It’s not a lakeside villa or a downtown condo – it’s a nondescript property in the middle of a forest near Pasewalk, a German town west of the Polish border, that Heinz Fuhrmann bought for one million euros (1.07 million US dollars).
Behind this seemingly inconspicuous property – or rather, underneath it – lies a GDR-era bunker that was reportedly built in the 1980s.
It is also called a nuclear bunker because it is said to be able to withstand a nuclear explosion.
“I once had an expert explain this to me. The wall and ceiling thicknesses are not that huge and don’t have to be, because the pressure wave goes over them since we are underground here,” says Fuhrmann.
However, even this bunker would not withstand a “direct hit,” says Fuhrmann and opens a blue shed door on the site. He then descends a flight of stairs into an underground passage where there is an airlock with several doors.
“This door supposedly weighs eight tons because it definitely contains lead,” he says. “You’ll be surprised at how extensive it is here,” he says as he pulls open one of the lead doors with a powerful blow.
Fuhrmann bought the property about four years ago and initially planned to rent the property to the prepper scene – people who prepare for disasters.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, fears of war have been growing in Europe, and that has led to a surge in interest in bunkers like these.
But after the end of the Cold War, many European governments sold state institutions or allowed them to fall into disrepair. And Germany and other countries never had enough bunkers for the entire population.
The history of the Pasewalk location is unclear. There is a rumor that the office building was once a post office.
The Stasi, the notorious Ministry for State Security of the communist GDR, is also said to have once been here, says Fuhrmann.
The building was filled with tape recorders. “So all conversations from the former GDR that went to the East were intercepted here. As a Westerner, I can’t fully understand why conversations with friends were intercepted, but that’s probably how it was,” says Fuhrmann, who moved to the GDR region in northeastern Germany from Bavaria a few years ago.
The GDR’s state security organs collected huge amounts of data about citizens, and all institutions were involved in mass surveillance.
Fuhrmann was told that the bunker was built for the former GDR army general Heinz Hoffmann so that he could be quickly brought to safety in the event of a disaster, says Fuhrmann.
According to him, about 35 people in the area could survive for about 60 days. He says that a telecommunications company acquired the property after the reunification of Germany.
It was then purchased by a company that wanted to produce wood chips.
Paul Bergner, a German author of a book about Cold War bunkers in which he mentions the bunker in Pasewalk, describes the facility as one of many buildings.
According to Bergner, the bunker was intended to secure nationwide communications in the event of a disaster or war. There were several such buildings in the former GDR.
Fuhrmann says he is emotionally attached to the property. But he and his wife Gertraud Tilscher want to get rid of it. “None of us are the youngest anymore,” he says.
He admits that he bought the property for significantly less than the current asking price of one million euros. However, the 63-year-old does not want to reveal the exact purchase price.
The real estate agent Cornell Pahlow is supposed to sell the property to a new owner. He has already brought other special properties such as a grain store and train stations onto the market.
But the bunker, located in the middle of the forest, is a “special property,” says Pahlow, who grew up in the region. It is therefore important to him to use the bunker sensibly and, ideally, to create jobs for the region.
Across Germany, other bunkers were also sold or converted into wine, cheese or storage cellars.
This location is very suitable as a data center, says Fuhrmann.
