There might be no better way to gauge a country's anxieties than by checking in on the companies building panic rooms and private bunkers.

Business has been going worryingly well for BSSD Defence, the Berlin-based company that builds "protection room systems" for private, business and military applications. As well as a range of home security equipment, the company offers everything from "pop-up panic rooms" for around €20,000 ($21,400) to full-scale bunkers for close to €200,000.

Mario Piejde, BSSD's technical director, said the company has had more calls from private citizens, fire services and local councils in recent years, an uptick that began during the COVID-19 pandemic and then was boosted again when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

"There's active demand and active interest because there aren't that many suppliers around," said Piejde. "No one could've expected that a conventional war could be waged in Europe again, but history keeps repeating itself, unfortunately. People who had been thinking about it before have now started to actually implement their plans."

The feeling appears to have seeped into political circles. At a recent interior ministers' conference in Potsdam in early June, the Federal Interior Ministry presented its state counterparts with a "status report on the development of a modern shelter........

© Deutsche Welle