{"id":50194,"date":"2023-01-26T01:20:21","date_gmt":"2023-01-26T00:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=50194"},"modified":"2024-01-26T00:14:54","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T23:14:54","slug":"schafloch-a-very-long-and-labyrinthine-swiss-army-bunker-with-spectacular-views","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/01\/26\/schafloch-a-very-long-and-labyrinthine-swiss-army-bunker-with-spectacular-views\/","title":{"rendered":"Schafloch: a very long and labyrinthine Swiss Army bunker with spectacular views"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many countries have used forts dug into mountains as defenses in the event of a war. One of the countries that stood out the most in this strategy was Switzerland.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/06\/06\/maisy-the-german-normandy-battery-that-was-mysteriously-buried-by-the-us\/\">Maisy: the German Normandy battery that was mysteriously buried by the US<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/06\/09\/the-interior-of-two-well-preserved-third-reich-batteries-on-a-british-island\/\">The interior of two well-preserved Third Reich batteries on a British island<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p>This mountainous country has excellent natural defenses in case of invasion. During World War II, <strong>the Swiss Army prepared forts in these mountainous areas to face a hypothetical German invasion.<\/strong> One of these defenses was prepared near Sigriswil, in the canton of Bern, in the center of Switzerland, in <strong>a network of natural caves known as Schafloch<\/strong> (Sheep's Hole, in German). This network of caves was formed by ice inside a mountain. <strong>General Guillaume-Henri Dufour explored them in September 1822<\/strong>, writing a report on them.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/51842090557_6c60e6e374_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>During World War II, the Swiss Army enlarged the Schafloch caves into a formidable bunker<\/strong>, equipping them with machine gun posts. The tunnel network, about 800 meters long and located at 1,780 meters above sea level, ran through the Sigriswilgrat mountain. <strong>After the war, the bunker was abandoned but today it can be visited, although access is not suitable for people who suffer from vertigo<\/strong>, as you can see in the image at the top of this entry.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/51843767300_ec78994c28_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Of course, <strong>Schafloch is, without a doubt, one of the forts with the most beautiful views in Europe<\/strong>, since from several places it gives way to the mountainside, showing beautiful images of the Alps. Last year a Swiss youtuber toured that bunker, posting the video on the channel <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UC37V8ik6U_8Fek0f1_dJRgg\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">RedMedia<\/a>. <strong>The images are spectacular, the only thing missing is a Balrog:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VxEySuasux8\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many countries have used forts dug into mountains as defenses in the event of a war. One of the countries that stood out the most in this strategy was Switzerland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19536,16879],"tags":[15983,15982,16711,17055,10389],"class_list":["post-50194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-we-said-yesterday","category-fortifications","tag-schafloch","tag-sigriswilgrat","tag-swiss-army","tag-switzerland","tag-world-war-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}