Just three years after they were destined to be demolished, the Swiss Army are now moving to reactivate a vast network of bunkers. The fortifications, once known as Switzerland’s “secret weapon”, could soon be pressed back into service to help defend the country against armed attack.
In an interview with SRF, outgoing Swiss Army head Thomas Süssli confirmed that the military was looking to reactivate a network of specially armed bunkers. There are over 100 of these facilities across the cantons, situated on the country’s borders with France, Germany, Austria and Italy. Emplacements also exist in the country’s spine, from Zurich to Bellinzona and Fribourg down to Matingny.
Unlike the more well-known series of fortifications and the nuclear bunkers we have at home, these bunkers are designed to be deadly and extremely hard to spot, hence why they were once called Switzerland’s secret weapon. Under what appears to be a regular manhole cover is, in fact, a sizable bunker with a mortar capable of firing eight kilometres in all directions.
These facilities were built between the beginning of the Second World War and 2003, as the government pursued the so-called National Redoubt strategy. The thinking went that if Switzerland were invaded by the Axis or later the Soviet Union, the army would retreat to a series of bunkers and fortifications in the mountains, and do everything it could to slow the enemy’s advance until help arrived from overseas or victory was won. This is also why cross-border bridges were rigged to explode until 2014.
However, in 2018, parliament decided to decommission, demolish and sell off these 100 mortar fortresses, at a cost of 1 billion francs. Then Defence Minister Ueli Maurer explained at the time that the National Redoubt was at an “end”, as Switzerland faced no enemies.
Now, following the Russian Invasion of Ukraine and the global instability caused by US President Donald Trump, this assertion is not as solid as it once was. Following the invasion in 2022, the demolition campaign was put on hold.
Now, Süssli said that he hoped to put a majority of the old bunkers back into operation. "A very large portion [of them are] in very good condition and could be repaired in a short time with parliamentary approval," he noted. The bunkers themselves would be used as troop accommodation and ammunition storage, but would be reactivated as bunkers in the event of crisis and war.
The plan was praised by Swiss People’s Party State Councillor Werner Salzmann, who told SRF that the current combat being seen in Ukraine is akin to the trench warfare of the First World War. "When I think of trench warfare in the Rhine Valley, we would probably be happy to have these fortresses, mortars, and weapon systems," he noted.
Others are not so sure, with Social Democratic National Councillor Priska Seiler Graf calling the idea of fortresses “retro nostalgia”. "The disadvantage is that they are stationary and can be destroyed immediately with targeted ammunition," she noted, adding that with the military expected to see staff shortages in future, it would be unwise to train and assign troops to outmoded defences like bunkers.
In response, Süssli explained that the facilities are well protected, noting that "it would take a direct hit on the facility to destroy it". As to a lack of troops, he argued that infantry and mechanised units are already trained to use mobile mortars, so they could be trained to use the bunkered versions as well.