The Cold War bunker beneath Lake Garda becomes a museum

Beneath the waters of Lake Garda, in Italy, lies a Cold War bunker that is preparing to become a museum. It is the former NATO command centre known by the code name “West Star”, located just outside the municipality of Affi, built between 1960 and 1966 to withstand a nuclear, chemical or biological attack. The news comes from a single gathered source, and is reported here with the caution required by the absence of a second independent origin.

The complex, which covers 13,000 square metres, housed up to 300 military personnel and coordinated NATO operations in Southern Europe, until its closure in 2007. For nearly half a century the facility represented one of the strategic nodes of the Atlantic alliance in the south of the continent, during a period marked by the nuclear tensions of the Cold War.

The project to transform it into a museum is supported by funding of 7 million euros, and the facility is expected to partially open to the public next summer. The planned exhibits will include original equipment from the period, historical archives relating to the Cold War, oral testimonies from veterans who served in the bunker, and a rare ARPANET system dating back to the early years of the U.S. military computer network that anticipated the Internet.

The museum conversion of a military site of this scale tells a little-visible chapter of recent European history: that of the underground infrastructure built to guarantee the allied chain of command during decades of tension between the blocs. The choice to preserve original equipment alongside direct testimonies from the military personnel who worked there aims to convey not only the technical dimension of the site, but also the human dimension of those who spent their service there.

There is, in the materials gathered, no indication of the overall cost of the operation beyond the funding of 7 million euros, nor of the timeline for the site’s full opening beyond the announcement of a partial opening planned for next summer. What remains, as verifiable data, is the figure of 13,000 square metres of surface area and the 300 military personnel the bunker was designed to house during its full operation.