Poznań: German bunker on the explored. The anti-aircraft rift was to protect against Allied air raids

The bunker is located in Poznań at Słowackiego Street. The corridors are 1.20 meters underground. The Poznań Exploration Group (PGE) joined it in May, but – in agreement with the investor on whose premises the facility is located – the recording of the action has only now been published. – The company is building a tenement house there and in the place where the first pillars of the underground car park stand, there is a fissure corridor – explains Mikołaj Rembikowski from PGE.

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For this reason, the bunker has already been at least partially demolished. – This bunker was on the rift register, but we did not know the route of its corridors. We appeared as a guest at the construction site, helping only to locate the second entrance to the crevice. The first entrance was on the street, it was damaged in the seventies during the construction of underground utilities – explains Rembikowski.

Currently, this entrance is buried. – In agreement with the investor, we made two drillings to mark the top where exactly the entrance to the shelter was, because it was important for further works – explains the representative of the Poznań Exploration Group.

The bunker has a bulging floor, there are also cracks on the walls around. – We do not know whether it is from the root of a tree or the ground has collapsed – admits Rembikowski.

The investigators of the shelter found virtually no equipment inside. There are only fragments of the original door soundproofed with tar paper and the original buckle from other doors, which separated the two sections of the slot.

There were hooks for electric cables on the corridor walls, indicating that the bunker was probably electrically powered. The characteristic red stripes have been painted in the gas lock. – We have traces of mounting plates with German inscriptions on both sides – Rembikowski explains.

Air raids are a type of shelters for civilians, non-combat air raid shelters, built at the end of World War II by Polish forced laborers for the German population living in Poznań at the time. Shelters of this type were to ensure the short survival of the civilian population exposed to bombing by the Western Allies.

Of course, it was possible to hide in the basement during the raid. But they weren’t as safe as the cracks. – A direct hit would destroy the building, it would also destroy the shelter. But these were built in such a way as to minimize the risk of a direct hit. The corridors of the bunker had broken lines, Rembikowski explains.

Bunkers of this type were most often built in parks and squares. During the war, they were generally available. – Each person saw where the rift was, it was properly marked – he explains.

They were all alike. – They were built according to the guidelines that appeared in 1944. There were exact instructions. Just like we assemble furniture from Ikea, the Germans have described exactly how this gap is to be made – says Rembikowski.