The Siegfried Line Museum at Pirmasens (German : Westwallmuseum Pirmasens) is a museum in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate that is housed in a former subterranean fortification on the edge of the village of Niedersimten in southwest Palatinate (region). Its theme is war, but it also views itself as a memorial to peace. It was founded by the Gerstfeldhöhe Society (Verein HGS Gerstfeldhöhe) [1] and is run in cooperation with the town of Pirmasens.
The "Westwall" museum lies underground in the former fortification of Gerstfeldhöhe. The village of Niedersimten, two kilometres south of Pirmasens, is reached via Bitscher Straße, which continues to Bitche over the French border. Two decommissioned tanks guard the entrance to the fortress and museum.
In the course of the building programme for the construction of the Siegfried Line (German : Westwall), during the Nazi era, work on the huge, bunker-like Gerstfeldhöhe fortification began in 1938. Vaulted galleries, thousands of yards long, were blasted and hewn out of solid rock. It was intended to have an underground narrow gauge railway that would carry soldiers and military equipment over a distance of three miles to pre-planned battle positions on the nearby French border. After the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, the construction project was continued for another year before being abandoned.
The Gerstfeldhöhe tunnel system was used after the war until the early 1990s by the U.S. Army as a warehouse for vehicle spares. In the county of Südwestpfalz alone, the U.S. Army had more than 20 such underground facilities.
The Siegfried Line, which was only partially completed, ran for about 400 miles from Weil on the Upper Rhine to Kleve on the Lower Rhine. It consisted of around 20,000 different military installations. After the war ended in 1945, most of the buildings were demolished or left to decay naturally. The fort at Gerstfeldhöhe is one of the few well-preserved sites - probably because it was never in use during the war.
The temperature throughout the fort is a constant 8 °C. [2] It may be visited during the published visiting hours. [2]
During a one and a half hour guided tour, [2] which runs for roughly a kilometre of tunnel partly hewn out of the rock, the visitor can see an impressive amount of military equipment, mainly received from private collectors. Also on the gallery walls may be seen the written comments and messages of American soldiers. Its artifacts include an armoury stocked with all types of weapon, including smaller items such as gas masks and machine guns as well as larger exhibits, for example, an anti-aircraft gun weighing more than two tons, large lorries, heavy motorcycles and a VW Kübelwagen. Soldiers quarters have been faithfully reconstructed. Mannequins are dressed in Wehrmacht and Nazi uniforms.
The Maginot Line, named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, is a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Germany and force them to move around the fortifications.
The Siegfried Line, known in German as the Westwall, was a German defensive line built during the 1930s opposite the French Maginot Line. It stretched more than 630 km (390 mi); from Kleve on the border with the Netherlands, along the western border of Nazi Germany, to the town of Weil am Rhein on the border with Switzerland – and featured more than 18,000 bunkers, tunnels and tank traps.
Fort Eben-Emael is an inactive Belgian fortress located between Liège and Maastricht, on the Belgian-Dutch border, near the Albert Canal, outside the village of Ében-Émael. It was designed to defend Belgium from a German attack across the narrow belt of Dutch territory in the region. Constructed in 1931–1935, it was reputed to be impregnable and at the time, the largest in the world. The fort was neutralized by glider-borne German troops on 10 May 1940 during the Second World War. The action cleared the way for German ground forces to enter Belgium, unhindered by fire from Eben-Emael. Still the property of the Belgian Army, the fort has been preserved and may be visited.
Hegra Fortress is a small mountain fortress in the village of Hegra in the municipality of Stjørdal in Trøndelag county, Norway. Originally known as Ingstadkleiven Fort, it was built between 1908–1910 as a border fort as a defence against the perceived threat of a Swedish invasion.
Pirmasens is an independent town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, near the border with France. It was famous for the manufacture of shoes. The surrounding rural district was called Landkreis Pirmasens from 1818 until 1997, when it was renamed to Südwestpfalz.
Tunnel warfare involves war being conducted in tunnels and other underground cavities. It often includes the construction of underground facilities in order to attack or defend, and the use of existing natural caves and artificial underground facilities for military purposes. Tunnels can be used to undermine fortifications and slip into enemy territory for a surprise attack, while it can strengthen a defence by creating the possibility of ambush, counterattack and the ability to transfer troops from one portion of the battleground to another unseen and protected. Also, tunnels can serve as shelter for combatants and non-combatants from enemy attack.
The West Wall Medal was a decoration of Nazi Germany. It was instituted on 2 August 1939 and was given to those who designed and built the fortifications on Germany's western borders, known as the Westwall or, in English, the Siegfried Line, between 15 June 1938 to 31 March 1939. On 13 November 1939 eligibility was extended to include servicemen of the Wehrmacht who served on the Westwall for at least ten weeks. In all 622,064 medals were awarded until 31 January 1941, when awards of the medal ceased.
Ouvrage Rochonvillers is one of the largest of the Maginot Line fortifications. Located above the town of Rochonvillers in the French region of Lorraine, the gros ouvrage or large work was fully equipped and occupied in 1935 as part of the Fortified Sector of Thionville in the Moselle. It is located between the petit ouvrage d'Aumetz and the gros ouvrage Molvange, facing the border between Luxembourg and France with nine combat blocks. Rochonvillers saw little action during World War II, but due to its size it was repaired and retained in service after the war. During the Cold War it found a new use as a hardened military command centre, first for NATO and then for the French Army.
Ouvrage Sapey is a work of the Maginot Line's Alpine extension, the Alpine Line, also known as the Little Maginot Line. The ouvrage consists of one entry block, three artillery blocks and one observation block two kilometers west of Modane. The ouvrage was built beneath the older Fort du Sapey. The new work cost 12.8 million francs.
Husterhoeh Kaserne was a military facility in Pirmasens, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Kaserne is a German loanword that means "barracks." It was a United States military base 1945–1994. Since then it is a German base, most of which has closed. The base still has some US military operations and German military storage.
The Fort de Mutzig, also known as Feste Kaiser Wilhelm II, is located near the town of Mutzig, in the Bas-Rhin department of France. It is one of the fortifications built by Germany at the end of the 19th century to defend Strasbourg.
Operation Undertone, also known as the Saar-Palatinate Offensive, was a large assault by the U.S. Seventh, Third, and French First Armies of the U.S. Sixth and Twelfth Army Groups as part of the Allied invasion of Germany in March 1945 during World War II.
Fort Heldsberg was built 1938–1940 near St. Margrethen in Switzerland, overlooking the Rhine, which forms the Swiss-Austrian border at that location, just south of Lake Constance. The fort was part of the Swiss Border Line defenses, built between 1938 and 1941.
The Swiss National Redoubt is a defensive plan developed by the Swiss government beginning in the 1880s to respond to foreign invasion. In the opening years of the Second World War the plan was expanded and refined to deal with a potential German invasion. The term "National Redoubt" primarily refers to the fortifications begun in the 1880s that secured the mountainous central part of Switzerland, providing a defended refuge for a retreating Swiss Army.
Franz Xaver Dorsch was a German civil engineer who became the chief engineer of the Organisation Todt (OT), a civil and military engineering group in Nazi Germany that was responsible for a huge range of engineering projects at home and in the territories occupied by the Germans during the Second World War. He played a leading role in many of the Third Reich's biggest engineering projects, including the construction of the Siegfried Line (Westwall), the Atlantic Wall and numerous other fortifications in Germany and occupied Europe. Following the war, he founded the Dorsch Consult consulting engineering company in Wiesbaden.
Vladivostok Fortress is a system of fortifications built from 1889 to 1918 in Vladivostok, Russia, and the surrounding area.
The Biebermühl Railway —sometimes called the Moosalbbahn —is a 35.9 km long railway line from Kaiserslautern to Pirmasens in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, which was built between 1875 and 1913. The first section between Biebermühle and Pirmasens connected the city of Pirmasens to the railway network, which could only be achieved via a branch line due to the topography. In 1905, another branch was opened from Biebermühle to Waldfischbach, which was extended in 1913 to Kaiserslautern. It was subsequently used by long-distance services, which operated until 1990. Since then, it has been used only by local services. It is the only one of all the Palatine railway lines that were completed in the 20th century that has never been threatened with closure.
The Regelbau were a series of standardised bunker designs built in large numbers by the Germans in the Siegfried Line and the Atlantic Wall as part of their defensive fortifications prior to and during the Second World War.
The B-Werk near Besseringen is the only completely preserved fortification built to construction standard "B" in the Siegfried Line. It is part of the so-called Saar position and lies within the borough of the German town of Merzig.