German pupils get down to Cold War history — literally

* Peter Bonerz, 52, the school electrician (left), school principal Ellen Kueneke, 57, (centre) and a sixth-grade boy examine yellowing handbooks in the former bunker under a school in Wadern, Germany.

By Birgit Reichert

To learn about the Cold War, the pupils of Class 6a at Hochwald Secondary School in the German town of Wadern simply go down into the basement.

There, in the deep, cool passageways behind two large steel doors, lies a bunker abandoned by the government of Saarland, a western German state bordering on Luxembourg and France.

Built in 1959 as a shelter for officials and security personnel in case of war or other emergency, it comprises four rooms with bunks, benches, showers, toilets and two emergency hatches leading out onto the schoolyard. “It’s cramped,” pronounced Emely, 11. “I couldn’t stand being here long.”

Time seems to have stood still. Dusty gas masks lie beside the ventilation system. Equipment checks from 1969 onward are meticulously noted in a logbook. “The school was aware of the bunker at the time but didn’t have a key. Everything was kept absolutely confidential,” said Peter Bonerz, the school electrician.

Until 20 years ago, inspectors from the Saarland Interior Ministry came by every few days, or every few weeks. Their last handwritten entry was made in November 1993. “Switches on main distributor board must be at ‘auto,’” it says in part.

The school, which has about 850 pupils, has been allowed to use the bunker since mid-2010.

The pupils from Class 6a tried out everything in the bunker. They lay down on the narrow bunk gurneys, cranked up the ventilation system, examined the old teletype, climbed into the emergency hatches and dialed numbers on some of the 50-odd rotary telephones making up the independent telephone network.

The bunker also had its own generator-operated power supply system. “Having at hand such a historic site, where you can experience and ‘feel’ history, is a gift for a school,” remarked Ellen Kueneke, the school principal and a historian.

She said the bunker enabled “emotional access” to the history of the Cold War, the tense post-World-War-II standoff, geographically centred in divided Germany, between the US-led Western democracies and Soviet-led communist East bloc.

The state of Saarland chose Wadern, population 17,000, as a potential emergency seat of government during the Cold War because “it’s at the back of beyond and no one expects anything of political importance” there, Kueneke explained.

In the event of an attack with conventional or nuclear weapons, she said, state officials planned to organise resistance from the bunker.

Given the then level of technology, however, it is now clear that they would have survived “only a few days” in the underground shelter, Bonerz said.

 “Very confining” was the assessment of eighth-grader Laura Goergen, 14. “You want to be above ground again, where there’s daylight,” she said, but conceded that having the bunker under the school was “something special.”

Hochwald Gymnasium, as the school is known in German, conducts guided tours of the bunker at the annual school festival. And Kueneke said she planned to introduce a seminar on bunkers for the school’s upper classes.

 “Along with academic work on the Cold War, pupils could do hands-on, on-site research,” she suggested. The time she spends on-site herself is always a bit of a challenge, she revealed. “I’m claustrophobic and have to make an effort to stay calm and collected.”

The pupils of Class 6a explored the rooms of the Cold War bunker with curiosity, and they asked a lot of questions.

 “I’m amazed at how freely and openly the children deal with the subject,” Kueneke said. “A completely different access to history is possible here.”

At the conclusion of the bunker visit, one of the pupils, Janis, remarked, “I could stay down here for a few days,” then quickly added: “But only with the Internet.” – DPA