Fichtel and Sachs Bunker

The Deutsches Bunkermuseum stands in Schweinfurt’s Oberndorf district, inside the Fichtel-und-Sachs-Bunker built in 1941. This reinforced concrete tower was one of ten public shelters erected under the Führer-Sofortprogramm to protect civilians during the Second World War. Its walls range from two to three metres thick, and the roof is topped by a concrete camouflage roof shaped like a tent. The bunker was designed to hold 1 022 people for twelve hours, yet up to 1 800 residents once crowded its floors and stairwells. After the war it briefly housed homeless families and refugees before becoming a storage depot for the Sachs works. The museum traces civil defence from the 1930s through the Cold War inside the same structure. Exhibits include defused bombs, gas-masks for children, and period furniture arranged in six-square-metre cells. A reconstructed command post shows how the Bundeswehr kept communications running beneath Stabsgebäuden. Original belongings of two local brothers who died in 1944 and 1945 are displayed in a dedicated room. Visitors also see a horses’ gas-mask and a ventilation system filled with eighty-two cubic metres of basalt sand to filter contaminated air. Inside the bunker’s five storeys, rooms are arranged along narrow corridors lit by original fittings. The top floor once held a sand-filter chamber, while the basement contains the sealed entrance to an emergency tunnel. Exhibits are grouped chronologically, from early radio sets to wartime newspapers and field-post letters. Each display case and mannequin recreates daily life under threat. The building itself, with its tiled façade and dummy windows, remains a stark reminder of Schweinfurt’s wartime role and the city’s partial survival after twenty-two major air raids.