The war in the Ukraine suddenly made people in Germany aware of how important it is to be prepared for emergencies.
by Laurenz Lindenau
“People are unsettled, we have never been so busy,” says Stephan Brienen (56), who sells goods for civil protection on the Internet. “Water tanks, water disinfection, crank lamps, crank radios, astronaut food – for three weeks people have been buying everything they need in the event of war.”
The sad truth is: Germany is disastrously prepared for a catastrophe!
The old civil defense systems from the Cold War? Reduced. Modern alternatives? Work more badly than right. The population? Has long suppressed the risks and dangers.
Now politicians want to change course and make Germany fit for emergencies. There’s a lot to do – that’s the result of the big BILD civil protection check.
Does Germany have enough bunkers for emergencies?
No. During the Cold War there were around 2,000 bunkers in West Germany alone: they offered space for almost three percent of the population. In 2007, then Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (79, CDU) said goodbye to them. Cost savings: two million euros a year.
As a result, not a single public shelter is currently available. According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, around 600 can be “reactivated” in an emergency, including subway stations and underground car parks.
That means: “In an emergency, just one in a hundred Germans would find space in a bunker today,” says Lieutenant Colonel Heiner Möllers (57), head of the Bundeswehr Center for Military History, to BILD.
“Even the three percent bunker space during the Cold War era would not have been enough in the front and in the back.”
How good is our medical emergency structure?
At the time of the Cold War, according to the Federal Office for Civil Protection, there was a reserve of 221 auxiliary hospitals in West Germany. In the event of a disaster, around 80,000 beds could have been created in schools and bunkers within a very short time.
As of today: nothing left. In 1997 everything was abolished.
Does Germany have enough food reserves for emergencies?
The federal government has emergency reserves of wheat, rye, oats, rice, peas, lentils and condensed milk. The food supplies are located at 150 secret locations and, according to the responsible Federal Office for Agriculture and Food, would range “from a few days to several weeks”.
There are 5,200 emergency wells for the water supply, but they were hardly ever used.
Hans-Walter Borries, Vice-Chairman of the Federal Association for the Protection of Critical Infrastructures, warns: “Not all Germans could be supplied with water nationwide, especially in summer.”
Is our warning system working?
No, on the contrary: it has huge gaps. While there were 80,000 sirens in West Germany alone during the Cold War, there are only 7,500 sirens left in Germany today. In most places (e.g. Berlin) there is currently not a single one.
Many regions rely on apps and broadcast warnings instead. The devastating flood disaster in 2021 showed how poorly this works: people in the flood areas were warned too late or not at all about the deadly floods.
Only nine million people in Germany have installed a warning app (NINA) on their cell phones.
What about our critical infrastructure?
The power supply in Germany is particularly vulnerable, warns infrastructure expert Borries. “Should there be a permanent power failure for large regions in Germany, there would be a shortage of both emergency power generators and fuel.”
Only hospitals would have such aggregates, but even here the fuel would run out after a few hours.
Could highways still be repurposed as military airstrips?
During the Cold War, more than 20 so-called “emergency landing sites” for military aircraft were built on motorways – straight sections without overpasses and with easily removable center planks.
Möllers: “The last reasonably intact one is on the A7 in Brekendorf near Schleswig.”