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The way to the cultural memory of Germany leads past Kuhweiden. Shortly after Oberried, an idyllic town near Freiburg, he winds up the hillside, passing small farms, a barking dog jumps from a yard, as if he were not accustomed to strangers. At the end of a turn open a turnaround, atrial tunnel of Barbara, the place of collective memory.
Once the tunnel to search for silver nearly 700 meters into the mountain has been driven, today there hüfthohe stored in stainless steel vats. Its contents should be the life of our culture: They contain unique copied on microfilm from German history - contracts, manuscripts, maps, texts.
Behind a heavy steel door, about 400 meters deep in the mountain, the two-barrels in front of shelves of white walls. A cement mantle was placed on the granite, cold light from neon tubes illuminates the elongated space, constant 10 degrees, humidity 75 percent. From the outside, the cultural memory in Germany and inconspicuous dull.
Stations of German history, banned on microfilm
But the hidden dimensions are enormous: about 825 million images stored in barrels, 1380 - Each year there are more. "Every year, 1.5 million recordings," says Martin Luchterhandt, Oberarchivrat in Berlin. Up to four times a year there are new barrels stored in the tunnel On.
Photo: Menke
Video: Menke
The oldest document dates from the sixth century, the youngest is the repertoire of the Bayreuth Festival from 1989. The contract for the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, the coronation charter of Otto the Great from 936, the plans of the Cologne Cathedral and the appointment of Adolf Hitler to the German Reich Chancellor - German stations past, banned on microfilm.
The storage is a consequence of the story: It was 1954 when the German Government, the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict signed. Sat in deep shock over the destruction of libraries, archives and cultural heritage during the Second World War. Never again, as were the contracting States agree should be the cultural war, as the mean "an injury to the cultural heritage of all humanity," according to the preamble. A rear admittedly remained open: the duty to protect applies not if "military necessity requires it mandatory."
Flight ban and exclusion zone for military
As the nuclear threat during the Cold War actually was decided in Germany for screening: the cultural legacy should be saved - surely bomb. The choice fell on the tunnel Barbara: In the region there is little potential military targets, is also the Schauinsland in the tunnel was beaten by his hard rock seismically safe.
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Since 1972 the gallery expanded, three years later the first barrels were stored. Since then, Barbara is a tunnel of the best protected places in Germany: He is on all military maps, it is an absolute flight ban, the Army may not be in the neighborhood residents.
Three to bottom out spitze shields in ultramarine blue and white at the entrance point to the importance of the place out. Only the Vatican and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, these highest level of protection of the United Nations. In the galleries, and motion cameras are appropriate to the code to open the steel door, two men known only by the security service.
Even without the atomic bomb attack, or meteorite impact, the tunnel is already proved useful. As recently in Cologne the Historical Archives collapsed, although irreplaceable uniques were lost - but completely wiped out the memory Kölsche not. Approximately 1.1 million images from the archive store in Barbara cleats. So as the showpiece of the repository, the composite letter from the year 1396, on microfilm as well as the comment of the medieval scholar Albertus Magnus at St. Matthew's Gospel.
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