Cold War shelter open to public

NEARLY 19 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the huge and elaborate bunker where communist East Germany’s leadership would have sought shelter from a nuclear strike has opened to the public.

The bunker — known by the military code name 17/5001 — was built between 1978 and 1983 under a pine forest some 50km north of Berlin.

The three-storey bunker — designed to absorb the shock waves from a nuclear explosion — has about 300 rooms and was meant to take up to 400 people.

Until the Berlin Wall fell in late 1989, about 30 secret police employees kept the bunker running around the clock.

Tours, at €20, will be available until the end of October, when the bunker will be permanently sealed to protect it from damage.