I thought I would make a thread with my Siegfried line pics. First to come are some Dragon's teeth and the ruin of an unidentified Bunker near Grosskampenberg in the Eifel region in Germany.
These were part of the defenses of the Ordensburg Vogelsang! There are also bunkers of the Luftverteidigungszone West nearby, I made these pictures quite a few years ago before In started looking into bunkers and fortifications and I have not identified the Regelbau type yet! So I need to go back to that place!
These ruins lie near the village of Edingen, on the Sauer/Sûre river, just opposite the luxembourgish town of Echternach. They give you quite a good impression of what state most of the bunkers of the Westwall are in! There are even a few taht have been completely removed, a layman would never find the pace where they stood.
Again with a high seat installed on top, something you see quite often! The dog was very interested in the crack and the underground part......the bunkers are of a very high ecological value as they are an habitat for many species! It seems to me this one is home to a fox. The next one is barely recognisable, it is the a hillock covered with overgrowth you can see on the horizon. There must also a beaver living next door....they had disappeared and are now coming back to the Ardennes/Eifel region in Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg.
Great pictures! There is a bunker in the forest close to Simonskall in the Eifel region which was almost completely buried by US army engineers in WW2. I have walked passed it a number of times and wondered what may still be buried in there?
I'm not really "at home" in the northern parts of the Eifel, my stomping grounds were along the Moselle-Sûre-Our rivers. I guess the bunker you mention was destroyed after the war. Most of them were, except in the Saarland, the french left quite a few intact.
I've only visited the northern part of the Eifel region but I hope to go further afield when i'm back there later this year. I'm not even sure if the buried bunker has been destroyed. It was common practice to lay demolition charges in captured bunkers to prevent them being re-used should the ground be won back by the enemy but maybe this one was simply buried to achieve the same result and save on explosives. That said, the four other bunkers in this stretch of the Westwall defences have all been destroyed or badly damaged by controlled demolition.
Most of the demolitions have been made after the war! Most often they filled up the bunker with UXOs put in a loaf of C4 and blew the whole shebang up. In the french occupational zone some french companies were sold the rights to salvage scrap metal, so in many bunkers the steel beams have been removed with the help of explosives after the first demolition done by army engineers.
Superb stuff, as usual. I love the birdwatcher's hide on the top of the bunker! There used to be a similar triple row of anti-tank obstacles at Lunan Bay in NE Scotland, but someone managed to remove them all a few years ago.
Much like the Atlantik wall defences in Normandy. There are very few bunkers with their steel doors still in situ.
The "Schwarzer Mann" is a 697.3 m high Mountain in the Schneifel part of the Eifel mountains. The long ridge is covered by dozens of old bunkers, it is interesting because the remnants of three eras of military history can be found together in a quite confined area. The "Tranchot" stone, put in place by Napoleonic military cartographers under the command of Major Tranchot. [The Westwall Bunkers. All that can be seen is a hillock, the whole structure has been covered with earth. This one is completely filled with water, a valuable habitat for many amphibians.
Nature is slowly reclaiming the ground. The Cold War era, the ruins of USAF Prüm Air Station, a former Radar installation. The tower seems to be still in use.
The Flak battery was part of LVZ West,to the east of the "Dahlemer Binz" Luftwaffe base. The battery had not only conctrete firing positions but also bunkers for the crews, a command bunker, ammo bunker and telemetric fire directing post. Everything was blown up after the war and the ruins and debris were taken away. The intact firing position only survived because it was located on top of a waterbunker that was badly needed for civilian use. Reinforced concrete firing position. Crew shelter. It was meant to harbour six people! Ammo rack. Shelter for communications equipment. Into these slots planks were inserted and inbetween the two wooden walls created they could pile sandbags in order to close off the opening. Waterbunker up on which the firing position is built. Floorplan of the firing position.
In the forest called "Buhlert", inbetween the Villages of Strauch and Schmidt, there are five bunkers still intact (numbered 19/1 to 19/5 on the map) . There were thirteen different fortifications in that forest, the other eight having been blown up. The fortifications were part of the "Limes Programm" and built in 1938. in this sector the Westwall had some depth, there were two lines of fortifications, the "Vorstellung Aachen", to the left and the "Limes Stellung" to the right. The blue dots on the map mark positions of Westwall bunkers, the blue rectangles mark positions of the LVZ West, "Luftverteidigungszone West" (Air Defense Zone West). The blue strings mark lines of dragons teeth anti-tank obstacles. In the beginning of february 1945 the complex was manned by elements of the 2nd Battalion of the "Grenadier Regiment 982" of the "272 Volksgrenadierdivision". The bunkers were taken by units of the 78 US Infantry Division on february 5th 1945. BUNKER 139/40 (Marked as 19/1 on the map) This was a "Doppel Gruppenunterstand" (double group shelter) for 27 personnel. a + b are the ready rooms and quarters, c was a flanking entry defence with emergency escape, e + f were the entries and gas locks. d was an annexed fighting shelter with a firing port for a machine gun and a firing port for rifles. Firing port of the fighting shelter c can be seen to the left, next to it is entry e and to the right is entry f. Entry f and the entry to the annexed fighting shelter c. Interior of ready room b. Fixations for cots in ready room a. Firing port from a into gas lock e. Rifle firing port in the fighting shelter d. View to the outside from gas lock f. Machine gun firing port in c. View from firing port in c.
Bunker 131 & Bunker 132 (Marked as 19/3 and 19/2 on the map) Both bunkers are "Regelbau 10" type and have the same layout, there are two entries to the ready room, each with a gas lock and there is a protective firing port inbetween the entries. There is an emergency escape at the lower left corner of the ready room a. There was space for a crew of 15. To the left there was an annexed fighting shelter with a firing port for a machine gun and a rifle firing port. The machine gun firing port of the fighting shelter of bunker 131. The entries to Bunker 131 with the protective firing port. The entry to the annexed fighting shelter of Bunker 131 Views of Bunker 132 from the outside. Machine gun firing port in Bunker 132 Bunker 132, fighting position with rifle firing port to the right, enties to the ready room on the left Bunker 132, entries and protective firing port of the ready room on the right and entry to the fighting shelter to the left. "Bunker 132" Ready room of 132 with the emergency exit in the lower left corner. Emergency exit of 132 Inscriptions in 132: "Rauchentwicklung am Tage vermeiden" (= avoid smoke during daytime) & "Feststellschrauben anziehen" (= tighten screws on fixation bolts Entry to the fighting shelter of 132. Rifle firing port in the fighting shelter Machine gun room and emplacement in the fighting shelter, the inscription reads: "Licht machen nur bei geschlossener Scharte" (= switch on the lights only when port is closed). Firing port in the machine gun room to cover the inside of the entry. View from the machine gun firing port. Fighting shelter entry, inside view. Protective firing port of the ready room.
Bunker 135 (Marked as 19/4 on the map) This is the only remaining fighting bunker of the Buhlert group. It is a "Regelbau 23" Machinegun bunker of the "Limesprogramm 1938". The entry is at the backside with a gas lock and a flanking protective firing port to it's right side. the emergency exit is in the lower right corner. The machine gun firing port is on the upper right side. There is a protective firing port from the machine gun room into the gas lock. Machine gun firing port. Entry to the left and flanking protective firing port. Machine gun room with firing port onm the right. Emergency exit and flanking protective firing port. View from the machine gun firing port, bunker 131 is just twenty meters down the hill to the right just out of view. "Wasserbunker" (Marked on the map as 19/5) This fortified water reservoir was used to provide the bunkers of the Buhlert complex with drinking water. Today it is still used to provide water to the fire brigade in case of woodfires.
Excellent photos! I was at the bunkers in Der Buhlert in 2010 and apart from the senseless graffiti sprayed on the exterior and interior walls I was surprised at how well preserved they were. May I ask where you sourced the maps and bunker diagrams from? http://www.ww2f.com/western-europe-1943-1945/45772-hurtgen-forest-trip-2010-a.html
