CyberBunker: the full story / Kloetinge

01 / NL-ZEELAND · ZOMERWEGA war post for the province

The bunker was built in 1955 as the war post of the Provincial Military Command (PMC) Zeeland, designed to keep working through a nuclear attack. The Dutch military gave it up in 1994, and in 1995 Herman Johan Xennt bought it. [1]

The most detailed description of the inside comes from the people who broke into it in 1982. The activists of Onkruit describe a post for about 60 staff, 20 of them officers, around a central plot room with maps of Zeeland on the walls. One map was for marking “the enemy” inside the province, with categories such as “concentratie gastarbeiders” (concentration of guest workers), drug users, “onbetrouwbare burgers” (unreliable citizens) and political activity. [4]

They also describe the technology: an airlock of blast doors with decontamination showers, a carbon filter plant in the basement that kept the bunker under overpressure, two MAN six-cylinder diesel generators, and lines into the public phone network, the government’s own emergency network and the military radio-relay network, with a mast of about 40 metres on the bunker. [4]

02 / LOG · 1982–NOWFrom war post to data centre

1. 6 Jul 1982WARN

   Onkruit occupies the bunker

   Anti-militarist activists burn a hole in the steel entrance door and occupy the bunker. Around 14:00 a special unit of the Royal Marechaussee cuts the door open, and five men and two women surrender without resistance. [2] [3]

2. 1994–1995INFO

   Sold, and bought by Xennt

   The military gives up the bunker in 1994. A year later Herman Johan Xennt buys it and sets up CyberBunker inside: hosting that would take nothing offline except child abuse material and terrorism. [1]

3. 2002CRIT

   Fire, and an MDMA lab

   Firefighters find an MDMA lab inside. Three of the four men charged get three years; the fourth is acquitted. The municipality refuses a business licence afterwards. [1] CyberBunker later writes that the “swimming pool” was the old generator room, rented to the tenants whose lab caught fire, and that the bunker had no fire suppression system. [5]

4. Jun 2005INFO

   “Largely photoshopped”

   CyberBunker admits on WebHostingTalk.nl that the photos on its website were “grotendeels gephotoshopt danwel niet echt”: largely photoshopped or not real. [6]

5. 2009INFO

   GOVNOC

   A plan to market the bunker as a government data centre appears at govnoc.com. More about GOVNOC → [8]

6. 2010WARN

   BunkerInfra takes over

   BunkerInfra says it has owned the bunker since 2010 and that CyberBunker’s claims of still operating from it are false. [1] [9] The BunkerInfra years →

7. Feb 2012WARN

   Council stops the works

   The municipality of Goes halts the conversion: there is no environmental permit. [11]

8. Mar 2013INFO

   “CyberBunker is not here”

   During the Spamhaus affair the press goes looking for the bunker in Zeeland. BunkerInfra says CyberBunker is no longer there. [9]

9. May 2014OK

   Open as a data centre

   Data Protectors B.V. opens its first bunker data centre in Kloetinge. [12]

10. Jun 2015CRIT

    Bankrupt

    The district court of The Hague declares Data Protectors bankrupt. [13]

11. 2019–nowOK

    Holland Datacenters

    The site passes to Holland Datacenters B.V. In 2019 trees are cleared, a road, fencing, cameras and a solar park are added, and part of the old command centre is kept, including a wall of 24 monitors. In 2020 two investors take minority stakes. [14] [15] The bunker is now advertised as an ISO 27001-certified data centre. [16]

03 / IMAGESPictures of the bunker

Reliable pictures of the inside are rare, and CyberBunker’s own were not to be trusted: in 2005 it admitted that the photos on its website were largely photoshopped or not real. [6] These are the images that can be traced to a source.

Location: the bunker on OpenStreetMap (51.50216, 3.90730). It is a working data centre on private land, not a place to visit. Have photos of the bunker, from any era? Send them to [email protected].

FAQFrequently asked questions

REFSources

1. Wikipedia: CyberBunker
2. Reformatorisch Dagblad: Onkruit-leden uit bunker verwijderd (7 Jul 1982), via Digibron
3. Koninklijke Marechaussee report to the Army Intelligence Service (LAS) on the Onkruit action (14 Jul 1982), via Stichting Argus
4. Onkruit: “PMC-bunkerbezetting in Kloetinge: het verslag” (Internet Archive)
5. WebHostingTalk.nl: thread “Cyberbunker?”, reply from the CyberBunker side (19 Jun 2005, page 4)
6. WebHostingTalk.nl: thread “Cyberbunker?”, reply from the CyberBunker side (24 Jun 2005, page 6)
7. Internet Archive: bunker.jpg on cb3rob.net (archived 11 Feb 2006)
8. Internet Archive: govnoc.com (11 Dec 2009)
9. AG Connect: Cyberbunker niet meer in bunker Kloetinge (29 Mar 2013)
10. WebHostingTalk.nl: thread “Cyberbunker?”, posts 421–435 (30 Sep 2011), with the floor plan
11. ISPam: Gemeente legt verbouwing ‘Cyberbunker’ datacenter stil (10 Feb 2012)
12. Computable: Rijk verkoopt bunker aan Data Protectors (23 Jan 2015)
13. ISPam: Bunkerinfra Datacenters failliet (16 Jun 2015)
14. Computable: Nieuwe investeerders voor datacenterbunker Kloetinge (25 Nov 2020)
15. Computable: Facelift voor een atoombunker vol servers (19 Jul 2021)
16. Data Center Map: Holland Datacenters B.V., Zomerweg 67, Kloetinge
17. YouTube: “Tour around the bunker” (23 Dec 2009, 7:45)