After Danish Culture Minister Mette Bock called on Danish museums to come up with new proposals for Danish nominations for the UNESCO World Heritage list, the North Jutland Historical Museum responded by suggesting a Danish Cold War-era bunker, Danish Radio reported.
The North Jutland Historical Museum is currently in the process of transforming the bunker into a museum.
"It's a gem among the Cold War relics we have at home, and that's why we believe it will go all the way," museum leader Lars Christian Nørbach said.
For many years, the exact location of Regan Vest in Rold Forest, the Nordic nation's second-largest at 8,000 hectares, has been kept secret, as it was the designated shelter for the government and the royal members in the event of a military emergency. The bunker was declassified only in 2012.
The name Regan is an abbreviation for "REGeringsANlæg" ("Government Facility"). During the Cold War, Regan Vest had a less classified counterpart Regan Øst at Hellebæk in Zealand.
Unlike other bunker facilities in Denmark, Regan Vest is not dug into the ground, but built in a limestone shaft inside a hill. At 5,500 square meters, the facility has two kilometers of circular tunnels and can accommodate up to 350 people in 160 rooms. The circular form was chosen to make the facility less vulnerable to bombing (click here for more photos from the book "Denmark's Deepest Secret" about Regan Vest).
Apart from being a relic from the 1960s, Regan Vest stands out due to its construction, Lars Christian Nørbach ventured, suggesting that it had no counterparts.
"Putting the finger on the map, there is really nothing similar. The Englishmen have sold theirs to private owners, and the Germans have closed down theirs because of asbestos pollution. So Regan Vest does stand as something unique," Lars Christian Nørbach said.
According to Nørbach, the bunker is also an excellent epitome of the struggle between the two ideologies, in the same league as the Bikini Atoll on the Marshall Island in the Pacific which was used as a nuclear test area.
The North Jutland Historical Museum assumed that the bunker could enter UNESCO's World Heritage list as early as 2021, a year after opening for the public as a museum.
At present, Denmark has seven objects in UNESCO's list, including the Jelling Runestones, Roskilde Cathedral and Kronborg Castle, which was immortalized in Shakespeare's Hamlet.
I'm at Roskilde Domkirke | Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde https://t.co/kbb1fDgOSYpic.twitter.com/Yy8iypZFdT
— Joerg Sterner (@jsterner73) August 20, 2017
Filming of Hamlet took place at Kronborg Castle in Denmark for @The_Globe's #TheCompleteWalk short film series. pic.twitter.com/LqcT8Ms1Qt
— Richard Gravett (@RichardGravett) March 16, 2016