East Germany's Forgotten Bunkers: New Research Sheds Light on Soviet Plans for World War III

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Hans-Albert Hoffmann, a former lieutenant-colonel in the National People's Army, thinks he knows where they would have headed. He presumes that the front staff, which included up to 1,000 officers, would have slipped out undetected during the night and made its way "to Möhlau or Schwepnitz."

The names stand for two Soviet military installations that were never used during peacetime and were kept strictly secret.

The facility at Möhlau is closed today after having been demolished with explosives. Schwepnitz -- which has never been thoroughly explored -- has two underground levels and is flooded with rainwater.

Falkenhagen in the German state of Brandenburg is often mentioned as the former East Germany's nuclear war command center. Back during World War II, the Nazis built a chemical plant inside the concrete bunker.

Ideal for Striking Western Europe

Now another site has caught people's attention: Kossa. "Its geographical location alone would have made the bunker ideal for the major strike against Western Europe," says Strahlendorff. Furthermore, NATO had never discovered the facility.

Another fact that supports this theory is that Kossa was practically jam-packed with communications electronics. The facility even had an AP 3 mainframe computer made by the East German computer manufacturer Robotron. Sophisticated video technology would have made it possible to send battle plans directly to the front.

But there are still nagging doubts. Some experts say that the bunker in Saxony is simply too small and uncomfortable. The toilets there look too spartan. "A general would have never sat on one of these," says Bröckermann. The facility also lacked a proper kitchen: In an emergency, Moscow's military elite would have had to eat hardtack and canned meat.

On the other hand, they certainly didn't intend to use the command post for very long. According to their plans, the Soviets aimed to reach the Rhine in seven days -- and the Atlantic in 12 days.

Thousands of Victims

There is also agreement on the fact that under the former East Germany the facility was fully operational at all times. A skeleton crew of 48 enlisted technicians maintained equipment, kept all the rooms heated, and ensured that the electric fence was on -- making for an annual electrical consumption of 345,000 kWh.

All of these efforts were -- fortunately -- for naught. The nuclear inferno was never launched.

Nevertheless, the bunker was responsible for a large number of victims -- of the four-legged variety. As Strahlendorff explains: "Thousands of rabbits and deer perished on the electric fence."

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• Part 1: New Research Sheds Light on Soviet Plans for World War III
• Part 2: The Shape of World War III
• Part 3: Secret Installations