US Marine reacts to Switzerland's 374,142 Bunkers 

What this documentary doesn't mention is that Switzerland, up until relatively recently, mined all of their mountain pass roads and bridges with explosives. The Säckinger Bridge on the Swiss-German border didn't have its explosives removed until 2014.

It's not the biggest bunker fortress in Switzerland. It's the biggest one currently in private hands. Most of them are decomissed or sold. Some of the public known are used for militrary training. There are also secret bunkers in Switzerland still operational and modernized. You get only access via retina and volumetric scanns and if you carry electronics they get roasted via an EMP pulse.

The yellow wrench is for opening the bunker door, when the house got bombed and parts of the house are lying infornt od the door (these bunker doors open from inside to outside) The toblerone concret things were tank stops. Greetings from switzerland

Neutrality doesn't mean being defenseless. Also, the landscape lends itself for defensive fighting positions. But it doesnt stop at military bunkers. During the cold war it was mandatory to have basement bombshelters with air filter in every residential house with enough room for all the people living there.

Hi there! As a former first lieutenant in the Swiss army, I served mainly in the St. Gotthard massif and in Kandersteg, which are known for their bunkers. Until recently, the Swiss Army produced emergency medicines in one of these bunkers. I was responsible for the security and logistics of the facility. And this bunker was massive, so big that two trucks could drive into the tunnel at the same time for several minutes. We were often underground for so long that you no longer knew whether it was day or night. That's why the clocks also show this. Our canteen (Soldatenstube) was also set up as a chalet with a fake mountain view to give the soldiers at least some comfort ;-) And there was a tunnel in the St. Gotthard massif that connected the top of the pass (fortress) to the Gotthard tunnel (another fortress) and contained underground barracks. And let me tell you, that was a lot of stairs, a lot of stairs that we had to climb ;-P And as a child we played in abandoned bunkers until the authorities closed them down - these were good old times ;-)

this youtuber you're showing also just uploaded a perfect explanation on Switserland and its gunlaws. Would really like to see your reaction on that, since you were wondering how gun laws work there. Maybe in the future you could do a video on that!

Johnny Harris does real journalism. He's the only content creator I actually pay for because the world really needs journalism.

I live in Switzerland and I live in an apartment building and we have a bunker. Wishing you all a Happy New Year from Switzerland😊

One good thing to mention is that when you live in an apartment, most of the time there’s a bunker that is used as basement. The same goes for most large stores, hotels, etc. So having a map of all bunkers would just show you the location of pretty much all buildings in Switzerland 😅

Hello from Switzerland, so how many bunkers we really have, I'm not really sure if there is a definitive reliable number, but it's enough for more than 100% of our population. The army bunkers were financed by the government/army, i.e. ultimately tax money. The air raid shelters, which were mandatory for new houses, especially during the Cold War, were also co-financed (of course only the air raid shelters, not the luxury villa as a whole 😛). The "Toblerone" are anti-tank barriers that are massive, high and close enough together that vehicles, especially tanks, cannot overcome them, they force vehicles to the points where there was concentrated firepower. I think we don't need bunkers and air raid shelters until we need them and there aren't any. So, it's better to have something we never need than to need something that isn't there. The air raid shelters also provide an excellently stable foundation in the event of natural events (especially earthquakes). Well, neutrality, obviously there are many possible interpretations, but something I learned from our history is that we tended to pursue an active neutrality (rather than a passive one).

Today Johnny Harris released "Why the Swiss Love Their Guns (more than Americans)", also very interesting.

The Swiss have a really strong gun culture, they even have a yearly gun shooting competition/festival thing for school children, previously just boys but nowadays girls too. Getting guns requires a permit, especially for automatic weapons. Also after completing their mandatory service, they get to keep their gun at home if they want :P

served in the army. i was quartered couple of times in bunkers like this. you get used to it but the master sergeant has to ensure the troops keep it clean. especially when its wet outside and whole companies return dirty from training.

In our school we use the bunker for storring the art equipment, mostly canvases

Im from Sweden, and the basements at some streets here in Stockholm atleast, are also made to withstand bombs… the doors are made out of steel and the ”corridors” is underground aswell. The idea is that you share laundry room on daily bases during peaceful times or war times with other people behind these steel doors, we have gym, garbage/recycling rooms aswell. My dad lives in an apartment built between 1960-80ish, around cold war times. My moms flat also has one bunker basement, but hers doesn’t include ”bunker corridors” instead she has huge old steel doors to basement and laundry room seperate.

Ich war ADA dh. Angehöriger der Armee und eingeteilt in der Reduit-Brigade 22 (RedBr 22) von 1976 bis 1995 in der Funktion als Geschützführer. Und ja, wir hatten seinerzeit eine sehr gute Armee mit sehr guten Soldaten, die den Job begriffen haben und auf welche man sich verlassen konnte. Ich denke es ist an der Zeit unsere Landesverteidigung wieder fit zu machen. YES WE CAN DO IT !

I have a friend witch made his military service in the Bunker Fire Departement. The old Bunkers are pretty cool, but the secret and new ones, those are some diffrent bunkers. There is one built in a mountain, where aircrafts can start out of a cliff wall.

When i was like 13 years old we made a school trip where we hiked up to a bunker and stayed there over night. It was also connected to a natural cave we could go explore.

During my military service I spent about 10 days inside a quite large bunker where the entrance was inside a fake "chalet" (wooden house). It's not so much depressing when there are people living inside it and when the chef is good. I oddly enjoyed the experience because it was once in a lifetime for me and I knew it was for a short duration.

I live in switzerland and are part of the Civilprotection Militia. Those Shelters function as cellar or whatever but must be ready to use in 24h. We even train in those shelters how to start them up, yes you need to start them up in a special way that takes up hours.

If you want to learn more about Swiss gun culture, Johnny Harris as uploaded 2h a go a video about “why switzerland is obsessed with guns” 😅

in regards to guns, Johnny Harris (same RU-vidr presented in this video) actually put out a video 2 days ago which depicts how we deal with guns here.

Where i live in the swiss french part near geneva. Theres a "toblerone walk" where u can see anti tank fortifications and walk next to them. Pretty nice walk

Companies that operate high-security data centers have set up shops in some of the bunkers... So if you never want to lose your holiday photos and a thousand times safer than any cloud... lol

I've always respected the Swiss and their gun culture and shrewd business attitude.. This is another level. I already dream of the mountains, might have get a vacation home out there.. LOL who am I kidding- I'll be lucky to visit one day. On the topic of WWII, I'm surprised moustache man didn't try a massive gas attack, I guess 90% of the battle was simply getting close enough on those windy switchbacked passes.

I live in Switzerland but we don’t have a shelter in our house. What we do have, is an official yellow plaque that tells us exactly what address to go to and what to bring with us in case of an emergency. Just two months ago, my husband and I each received a pack of iodine pills in the event of a nuclear incident. We get those sent to us approximately every 10 years, in order to be as prepared as possible. In my old house, there was a nuclear shelter. There is, indeed, a place for each citizen at a specific bunker.

Oh that redoubt hotel gives me "Sons Of The Forest" vibes! And I surprisingly live in switzerland.

i am swiss. Lots of our bunkers are camouflaged very good, there are bunkers nobody knows anymore where they are because after abandoning them we have lost track of them. Some could be retrived by searching through spionage- documentation from germany 😅. There are still maintained ones, other communal ones have gotten turned into museums, storage rooms, cheese cellars etc. I was in kindergarden (1990) when Irak set fire to Kuwaits oil fields and that scared me very much. I remember my father telling me about the bunkers, that there are schools built in and in case of war, we would seek shelter in the bunkers. That time every house had to have their own bunker or one they can go to and i remember the 30cm thick concrete door with the wheel opener to our „cellar“ and the wooden bunk beds which were installed and used as storage racks. My father was one of those who had to install these bunk beds in the private cellars during his community service time (he was disabled so he could not serve in the military) For foreign people it sure must sound quite strange. When you study switzerland’s history you will find out that we are very stubborn people, thats why our country was founded. being neutral does not mean being defenseless. My grandfather was laying under the bridge during WWII, ready to blow up the bridge over Rhein (natural german border) part of their tactics would have been blowing all bridged to waste time to evacuate important civil people into the bunkers and sit it out while attacking them from the bunkers. I think that is still a good strategy regarding our landscape and that we have so many natural springs fresh water supplie would never have been an issue.

Actually military checked yesterday if my bunker at home is ready

The thing that a lot of people forget when it comes to neutrality is, that being neutral also means that you have no allies, meaning you have to protect yourself on your own.

Swiss gun owner here Swiss gun laws are actually pretty taxed, I own both an AR15 and a Glock 45, no capacity limits or other gimmicks to worsen the weapon system, ordered it online together with 2k rounds and they just got delivered a few days later by regular mail. Gun ownership is part of the culture due to the mandatory military service for all able men from 20-35 years old (roughly). Many of them take their service weapons with them on the weekends when they go back home from whatever base they are doing their training in (6 months as a recruit and then roughly 3 weeks a year, or 13 months in one go). So on the weekends it's super normal to see tens or hundreds of guns close to any major train station. Also hunting, that's part of the culture, and hunting rifles. There are restrictions as in how to acquire a weapon, you can't just walk in and buy one. There's 3 main acquisition permits, which have to be requested to the local cantonal police, and for citizens without violent crimes history or similar issues the first 2 tend to be always granted. 1. Standard acquisition permit: for semi-only rifles with mag capacity lower than 10rds (ie ar15 + 10rd mag), pistols with mag capacity lower than 20rds and essential parts of weapons (ie, a firing ping, a bcg, a barrel). Weapons acquired with this permit are banned from using higher capacity mags (I know, stupid) 2. Sports shooter permit: removes the capacity limit on the weapons acquired with it. It is also used to buy specific accessories that are banned to the general public, like suppressors or lasers. Proof of sports shooting has to be presented to the authorities 5 and 10 years after the acquisition, which basically is asking for the range manager to put a stamp and a signature on a form 5 times within each 5 year period. So since the condition to get the permit is to be a sports shooter, but proof is required in the future, it's almost always granted for the weapons, for accessories depending on the canton they may be more picky and ask for valid reason of acquisition. 3. Collectors permit: the holy grail, allows to buy full auto guns, grande launchers, smgs, wait? smgs? yes, semiautomatic portable weapons that can be shortened under 60cm without losing it's functionality (still shoots) are heavily regulated, as much as an actual full auto SAW. To get this permit you really have to prove to have a collection, usually a bunch of random weapons won't cut it. Shooting as a sport is fairly popular, there's shooting ranges all across the country, there's a super cool one covered in a short Tom Scott video, where the stands and the targets are on opposite sides of a highway. Most shooting ranges are outdoor with 100m/200/300m targets and some have 25m targets for pistol, Indoor ranges are a lot closer to your standard range in the US. Loved, the video, found your channel when you reacted to the AAD-10 video

On a lot of the higher ground in the border area with Germany, all along the edges of the river valleys leading to the German border you’ll find now mostly decommissioned bunkers in the forests protecting every road leading up from the valley. On one prominent mountain spur overlooking such a valley from a 200 m height difference, you’ll find the remains of 800 year old castle with a small bunker built into its foundations. At the edge of my town, you’ll find five of such bunkers within a one mile radius. None of them are marked on any maps, including open street maps. For half of the year you cannot see them on satellite images because they completely hidden by foliage. This area also has farmhouses on hillsides that look just a bit too well kept, with doors and locks that would better fit on a well-secured factory building than on agricultural properties. These are presumably still in use.

thank you for really responding :) I'm glad you liked it

In Austria a shelter was mandatory if you wanted to build a house and got changed with the fall of the iron curtain

The Swiss have many qualities to admire, and their attitude to collective defence - and gun culture - is one of them. Yes, they have a higher suicide rate, particularly among men as they are required to have safely stored firearms in their home and to know how to use them, I don’t think you can dodge that bullet of wider gun ownership, only mitigate it. But their lack of widespread gun violence is to be admired and emulated.

No wonder that they can show some of their bunkers and locations - They just have so many of them that it doesn't even matter to disclose some of them.

Hi there, I grew up in the little village with the four bunkers in the barns. The red house behind it is the school I went to and it was like school education to go look at it.

Good point you made about the doors. I always laugh when I see Hollywood movies when someone kicks a door open. Don‘t try that here in Switzerland - you will hurt your leg 😂 Also, no fun to be in a bunker. It is often moisture und the air is not fresh. I had to sleep in these things during my time in the army and I hated it. Cheers from Switzerland 🇨🇭

Do agree, it’s a very complex situation grown into it over the last decades….

those bunkers are often used and maintained by the army. The last 7 weeks of my bootcamp we spent living in a bunker. Unfortunately i got sick and haf to be kept under quarantine for 2 weeks. and yes it was very depressing especially when you cant tell if it was daytime or nighttime anymore. i got to learn to appreciate a daily routine the hard way. p.s. hide and seek or tag in those bunkers are a lot of fun and more thrilling

I am a swiss "Infanterie Sicherungssoldat" which is like the security detail of the infantry for ammo and VIP transports, we're like security guards for the army and the bunkers i went to blew my mind, i knew we have alot of bunkers but what i saw during service was next level

Aah, beautiful fellow bunker nation. It's always nice to have some bunkers and yes we have some ☝️ shhh bunkers too.

The Swiss were in the "middle" during the coldwar and had to worry about both sides!

Min. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="960">16:00</a>: this is a tank barrier. There are a lot of them in switzerland, that means end station for tanks. From then on, you have to move without tanks ;)

well when the bridge blows up and the mountains start shooting you know its Switzerland

He did miss one thing in this video though. All the bridges/passes into Switzerland were/are rigged with explosives just in case....

One of the best videos so far. Thanks.

@85m underground those showers are pretty deep, but nowhere near the deepest. In Finland there is a sauna (and thus also showers) 1410m underground located in a deepest mine of Europe.

the yellow wrench is your exit tool in combination with a huge bolt. if there is something that blockes your bunkerdoor your are able to push the bunkerdoor open for about 35cm.

Toblerone is swiss chocolate shaped in dragon teeth. That took this brand to name the anti tanks barrier.

Same creator just made a video about Swiss gun laws and tradition around it. So you might want to check that out. ''Why the Swiss Love Their Guns (more than Americans)'' - Johnny Harris

The Maintenance costs are most likely the reason so many are now private property and no longer used for military purpose. Some are now maintained by veterans which also act as "tourguides" through them and tell you some of the history behind.

15.59 its a panzersperre.... tank stopper

Johnny Harris worked for a while as a Journalist and making videos for the Vox channel, before starting his own channel. He did a series for them called "Borders", since he is very much into maps too

Toblerone is a Swiss chocolate and looks like an anti-tank barrier with its 3-pointed shape.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="840">14:00</a> that britch is called the devil’s britch

The bunkers are good fun, there are a couple older ones around me and are pretty cool hidden little places i used to explore as a kid

I live in Europe, and never saw this before, these are freakingcrazy bunkers..

More informations about Swiss bunkers are shown on the Swiss channel "Made by Tschanz" when you want to know more

sitting on top of my bunker watching this :)

In Switzerland, we make a big distinction between civilian shelters (not bunkers) and actual military bunkers. By the way, there is still a lot more than was hinted at in the video of decommissioned bunkers in the mountains - but that's all I can say.

Switzerland has the third highest number of weapons per capita, behind Yemen and the USA. But killings are still very rare.

btw, here the gunlaw is even more chill than in the US, you pretty mutch walk into a gun shop and buy one, all you need is a paper you can get from your nearest police station. Ok top of that, every grown 18+ swiss man has a Gun issued by the state from his military service at his disposal at home.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="960">16:00</a> this are Tankberiers, but in switzerland they known as dragon tooths (Drachenzähne) or concreed toblerone (Beton Toblerone)

Switzerland is like fallout with much more bunkers

One thing about 80% of swiss men are used to are bunkers… we sleep in there during army duty, it ain’t comfy but we spent so many nights in them that if it comes to it we are ready to spend more 😂 and most of them are quiet old (equipment and infrastructure wise) but are anyway fully operational and currently in use

We had a Bunker under the Shoolhouse . Later we found out it was a public and Military Bunker Space for 200 to 250 People. And maybe 150 Soldier's It was a really Big Tunnel System with Kitchen, Bath, Sleeping rooms, Hospital or medical rooms, gun/ammo storage, A play room ( Kicker, Billard, Dart) wich we used to play during Lunch or Breaks. Till 2008 it was normal to build a Bunker in the House to protect the people... Or the owner of the Building had to pay for a place in a public Bunker. In the House i live we have one Bunker... Space for 20 people... One toilet,shower, and a small cooking space. but we can't shoot outside because it is underground. The Door is 25 cm concrete with steel bars in it! Shuold be safe 🤔 enough. And there would be most likely armed People inside wich are Hunter's or ex Army Soldier's

Thank you for reacting to that Video ;) Johnny harris makes good videos about switzerland.

In central Switzerland, here in Zug, you often grow up with such bunkers. It is also school material. You learn the history... e.g. that there is a gun emplacement on the Zugerberg. This belongs to the Redoubt line and is even the northernmost point of the Redoubt. There are also anti-tank barriers that go over the Zugerberg to the Wildspitz. Very impressive when you consider that our nation only consisted of Alpine farming people. I am incredibly proud of my country because we would have fought back if it had come to this. Thank God it never came to that.

Plus all the mandatory private bunkers

my house in switzerland was a 1990s build and had a bunker. i had a warhammer 40k table down there and a bunch of boxes. was about the size of somebodys bedroom I suppose. Ventilation to go out. Every 1 of my friends house had a bunker.

That is one of the reasons I live here. Deswegen wohne ich in der Schweiz!

I`m living near frontline in Ukraine and having good basement is crucial.

About gun laws in Switzerland : As they have mandatory army service/training, people can keep their weapon of service and a limited number of ammo at home.

Best protected cows in the world, moooh Some dutch love to the mighty swiss

I wasn't gonna say anything. But I thought to myself: "Average SCP facility." As a joke but then you mentioned scp aswell.😅

I live in Switzerland and the bottom of my house has a big concrete door

These kind of bunkers are pretty common around Europe. ww2 and the cold war, after that, kind of made them an necessity. Example, in my home town there is a bunker that is located under one of the main streets of the city center, it is around 1 - 1.5 km long approximately 25 meters width and can shelter more than 50% of the population.

I heard that there are even underground air bases there🤯

You can buy bunkers today. There's a bunker company that has a youtube channel, I can't remember what it's called, but I've seen a few of their videos. Showing the installation process. It's expensive for sure.

in Switzerland everything is maintained we still have m 113 protected with plastic so that they do not rust

Come to switzerland we can go look at bunkers.

Regarding gun laws.. Swiss reservists are allowed to store their personal assault rifles at their homes

Its funny he is so sweaty climbing our kids do this.

We had an old bunker the village i grow up. We used to play there alot but then they built new condos there which was kinda sad

Thank you for not pausing the video when speaking

most men in switzerland have a asulltrifl and amo at home

I live a couple hundred meters away from a nato base. Old coal mining tunnels, limestone mines are mostly turned into high tech facilities and bunkers. Most people don't know they exist.

You mention Finnish shelters. Take a look on Salpalinja which was maintained until fairly recently

As a Swiss I didn't really notice that this way of having a bunker in the cellar is unusual. I know that it is not the case in other countries, but it still felt kinda normal to me.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="549">9:09</a> helicopter

Those civil protection bunkers are no joke. The ones under private homes are rated to survive a 1 megaton blast at a distance of 1km. The bigger collective bunkers survive a megaton blast down to 500m distance.

that armor stand is nice!

As a swiss about a gun laws, as u finish millitary, mostly, being brave, and nice, you can keep the weapon, ammunition and even the uniform

You want the bunkers mapped out? Look at a map of CH and realize that basically everything is a bunker or ontop a bunker…

The US doesn't have anywhere near the level of Defensive underground bunkers, except in certain locations like Coastal areas as there has never been a threat of invasion. That isn't to say there aren't extensive military bunkers around, we all know of Cheyenne Moutain, just not to the extent Europe has. There are a number of them around the Coastal areas, like San Francisco, Alaska, and other areas that were built primarily to protect the coast line from Naval bombardment, something that never happened as far as I'm aware. There are still the foundations of gun emplacements along the coast like Long Beach and San Francisco Bay locations.

"...or if it's just random, like people just like building bunkers there." Switzerland: **Looks at germany** "Yeah, just a hobby."

I've been artillery gunner for the two last fortress systems Here are some of the lasts shots fired with the 120mm! There are some other videos on my channel As you can see, the videos are old and not of particularly high quality 😂😂 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-w1M22pZEr98.htmlsi=s9DRxh0fGxw8fA33

i can give you the chance to film in a bunker here

When was the last time you saw a marked fallout shelter in the America, cause I haven't seen one in a long time and I live in a very large city.