Supermarkets sell pop-up panic rooms in Germany

Bulletproof vests and armoured safe rooms are marketed in middle-class neighbourhoods amid rising fears about global geopolitical instability and violent crime.

Bananas, milk … bullet proof vest? The feeling of a growing threat to personal security is rife among Norma’s customers. Picture: Alamy

Among the garden furniture, soft furnishings and state-of-the-art vacuum cleaners at Norma supermarkets are some new offerings.

German customers can now invest in a pop-up panic room, made from armoured steel, that can resist bullets from a “9mm caliber up to a .44 Magnum”. For when they are out and about and cannot retreat to their safe place, they can also buy body armour.

“There is danger, war, terrorism everywhere,” said Marlies, 78, who was born two years after WWII and vividly remembers the stories told by her parents and especially those of her father, who had been a soldier.

Bulletproof vests, available at €599, are being sold at Norma supermarkets.

Panic rooms start at €13,999 and a reinforced bunker at €4999.

Outside a Norma branch in the middle-class Berlin neighbourhood of Pankow, Marlies said she could not recall a time in her life when things had felt more unsafe, pointing to the war in Ukraine and the situations in Syria and Afghanistan, which have led to mass movements of refugees.

Annett, 51, a case worker at a job centre, said she needed not only a panic room but a gun, too, “to protect myself”.

The feeling of a growing threat is rife among Norma’s customers. The chain’s bulletproof vests are available at €599 ($1030) within 14 working days. The panic rooms start at €13,999 and a reinforced bunker at €4999.

The description of the panic room says: “With its high-quality construction and precise specifications, it offers the reliability you need in crisis situations.”

Sets of triple bunk beds being sold at €899 at the supermarket chain.

Wolfgang Stutz, a member of Norma’s executive board, told Bild, the German tabloid: “We can see that interest in the topic of security has risen sharply due to the current global political situation.”

In the Allensbach Institute’s latest annual security report, the proportion of respondents who felt safe in Germany had fallen to its lowest of the six years on record at only 60 per cent. About a third – twice as many as three years ago – were worried about falling victim to violent crime.

BSSD-Defence, the Berlin-based company that developed the products at Norma, has recently reached out to the chain again, on the lookout for new sales channels to take advantage of demand. “We were told that they were being bombarded with requests at the moment,” Stutz said.

However, Franziska, 36, a social worker who was shopping in Pankow, said: “That feels very American to me – everyone buying weapons and going for themselves.”

The Times