility is currently closed due to Corona, news: bundesbank-bunker.de
Other parts of the series "Secret Places":