In the GDR every district had an emergency secondary administration headquarters which were always bunkers. In the district of Erfurt were even two of these emergency bunkers. The one which is documented here had the code name ‘Rottdorf’ and is situated on a hill south of Bad Berka. It was built besides a waterworks to disguise its real function. On the outside the whole area looked very inconspicuous and most of the people who walked by never raised any suspicion that this was a bunker site.
The bunker was intended to provide a place for the state security of the GDR (known as ‘Stasi’) to carry out their tasks during a crisis or war. All these bunkers of the Stasi followed standardized designs and looked very similar because of this. Typical designs were the ‘2Va’, ‘2Vb’, ‘2Vc’ and the ‘2Vx’. The latter one is the design of the bunker in Bad Berka. Overall, it has a width of approx 37 meters and a length of approx 35 meters. The overall useable space is about 750 square meters and it could accommodate 150 people for 14 days. It had two main entrances under a barrack which could be closed by rollable steel plates. The bunker lays about 6 meters beneath the surface and has 20 adit-like rooms which are 2 meters wide, 2.50 meters high and 16 meters long. The whole floor plan is mirrored, so each half of the bunker has its own generator, electrical distribution, oxygen tanks and ventilation system.
The whole bunker is said to have gone in operation in the year 1984. After the end of the GDR in 1990 many people ventured inside, looked around and also destroyed a lot of the place. In the year 2000 it was completely sealed off, but is accessible again nowadays. The only way in is through an emergency exit that has never been blocked, which has a normal manhole cover on the surface. Most of the bunker is flooded, making rubber boots inevitable if you want to explore it.
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