Nazigarten

June 29, 2008 1:38 PM

Nazi German Bunker in my Garden: "[...] the previous owner told us that there was a tunnel built by the germans during WW2. He said it was big enough to drive into, [...] So I traced some WW2 reconnaisance photos of the property, which appeared to show the entrance road to my bunker. [...] And that's where the quest began....." (Original thread here, first link is to condensed but more readable blog.)
posted by orthogonality (23 comments total)

if the youtube BBC story on this is any indication, this is more like Al Capone's vaults. oh well.
posted by yort at 1:59 PM on June 29, 2008

If you ever felt like Mefi has its threads full of useless remarks and all kind of shit, try to follow that thread. I find the story interesting, but gave up - it's almost impossible to find the posts by the guy owning the property amongst all the garbage... Perhaps somebody braver than me can find and link to all the individual posts...

other than that, good find, ortho!
posted by DreamerFi at 2:03 PM on June 29, 2008

So that's one less place where the Amber Room might be. Still, it must have been interesting to be the guy who found out he had a 60' bunker under his yard.
posted by Devils Rancher at 2:16 PM on June 29, 2008

Just read the weblog, DreamerFi - it's a teensy bit disappointing unless you really like photos of rusty metal, but much easier to read through. (That said, I'm sure I'd be pretty excited if I found a WWII-era tunnel in my garden too.)
posted by jack_mo at 2:22 PM on June 29, 2008

I love these kind of stories, even if they end only with the uncovering of a big hole in the ground. This one already has a few surprises, even if they're not the discovery of Nazi booty. I'm excited to hear more.

And I was sad to see Bob go.
posted by ErWenn at 2:53 PM on June 29, 2008

Well one never knows. There might be a scottish guy down there punching numbers into a computer.

Or maybe I just watch too much tv.
posted by miss lynnster at 2:54 PM on June 29, 2008

Abandoned Nazi bunker, another thing I need to add to my Zombie Apocalypse survival checklist.
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 3:12 PM on June 29, 2008

This is the money quote: "Oh, and I hadn't warned the wife either... so I had this to explain [giant hole in yard, earth-moving equipment] when she came home."
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 3:18 PM on June 29, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

"...even if they end only with the uncovering of a big hole in the ground."

Just a big hole in the ground? Holy crap, do you know how excited I would be to discover a weatherproof steel-roofed underground RV storage tunnel and workshop that size on my property? You'd be able to see my boner from space!
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:20 PM on June 29, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]

so I had this to explain [giant hole in yard, earth-moving equipment] when she came home.

"Don't worry, honey, it's just a Nazi bunker."
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:37 PM on June 29, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Seconded Crash. When I was a kid, my friends' parents owned a farm up in the hills, and we spent pretty much all our available time searching for these kinds of things. The place was dotted with all sorts of abandoned mine shafts and hidden gems, and the holy grail was the legend of an abandoned WWII tank somewhere out there. We never found it, but coming across something like this tunnel would have blown our ten year old minds. That part of me never died, finding something like that today would be just as good, if not more so.
posted by nudar at 4:16 PM on June 29, 2008

Awesome. A very little history of the German occupation of the Channel Islands.
posted by exogenous at 4:26 PM on June 29, 2008

From his user profile on the Pistonheads site, he has a nifty blog of his own with much more condensed and readable descriptions of his find: http://gardenbunker.blogspot.com/
posted by mosk at 4:29 PM on June 29, 2008

me: I love these kinds of stories, even if they end only with the uncovering of a big hole in the ground.

mr_crash_davis: Just a big hole in the ground? Holy crap, do you know how excited I would be to discover a weatherproof steel-roofed underground RV storage tunnel and workshop that size on my property? You'd be able to see my boner from space!

I'm not disagreeing with you at all, Mr. Crash. I was saying that even just finding a big hole would be exciting. Finding a steel-lined tunnel is awesome! I do not need a climax worthy of an action flick to enjoy this stuff.
posted by ErWenn at 5:20 PM on June 29, 2008

Too bad the nazis never envaded America, otherwise we'd have stuff like this. Wait, what?
posted by puke & cry at 5:49 PM on June 29, 2008

America has a bunch of nifty underground structures courtesy of the cold war.
posted by ryanrs at 8:52 PM on June 29, 2008

Interesting story. Not much story about the nazi bunker out there.
posted by nuswanto at 10:06 PM on June 29, 2008

What a fantastic discovery, and the hints that there might be other bunkers too.
I love poking through the junk the previous owners leave behind under houses we've lived in, I can't imagine how exciting this would be.
posted by bystander at 11:44 PM on June 29, 2008

Too bad the nazis never envaded America, otherwise we'd have stuff like this. Wait, what?

You should read up on Prescott Bush and the Smedley Butler affair. And then consider that Prescott's son and grandson have been running your country. No invasions necessary.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:33 AM on June 30, 2008

This post only reminds me that I live in a boring house and neighborhood. Then again, if I uncovered something like this in my yard the HOA probably has some clause against excavating cool shit without prior approvals...
posted by JibberJabber at 11:58 AM on June 30, 2008

I grew up in Germany, and crawled through several bunkers as a kid. There was a hill near where I lived we played on a lot, behind an old fire station that had burned. We were told the hill was a bunker, but didn't know any more than that. Years later, a family bought the fire station and turned it into a pension. They dug into the hillside in back and uncovered a door, which led down some stairs to a bomb shelter. My friends and I spent some time exploring it, including an emergency escape tunnel that led to a dirt-filled dead end.
posted by atchafalaya at 6:45 PM on June 30, 2008

Too bad the nazis never envaded America, otherwise we'd have stuff like this. Wait, what?

Last year I was digging to plant a tree in my yard. Hit the corner of rectangular cement box. Covered by a metal plate. In fact, rather like this (from one of the blog pages). Inside it looked rather like this as well (from the same blog page). You can only imagine what we thought it might be--treasure chest, secret passageway, entrance to a cave, nuclear bomb shelter . . .

But I won't drag out the suspense--it turned out to be a septic tank.

If only we'd had Nazis invading America, we could be digging up something interesting instead of a roomful of 50-year-old crap . . .
posted by flug at 8:55 AM on July 1, 2008

Really fascinating, the blog is great but a pain to scroll up and down to read the story in order from the beginning, so I've linked all the entries below

Background
Shrub Clearance
Arrival of Digger
The Boulder
Breakthrough
First Video Inside
Mini-Hammer Arrives
Goodbye Bob!
Clearing the Entrance
Inside at Last!
What Would Dave do?
Guns! Guns! Guns!
Waiting Game
Luftwaffe Connection?
Local Historians puzzled
What's behind the garage?
Photo behind garage
Time to slow down a bit!
Next door Tunnel?
Video inside Tunnel
More Video
Getting Impatient
A little bit more history...
BBC Feature
1940's Recollections
French Railway Steelwork?
Forward Planning
"Lego" Garden Bunker Set
Identifying the guns
shhhh...Don't tell my wife
Local Myth and Legend
Digging can resume!
posted by Z303 at 7:38 AM on July 11, 2008