B-Werk Besseringen
The B-plant near Besseringen is the only completely preserved armored plant of the strength "B" of the west wall . It belonged to the so-called Saar position and lies in the area of the Saarland city of Merzig .
The Siegfried Line
This defense system was built between 1936 and 1940 on the western border of the German Reich and was around 630 kilometers long. It consisted of numerous different types of bunker constructions and tank obstacles. Around 22,000 bunkers and factories were planned, and around 14,800 structures were actually built, including 32 armored factories of the “B” thickness.
The B-works
The B-Werke were the largest and best equipped bunkers on the West Wall. Its name is derived from the thickness of the building (thickness B = 1.5 meters of wall and ceiling thickness). Officially, the term Panzerwerk or a cover name (e.g. animal name, field name, name of a military figure) was used in order not to give the opponent any indication of the strength of the works. Of the 32 B-plants on the west wall, only Besseringen B-plant has been preserved intact in its complete structure and with all weapon domes. In Irrel, Rhineland-Palatinate, there is another B-plant, which is open to the public , with the partially blown Katzenkopf tank plant. In addition, almost all B plants were disarmed and blown up after the war. By the mid-1990s, the partly open ruins were finally leveled and grounded.
The B-Werk near Besseringen
The B-Werk in Besseringen was built in 1938 and 1939. The construction cost around 1,300,000 Reichsmarks at the time . Around 2,800 cubic meters of concrete, 1,120 tons of cement, 5,400 tons of sand and gravel and around 200 tons of steel were used. The plant extends over three levels at a height of 12 m and has 44 rooms on a floor area of 24.60 meters long and 17.80 meters wide. It was designed for a crew of 85 to 90 people who, if necessary , could live and fight independently in the B-Werk for 30 days . The building had its own water and power supply, air filter systems, machine and crew rooms and was equipped with two six-notch towers, an observation dome and notch plates for a flanking system. The armament consisted of a total of five machine guns for the two six-notch towers and the flanking system with notch plate as well as an M 19 machine grenade launcher and an FN fortress flamethrower. In addition there was the normal armament of the infantrymen ( Mauser model 98 ).
The system had the following identification: Bunker N38401, later WH.-Nr. 118.
Armament and armor parts
The main armament consisted of two MG 34 machine guns per six-notch turret. The machine guns were mounted on mounts in the towers and could change the notches by means of running rails, they could be aimed using circular scales on the inner walls of the tower. For reasons of space, the machine guns could not be used in two slots next to each other, there always had to be one slot between them. The loops were closed with spherical cap closures when not in use. The gun mounts had a matching ball head that sealed the notch gas-tight when the machine gun was in the firing position. The six-notch towers of the type 20P7 have an average wall thickness of 255 millimeters (max. 295 millimeters), an inner diameter of 2.25 meters and a weight of 51 tons. The total height is 2.64 meters of which only 1.34 meters protrude from the ceiling of the structure. Because of the effective firing range of 1,650 meters, the machine guns in the domes can be seen as the plant's “long-range weapons”; they were primarily intended to cover the opposite bank of the Saar and the slope that climbed there.
The M 19 machine grenade launcher was intended to defend the area around the bunker and was also able to provide fire support to the surrounding bunkers. His firing range was between 20 and 600 meters with a maximum theoretical rate of fire of up to 120 shells of the caliber 5 centimeters per minute. Slightly modified launcher grenades of the 5 cm grenade launcher 36 were used, which, like the M19, was produced by the Rheinmetall company . The grenade launcher was built into a type 424P01 armored turret, which is sunk almost flush with the ceiling. It protrudes only 0.30 meters above the ceiling of the building. The tower weighs 26 tons, has an internal diameter of 1.70 meters, a total height of 2.63 meters and an average wall thickness of 250 millimeters.
The fortress flamethrower - FN device (fortress close combat device) - was intended to defend the factory surface and the immediate vicinity. The maximum range of the flame burst was 40 meters and this could be held for a maximum of 90 seconds. 120 liters of flame oil were used for this. The thrower worked with a pressure of 20 atü, which was built up in a special pressure vessel. The pressure vessel was filled from a storage container that held 2,500 liters of flame oil. The FN device took two minutes to be ready for fire (filling the pressure vessel and building up the pressure). The flame oil was ignited by acetylene gas .
A 90P9 observation bell was available to the commander for observation and fire control. The commander was able to observe the surroundings through two armored viewing telescopes (Pz.BWF 5a) and to direct the fire through 5 viewing slits that could be closed by means of slides. The bell has a weight of 6 tons, an average wall thickness of 120 millimeters, a total height of 1.60 meters, with only 0.65 meters protruding from the building ceiling.
Another machine gun was located in the flanking system and served there to defend the entrance area. The weapon was attached to a saucer box with a corresponding rifle carrier. The flanking system has a 7P7 notch plate with a thickness of 10 centimeters and a weight of 7.5 tons, in front of which there is another concrete stairway notch. The notch and the observation slot can be closed using a simple slide. There was also a slider made of bulletproof glass for the viewing slit, with which it was also possible to observe under fire.
The technical facilities
Power generation
The engine room of the Besseringen plant extended over two floors, with the upper floor only being accessible from below via the engine room. The floor of the upper floor consisted of steel girders with metal sheets. The plant had two diesel generators in an engine room to generate electricity. These were water-cooled four-cylinder four-stroke engines with 38 hp each. The three-phase generators each generated 28 kilowatts of three-phase alternating current with a voltage of 380 volts. This electricity operated the electric motors in the factory, the electric radiators in the crew quarters, and the kettles and hot plates in the kitchen. The main lighting was supplied with 220 volts. Sensitive areas were operated using factory batteries so that electricity would still be available in the event of a generator failure. This 24 volt network supplied the lighting in the fighting rooms and the optics and provided the electricity for the emergency lighting. The news room at the plant again had separate 24-volt batteries. The entire machinery was removed after the end of the war. One of the two diesel engines was given to the American armed forces by the city of Merzig; its whereabouts are unknown.
Air filter system and ventilation
An important aspect of the bunker systems of the west wall was their gas safety. The systems could be hermetically sealed and supplied with purified outside air. Because of their importance in the design and construction of the plants, the B-Werke had the most complex filter systems. A constant overpressure prevented the penetration of gases in the event of small leaks and made it possible to remove stale air and exhaust gases from the fighting positions. One or more rooms were combined to form gas-tight cells. Overpressure valves in the rooms or cells regulated the overpressure. The outside air sucked in was passed through a pre-filter, which freed the air from dust and water vapor. Then it flowed through four room filters connected in parallel, which filtered out combat gases using activated charcoal. If necessary, the air for heating the plant could be warmed up by means of a heat exchanger before it was blown into the plant. The delivery rate of the central fan was 40 m³ / minute. In order to ensure the ventilation of the system even in the event of a failure of the central fan, the individual rooms or cells had hand-operated fans of the type HES (Army Unit Protective Fan) with 1.2 m³ or 2.4 m³ delivery rate per minute. The central fan with the filters was located above the engine room and is no longer available today.
Communication facilities
The plant had a sophisticated network of communication facilities. Three underground cables from the fortress telephone network ended in a separate news room. There was a plug-in switch there. At the entrances there were niches where additional field cables could be connected, either to create additional cable connections or to bridge damaged underground cables. Telephones were permanently installed in the most important rooms or there were at least connections for portable devices. The weapon towers were - independent of the central plug-in switch in the news room - connected to the associated standby rooms by separate line telephones. Fail-safe speaking tubes were laid in the walls between the rooms of the inner entrance defense and the flanking system.
Water supply
The plant had its own well. In a well chamber was a pump that pumped water into a storage container. From there, water was pumped into a pressure vessel to generate the necessary water pressure for the supply lines. There were water outlets in the kitchen, in the first-aid room, in the driver's cab, in the corridors and in the washroom (the plant had no showers, only sinks), in the toilets and in the engine room. In addition to supplying the crew with drinking water, water was required to cool the diesel generator sets and an automatic sprinkler system was installed in the ammunition room. The wastewater was collected in a sewage pit. From there, an electrical lifting system, activated by a float, carried it upwards.
Occupation during World War II
For the first time, the B-Werk Besseringen was occupied by forces of the 79th Infantry Division , in whose division section the B-Werk was located. The time of the first occupation began immediately after completion at the end of 1939 and lasted until the summer of 1940, when it no longer seemed necessary after the successful French campaign . In November 1944, the Besseringen B-Werk was occupied for the second time by combat troops. After the Allies had bypassed Merzig at the beginning of 1945 , the crew left the bunker with the withdrawal order of March 12, 1945. American troops took the orphaned B-Werk on March 18, 1945 without a fight.
post war period
After the end of the war, almost all built-in parts of the B-Werk were removed. The facility served as a building rubble dump and was walled up in 1980 and covered with earth.
When the nearby industrial area “Siebend” and a feeder road to the A8 motorway were planned at the end of the 1970s, the bunker system was about to be torn down. It is thanks to the initiative of fortress researchers and Westwal experts that the Besseringen plant, the first bunker facility of World War II in Saarland, was listed as an important example of fortress construction in 1980.
In 1997, the excavation and restoration began. From 1997 to 2002 the facility was looked after by the Merzig Reservist Comradeship , and the Merzig Local History Association has been in charge of it since 2002 . The district town of Merzig is the owner of the bunker system .
museum
The B-Werk has been open to the public since autumn 2005, although not all areas of the facility can currently be visited and opening times are limited to Sundays and public holidays between April and September from 2pm to 6pm. A permanent exhibition on the fighting at the Orscholzriegel as well as the consequences for the civilian population and resistance movements was set up in the basement . So far, 7 of the 43 rooms have been restored to almost their original condition (as of May 2018). From the outside, only the entrance area and the armored domes can be seen. A guard house has been located in the entrance courtyard since 2005, which was used as a control post at construction site accesses during the construction of the western wall.
Additional information
See also
Web links
- Commons : B-Werk Besseringen - Collection of images, videos and audio files
- Several pictures, also from the inside
- Technical details
- Tour and detailed explanation
- "This B-Werk bunker was a killing machine"
Literature and Sources
- Dieter Robert Bettinger, Hans-Josef Hansen, Daniel Lois: The Westwall from Kleve to Basel - On the trail of German history. Podzun-Pallas-Verlag GmbH, Wölfersheim-Berstadt 2002, ISBN 3-7909-0754-5
- Data sheet and project description of the Association for Local History Merzig
- SCHOLL, Egon: The B-Werk Besseringen - An important bunker system of the west wall, in: Verein für Heimatkunde im Kreis Merzig-Wadern e. V. (Ed.): Merzig-Wadern District Yearbook 2009, self-published
- Own visits / inspection
Coordinates: 49 ° 27 ′ 54.5 ″ N , 6 ° 37 ′ 15.1 ″ E