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Ahrweiler, Germany (dpa) - A system of tunnels where the West German government once planned to hunker down for up to 30 days during nuclear missile strikes is to re-open next year as a museum illustrating the Cold War.
Construction began Wednesday at the site at Ahrweiler, 25 kilometres south of the old West German capital, Bonn.
The 19 kilometres of tunnels bored into a slate hill between 1960 and 1972 have mostly been stripped bare and sealed shut, but 200 metres of the former government bunker will be open to visitors. Beds, bureaucrats' desks and washbasins will fill the chilly space.
Visitors to the Cold War museum can admire a 25-ton outer steel door designed to withstand a nuclear explosion. Much of the museum construction budget will be for an entrance building and carpark.
The display will also explore how the structure began as a railway tunnel before the First World War and how the Nazis used forced and slave labour in the tunnel to manufacture launchers for V-2 missiles and other armaments.
When the Cold War ended, the German government vainly tried to sell the site, which was supposed to provide air, water and safety to 3,000 high officials, as a mushroom farm or storage site, but its upkeep would have been too expensive and there were no takers.
The government is now giving the site away, to a local history society at Bad Neuenahr and Ahrweiler.
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
