Switzerland is spending millions revamping its vast network of bunkers

Amid the charming cobbled streets and medieval buildings in Zurich’s old town, there is one site that never fails to amaze guests of tour guide Samantha Aeschbach.

Urania, a cavernous underground space spanning seven stories, is a parking garage. But it’s also a modern military fortress hiding in plain sight, the owner of the Zurich Insider tour company tells her guests.

The garage doubles as one of the largest public shelters in Switzerland, and could accommodate 11,000 people in case of an emergency, with drinking water, emergency power generators, gas filters and a command system.

“To come across it spontaneously, you really have to be looking,” Aeschbach said in an interview, adding that it often leads to a flurry of questions from her guests — who mainly come from the Americas and other European nations — about Switzerland’s military history and who would be able to use the bunker in an emergency.

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“Everybody’s very surprised, and then they want to know a little bit more, and we get off track‚” she said, laughing.

Urania is a vast underground parking garage in the heart of Zurich that doubles as a bunker that can accommodate up to 11,000 people in case of an emergency. (Samantha Aeschbach)

Being prepared is something of a national sport in Switzerland, where service in the military or civil defense force is mandatory and the country is pitted with a network of about 370,000 personal shelters ensuring a secretly assigned place for each of its nearly 9 million residents. Separate spaces are designated for civil protection forces and the military.

Now, the famously neutral country is spending hundreds of millions overhauling its vast network of personal shelters and civil protection sites in light of the “changing global security situation.”

In 2026, a new civil protection ordinance will come into effect that will see 200 larger bunkers modernized at a total cost of $276 million over 15 years. The fee property developers must pay to local authorities to fund public shelters will also rise, from about $1,000 to more than $1,700 per person.

Separately, work is underway across Switzerland’s regional authorities, known as cantons, to revamp aging ventilation and filtration systems on existing bunkers reaching the end of their 40-year life cycle. A $1.2 billion fund is available for this over the next 15 years, and the time frame can be expedited if necessary, a Swiss government spokesperson said.

The army is also calling for ideas on how existing military fortifications could be modernized into “hard-to-attack defense nodes,” inviting companies and start-ups to submit their ideas this month.

A photo shared by the Civil Protection force in Vaud canton shows beds set up in a shelter. Swiss regulations state the outer shell of a bunker must be made from reinforced concrete with blast doors, ventilation systems, emergency exits and air locks designed to withstand nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. (Dimitri Gusarov/SSCM)

Modern shelters for modern conflicts

The historic revamp comes against the backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has kick-started a new era of uneasy militarization in Europe. Countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France and the United Kingdom have been overhauling conscription rules, bolstering defense spending, testing emergency warning systems, revamping public information campaigns and urging citizens to maintain a store of essential supplies.

Though Switzerland has maintained political neutrality for centuries, the right to a personal shelter is enshrined in the Federal Law for Civil Protection, introduced in 1963.

Silvia Berger Ziauddin, a professor of Swiss and contemporary history at the University of Bern, said the bunker mentality is part of Switzerland’s “national DNA,” having evolved from the late-1800s defensive strategy of the National Redoubt — where bunkers were built in the Swiss mountains to protect against foreign invaders — to the nuclear threats of the Cold War. A combination of political will and external factors has helped the network flourish, she said.

In the years since, many larger bunkers have been sold off by the army, with some given fascinating second lives as museums, mushroom farms or for perfectly aging cheese. The requirement to build personal shelters was nearly scrapped in 2011 but given fresh impetus by the Fukushima earthquake that year in Japan, followed by the war in Ukraine.

Now authorities are reimagining the existing network for a “poly-crisis” situation, where multiple threats appear at once, Berger Ziauddin said, as well as a “renewed focus on war scenarios.”

About the Author: Patriotman

Patriotman currently ekes out a survivalist lifestyle in a suburban northeastern state as best as he can. He has varied experience in political science, public policy, biological sciences, and higher education. Proudly Catholic and an Eagle Scout, he has no military experience and thus offers a relatable perspective for the average suburban prepper who is preparing for troubled times on the horizon with less than ideal teams and in less than ideal locations. Brushbeater Store Page: http://bit.ly/BrushbeaterStore