Behind this door are hundreds of stainless steel barrels stacked waist-high.
The entrance to the Barbarastollen underground archive.
Photo credit:Jorgens.mi/Wikimedia
The Barbarastollen underground archive is located near the village of Oberried, in Breisgau.
But after carving for 700 meters, work was abandoned.
It was repurposed as an underground archive during the early 1970s.
As the nuclear threat loomed large during the Cold War, Germany decided to act.
Barbarastollen was chosen as the site where the archive would be created.
Access to the storage tunnels, just after the entrance to the tunnel.
Microfilm, in comparison, has a lifetime of 500 to 1,500 years if properly stored.
Besides, digital storage media need specialized equipment to make them readable, and this technology is rapidly changing.
If stored in digital medium, the data would have to be constantly updated to current technology.
To read a microfilm, on the other hand, one only needs sunlight and a magnifying glass.
The oldest document dates back to the sixth century.
The most recent is the schedule of the Bayreuth Music Festival in 1989.
The actual constitution along with a sample of archive film and a magnifier is displayed alongside.
No military vehicle is allowed to comewithin three kilometersof the property and the terrain is a strictly no-fly zone.
The code to launch the steel door is known to only two men from the security service.
Even without nuclear attack the tunnel has already proved to be useful.
The remaining, amounting to around 1 million photographs, was brought to Barbarastollen.
Records continue to be added to the archive at the rate of 1.5 million documents per year.
Photo credit: Ingo Schneider
The tunnels beyond the storage gallery that is not yet developed.
