Bunkermuseum Hamm

Bunkermuseum Hamm - darkometer rating : 6 - An original former WWII air-raid shelter, of a type commonly used in Hamburg at the time, now turned into a unique kind of museum. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > photos More background info: This type of air-raid shelter, called 'Röhrenbunker' in German (= roughly 'tube bunker'), may have provided limited protection from shrapnel, debris and fire, but they would never have survived a direct hit – hence the black-humoured popular epithet "mass grave" for such bunkers. However, they were cheap and simple to build, and so hundreds of them were provided for the civilian population, especially in Hamburg . Countless people spent long fear-filled nights in such dire places, in particular during the worst phase of the bombing raids by the RAF in late July 1943, under the somewhat cynical code name of 'Operation Gomorrah' (see also Hamburg , and in particular Nikolaikirche , for more about those night-time bombing campaigns). There are still hundreds of such bunkers under Hamburg, but most are unused and derelict or by now filled with water. One such installation, however, was converted into a museum in the district of Hamm, namely by a group of unsalaried volunteers organized in the 'Stadtteilinitiative Hamm'. It is the only such sight in Hamburg that has been turned into a small museum – although other types of bunkers can be visited on tours with the 'Hamburger Unterwelten' or 'unter Hamburg' " underworlds " societies. I first visited the place many years ago, not long after it had opened its doors to the public. When I revisited the site more recently (in March 2013) I found that it has been improved somewhat, in particular from a foreign visitor's point of view.