Fortress Fürigen

In Stansstad, the fortress Fürigen with original furnishings from the 1940s conveys a real impression of how the military prepared for a possible attack during the Second World War. 

Few people know that some of the towering rock faces on the riverside road from Stansstad to Kehrsiten are not real at all!  An artfully crafted camouflage. Hidden behind it is the "Fürigen Fortress". This once secret place, where soldiers entrenched themselves behind thick concrete and embrasures, is now its own museum. 

The fortress Fürigen was built in 1941/42 in the middle of the Second World War. The Swiss military leadership feared the invasion of the German Wehrmacht and withdrew with a large part of the army to the better-defended Alpine region, to the Reduit. Fürigen was one of many fortifications that were built for this purpose in the Nid- and Obwalden region. Due to the threat of danger from the Eastern Bloc and fear of nuclear war in Western Europe, the fortress remained important until the 1980s. With the end of the Cold War, the army was also reformed and many of the bunkers were decommissioned