Magletsch Fortress
Map with all coordinates: 
The Magletsch Fortress (army designation A 6020 "Der Hammer") is an underground defense system built in 1940 near Gretschins , Wartau municipality in the Swiss canton of St. Gallen . It consists of an artillery with external installations and counterworks and forms the northernmost cornerstone of the Sargans Fortress . With seven cannons, it was one of the strongest and largest artillery works of the Redoubt and the Swiss Army . With the army reform in 1995 it was abolished as a combat facility, and part of the fortress has been a museum since 2000.
history
The strategically favorable location was recognized as early as 1225 when the high castle Wartau was built .
The tower near Wartau Castle was driven into the mountain at the beginning of the Second World War (from autumn 1939) and was ready to fire in September 1940. The bunker cannon battery east was ready to fire in February 1941 and the battery west in July 1941. In 1995 a modern underground troop accommodation was set up on the ground floor of the fortress, which is used by the army.
After the fighting part of the fortress no longer had any functions in the course of the army reform in 95, essential combat and infrastructure parts of the fortress were rented by the Artillery-Fort Magletsch Association from the VBS and converted into a walk-in fortress; it has been open to the public since July 1, 2000.
Magletsch artillery plant
The plant infrastructure was designed for 381 men and included accommodation and catering tracts, its own bakery and laundry, a hospital with 70 beds, two water reservoirs with a total of 1.6 million liters of drinking water, three marine diesel engines for electricity production and two fuel tanks of 100,000 each Liters of diesel. The total length of the tunnels is about 4000 m and was driven into limestone , which is why the tunnels had to be concreted out.
Main entrance to the fortress
Emergency exit of the fortress
Sandstone relief 650 years of Switzerland (1941)
Armament
The main armament comprised three armored turrets with turret cannons caliber 10.5 cm each with a circulation conveyor for the ammunition, which is called a paternoster here , four bunker cannons 7.5 cm and ten stands for machine guns and light machine guns . The factory was protected against enemy aircraft by anti-aircraft cannons. In addition, the facility was defended by around 600 men from outside. In the 1960s, two additional 8.1 cm A 6020 fortress mine launchers were installed south of the armored towers.
The area as far as Rankweil , Vorarlberg , could have been attacked with the tower cannons .
On October 14, 1968, during a practice shooting, there was a side fault in a gun barrel, which resulted in the ammunition not exploding over the target area, but abroad, over Malbun in the Principality of Liechtenstein . The splinter rain from five exercise floors fell on parking lots and hotels, the center was located on the slope next to the "Friedenskapelle" .
Objects
- Artillery plant Magletsch A 6020 ⊙
- Magletsch Nord armored tower ⊙
- Magletsch Süd armored tower ⊙
- Magletsch Ost tank tower ⊙
- 8.1 cm fortress mine launcher ⊙
- Infantry factory Brögstein A 6021 (counterwork) ⊙
- Infantry plant Wartau A 6022 (counterwork) ⊙
- Artillery observer Guggstein A 6050 ⊙
- Practice bunker Mumpertjörs 10.5 cm Hb 46 A 6069 ⊙
- Shelter A 6091
Artillery gun
Muzzle cover of a 8.1 cm fortress mine launcher
Entrance to the mine thrower position
Lock point Plattis Wartau SG
The Plattis barrier (Army designation No. 1304) was the first artificial anti-tank barrier of the Sargans fortress towards the north. It blocked the Swiss side of the Rhine valley between the western slope of the Rhine valley and the Rhine and was built from October 1939. The hamlet of Plattis is located between the villages of Sevelen and Weite Wartau in the upper St. Gallen Rhine Valley. The blocking point was part of the external system and formed a unit with the East Battery of the Magletsch artillery plant. It lies to the east in front of the artillery plant and consists of an anti-tank obstacle with cusps, tank ditches and numerous street barricades, an infantry plant for anti-tank defense and a flanking bunker. The east battery of the artillery plant also affected the blocking point.
- Infantry bunker Plattis A 6023 ⊙
- Flanking work Plattis A 6024 ⊙
- Off-road armored barrier Plattis T 3312 ⊙
Cave system
At Magletsch there is also a natural cave system 421 meters long. ⊙
literature
- Walter Gabathuler: Sargans Fortress - its history, its objects, its tasks. In: Werdenberger Jahrbuch 27, 2014, pp. 50–260.
Web links
- Official website of the Artillerie-Fort-Verein-Magletsch AFOM
- Underground Switzerland: Magletsch artillery plant
Individual evidence
- ↑ Little porcupine: AW Magletsch
- ^ Hansjakob Burkhardt: AW San Carlo ( Memento from April 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Wartau municipality: Artillery Fort Magletsch
- ↑ «Splitterregen» on Malbun , NZZ , October 15, 2018, page 11
- ↑ Oberland Fortress: AW Magletsch A 6020
- ↑ Oberland Fortress: Locking point Plattis-Wartau SG
Coordinates: 47 ° 6 '14 " N , 9 ° 29' 4.3" E ; CH1903: 755286 / 219012