Germany's interior ministry has announced plans to sell off 2,000 bunkers intended for civil defence purposes because they no longer offer effective protection, according to dpa. Authorities said Monday that the bunkers, most of them dating back to the time of World War II, would only be able to accommodate a fraction of the population and would be ineffective against terrorist attacks. The bunkers, many of them located underground subway stations, cost 2 million euros (2.7 million dollars) a year to maintain, said a spokeswoman for the Federal Office of Civil Defence and Disaster Assistance (BKK). Many of them were refurbished in the 1950s during the Korea war and the network extended when the nuclear threat increased with the Cuban missile crisis of the 1960s. But with the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, the need for such a network of bunkers decreased, the BKK said, confirming a decision taken in May to sell the facilities.
