New life for an old air raid shelter

[Lusche]

A few pics I took in my town the other morning. I thought that it might interest some of you on this forum:

It's a former WW2 shelter that's currently being rebuild:







Originally it had 7 floors internally, with a projected capacity of 478 beds and 108 seats, but the beds had been removed soon and much more people used the shelter during the raids.

[VonMessa]

Very nice 

[Dragon]

Rebuilt into what though, just an observation tower or something functional like apartments?

[PFactorDave]

That's interesting...  You don't normally think of air raid shelters being above ground like that.

[Lusche]

Rebuilt into what though, just an observation tower or something functional like apartments?

Office building.

[Wolfala]

That's interesting...  You don't normally think of air raid shelters being above ground like that.

Looks like a FLAK tower.

[Lusche]

That's interesting...  You don't normally think of air raid shelters being above ground like that.

In case of the big, 'public' shelters (called Bunker in German), most of them had been above the ground, particularly in the inner cities. Much quicker and easier to build.

IIRC, in this city there had been build 10 large "Hochbunker" and only 1 "Tiefbunker", though there had been additional subterran Luftschutzstollen (air raid galleries)

[Dragon]

Office building.

 

[Shuffler]

Interesting

[texasmom]

Nice idea to refurbish that.  I also would not have thought of an above ground structure as a shelter...

[TwinBoom]

Nice idea to refurbish that.  I also would not have thought of an above ground structure as a shelter...

Seen this on "Cities of the underworld" the walls are very very thick

[Soulyss]

Nice idea to refurbish that.  I also would not have thought of an above ground structure as a shelter...

I've never thought about it much either but it's not as far fetched an idea when you think about it.  Think about all the bombs that were spent trying to knock out other hardened structures like the U-boat pens, this was a much smaller target.  I would think that while very unpleasant the civilians were probably relatively safe in there.

[Lusche]

The majority of bombs being dropped on cities were small incendiary bombs of various types mixed with GP HE bombs and the occasional thin-walled blockbuster. None of those were designed to take out armored targets. The Hochbunker here in Bochum had a wall and ceiling thickness of 140 cm, at some places up to 200cm of reinforced concrete. That was usually sufficient to shrug off even direct hits.
There is a Hochbunker close to my apartment in which about 300 people died by a single bomb hit. But not because the bomb penetrated, it detonated next to the bunker while both inner as well as outer gates were still open...

[ozrocker]

Now we know Lusche lives in Bochum



                                                                                    <S> Oz

[Lusche]

There is a Hochbunker close to my apartment in which about 300 people died by a single bomb hit. But not because the bomb penetrated, it detonated next to the bunker while both inner as well as outer gates were still open...

While on my way to do the weekend purchases, I took a few more pics. This is the Hochbunker I'm talking about in my quote



The place I took this picture from is on a former steelworks area. This shelter was mainly for use by the civilians living close to the factories. At the moment I don't know it'S planned capacity, but like all shelters it was severely overcrowded during the raids, with up to 3,000 people hoping for safety from the bombs (more than 500,000 fell on Bochum during the war)





In the front is the main entrance, with gates on both sides. To my knowledge, the aerial mine which had such devastating effects detonated to the right side, between the shelter and the steel works while the inner and outer gates were still open.







This is on the right side, and here you can still see the damage on the wall caused by the bombing.




And this is the rear side. The shelter was never totally finished, the faced brickwork (term?) is missing.




 

IIRC, in this city there had been build 10 large "Hochbunker" and only 1 "Tiefbunker", though there had been additional subterran Luftschutzstollen (air raid galleries)

I have to correct myself, for I did not recall correctly. In addition to literally thousands of private & corporate shelters of very different types & sizes, there were 15 public Hochbunker and 5 Tiefbunker (underground shelters)