Business | A bunker mentality

Panic rooms and private bunkers are all the rage in Germany

Everyone from tycoons to typical middle-class families seeks shelter

View inside a bunker.
A safe investmentPhotograph: BSSD Defense GmbH
|BERLIN

KIM KARDASHIAN spotted the trend early, true to form. In 2021 the American reality-television star and her sister Khloé went bunker shopping. They tested a $200,000 facility made by a firm called Atlas Survival Shelters which provides 46 square metres (500 square feet) of safe space. Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire founder of Meta, a social-media empire, is reportedly building a less cramped 450-square-metre facility under his ranch on a remote Hawaiian island. Now many Europeans, too, are running for cover. And not just plutocrats.

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This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “A bunker mentality”

From the July 6th 2024 edition

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