Mühlefluh artillery plant
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The Mühlefluh artillery works (also Vitznau Fortress), army designation A 2206, is a rock structure at 527 m above sea level. M. on the southern flank of the Rigi in the municipality of Vitznau , Canton Lucerne . It was part of the Swiss Reduit defense system in World War II and opened in 1998 as a museum and the first fortress hotel in Switzerland.
Mühlefluh artillery plant
The work was built in a 13-month construction period from December 1941 to 1943 and handed over to the fortress artillery company 82 (Fest Art Kp 82) called up in May 1943. The detailed construction project was drawn up for the responsible 3rd Army Corps by the office for fortifications (BBB), which had already created the artillery works Fortress Reuenthal , Pré-Giroud ( Vallorbe ) and Fortress Heldsberg .
The Fest Art Kp 82 fulfilled its duty until the fortress was decommissioned with the army reform 95 in Vitznau in 1994. In 1954 the pressure relief tunnel and in 1959 the atomic filter and antenna room were retrofitted. The community of residents and the Vitznau corporation bought the fortress with the approximately 8,700 m² parcel back from the VBS at the end of August 1998 in order to be able to use this contemporary witness of the Second and the Cold War for tourism and as a museum. The Vitznau Fortress Association is responsible for the tours, restoration and maintenance of the former artillery fortress.
Order and work
The fortress had the order to close the axes (road access and sea route into the Reduit) Lucerne - Stans ( Lopper and Achereggbrücke), Allweg / Ennetmoos -übergang, Brünigpassstrasse , Engelbergertal , the narrow lake of the Vierwaldstättersee between Ober and Unter Nas and the airfield Buochs / Ennetbürgen to protect.
With a technical range of 21 km, the 10.5 cm cannons could fire at targets in the Horw, Kriens, Alpnach, Kerns, Dallenwil sector and work in favor of the Fürigen fortress near Stansstad on the Bürgenstock , which had to block the narrow lake in the Alpnachersee .
The plant consists of a combat facility, an accommodation facility and an operations center. In addition to the two fighting stands, there was an entrance defense stand with a hand grenade ejection channel and an observer stand. Mine throwers and machine gun positions as well as barbed wire obstacles, some of which still exist today, were used for close defense.
The external defense consists of six shelter caverns and a bunker in the entrance area:
- Bunker entrance artillery works A 2207 with Lmg ⊙
- Shelters cavern A 2208 ⊙
- Shelter cavern A 2209 ⊙
- Shelter cavern A 2210 ⊙
- Shelter cavern A 2211 ⊙
- Shelter cavern A 2212 ⊙
- Shelter cavern A 2213 ⊙
Armament and crew
The armament included two 10.5 cm cannons Ordonanz 1939 on stand mountings (license construction of the Bofors cannon from 1927), machine gun positions, hand grenade ejection. The factory now has the original main weapons and supplemented machine guns for internal and external defense.
The team of the fortress artillery company 82 (Mühlefluh together with the Obere and lower Nas works) was 337 men in 1943 (war force), 146 men in 1975 and 120 men in 1991. 70 men were scheduled to work in the Mühlefluh fortress.
Counterworks
The counter-works of the Mühlefluh fortress were the Mueterschwanderberg fortress near Ennetmoos and the Wissiflue fortress near Wolfenschiessen . With the 10.5 cm cannons, however, only Mueterschwanderberg could be reached and protected, for the Wissiflue 15 cm fortress howitzers would have been necessary.
Vitznau lockout
- Rigi-Unterbuchen cavern, Weggis A 2200 ⊙
- Rigi-Felsentor cavern, Vitznau A 2201 ⊙
- Infantry factory Hinter-Lützelau A 2202: 4.7 cm Pak, Lmg, later: 9 cm Pak, Mg 51, liquidated in 1996 ⊙
- Rock niche Untere Lützelau 1, Ächerli-Wilen, Vitznau A 2203 ⊙
- Rock niche Untere Lützelau 2, Ächerli-Wilen, Weggis A 2204 ⊙
- Cavern Untere Lützelau 3, Ächerli-Wilen, Vitznau A 2205 ⊙
- Tank barricade Lützelau T 1300 ⊙
- Armored barricade Aecherli T 1301 ⊙
- Armored barricade Mühlefluh T 1302 ⊙
Sea barrier Nas
In the immediate vicinity of the Mühlefluh artillery works at the Vitznau lake enclave was the Nas lake barrier , which, in addition to the sea obstacle, included the Ober Nas artillery works and the Unter Nas counterwork , each with a crew of 60, as well as the external defense. The works begun in 1941 to protect a floating obstacle with which Lake Lucerne could be blocked between the Upper and Lower Nas, were handed over to Fortress Guard Company 15 in 1943. The Ober Nas plant later served as a barracks for motorboat detachments of the Swiss Army, which used the Vitznau lake basin for target practice.
literature
- General plan A 2206, Department for Genius and Fortifications, Technical Service 2 Kriens. Layout plan with the renovations from 1949 to 1959.
- Geiger Patrick, Lovisa Maurice: The Artilleriewerk Mühlefluh in Vitznau 1940–1943 : A contribution to the construction, military and social history of the (Alpine) Redoubt, in: The history friend. Announcements of the historical association of the five places, 153rd volume, Verlag Gisler, Altdorf 2000.
- Hansjakob Burkhardt: Fortification “Seesperre Nas” and Swiss Navy on Lake Lucerne. Nidwaldner Museum, Stans 2005, ISBN 3907164148
- Gregor Bättig: The defense efforts in the Nidwalden area 1935–1995 . 150 years of Nidwalden Officers' Association, 1857–2007. Aktiv-Verlag, Stans 2007, ISBN 3-909191-36-3
Web links
- Official website
- Underground Switzerland: Mühlefluh artillery works in Vitznau
- Vitznau municipality: Vitznau fortress
- Military monuments in the cantons of Nidwalden, Obwalden and Lucerne
- Oberland Fortress: Obere Nas restricted areas
Individual evidence
- ↑ Artilleriewerk Mühlefluh: From Reduit to Fortress Hotel ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ bunker friends: Equipment Vitznau
- ↑ Fortress Oberland: A2215 / A2226 Artillery Works Obere Nas LU / Untere Nas NW
- ^ Nidwalden Museum: Seesperre Nas and Swiss Navy
Coordinates: 47 ° 0 ′ 36 " N , 8 ° 29 ′ 21" E ; CH1903: six hundred seventy-nine thousand eight hundred and eighty-three / 207084