Operation code name: "BBK II".

This is how the central bank of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), West Germany, named the currency it had created from scratch, manufacturing millions of banknotes stored in an anti-nuclear shelter.

Petra Reuter has eyes that shine when she evokes this story worthy of a spy novel: "an incredible amount of 15 billion marks was stored here", between 1964 and 1988, explains the sixty-year-old now owner of the underground bunker of 1,500 m2.

Geopolitical tensions between East and West were reaching their climax at the time.

What would happen if Germany was the target of an attack on its monetary system?

The backup currency "BBK II" was to come into play.

"The fear that counterfeit money will be introduced through the iron curtain in order to harm the West German economy" probably motivated this somewhat crazy operation, explains Bernd Kaltenhaüser, president of the Bundesbank branch in Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate, the region where Cochem is located.

In the beard of spies

In the event of an attack, the central bankers wanted to be ready to "distribute replacement series in two weeks to all corners of the Republic", says Ms. Reuter.

The secret substitute currency created in Germany during the Cold War and stored in a former bunker of the Bundesbank in the west of the country Ina FASSBENDER AFP

When she and her husband bought the bunker in 2016 to turn it into a museum, they never imagined being caught up in the news.

Since the war started in Ukraine by Russia, "people around us ask us if there would be room for them in the event of an emergency in the bunker", she says.

She has the feeling of a "jump back 60 years".

Specter of World War III, nuclear risk, "the fears are the same", she confides.

Behind its heavy iron door, the L-shaped paramilitary shelter, with its long corridors, decontamination airlocks, offices equipped with teleprinters, rotary telephones, reminds visitors of the atmosphere of the Cold War.

The centerpiece comprises twelve mesh cells where, for nearly 25 years, some 18,300 boxes were stored up to the ceiling, containing the millions of denominations of 10, 20, 50 and 100 marks.

The storage rooms of the secret substitute currency created during the Cold War in a former Bundeskbank bunker in Cochem, Germany, on February 8, 2022 Ina FASSBENDER AFP

The front side of the parallel banknotes resembled that of the marks then in circulation, the back differing greatly.

The supply of tickets to the Cochem bunker lasted for years, through hundreds of truck rotations, without anyone, neither the inhabitants, nor even the spies of the East German Stasi, suspecting a thing.

Operation Bernhard

It must be said that the Federal Bank of Germany had ideal cover: the building housing the bunker was officially an internal training and rest center for its employees, in a residential area of ​​the town.

Cochem, located about a hundred kilometers from the Belgian and Luxembourg borders, had been chosen for its anchorage far from the Iron Curtain and therefore not within immediate reach of Russian tanks in the event of an invasion.

Built on the hillside, the structure also benefited from "better resistance in the event of a nuclear attack, the shock wave passing over the valley", assures Petra Reuter.

"The citizens of the town were amazed to discover this treasure, hidden for so long near their homes", testifies Wolfgang Lambertz, former mayor of the town of 5,000 inhabitants, in the Land of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Inside the former Bundesbank bunker in Cochem, western Germany, where a secret substitute currency was stored during the Cold War Ina FASSBENDER AFP

The lessons of history certainly played a part in the design of the project: the Nazis had fomented Operation Bernhard during the Second World War, having concentration camp prisoners make counterfeit Pounds Sterling with the aim of flood England.

By adding the reserves stored in the vaults of the Bundesbank in Frankfurt, 25 billion of this parallel currency will have been printed in total, roughly corresponding to the amount of the mass of banknotes in circulation in 1963.

All of the clippings were finally taken out of storage, passed through a grinder and then the filaments burned between 1988 and 1989, the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Create emergency currency today?

“It would no longer make sense because there is less counterfeit money in circulation”, underlines Mr. Kaltenhaüser, imitations being made very difficult, and “cash payments are less numerous”.

© 2022 AFP