Schwyz Fortress Foundation
The Schwyzer Festungswerke Foundation is a foundation with the purpose of safeguarding and maintaining the military-historical legacy of the Swiss Confederation in the Canton of Schwyz .
history
The 600 or so combat structures that were built in the canton of Schwyz from 1939 to 1945 were integrated into barriers and bases and equipped with different types of weapons depending on the order. The 6th and 7th divisions planned different types of bunkers with the same function, which were mostly built by local builders.
aims
The foundation wants to document the history of the fortifications in Canton Schwyz and make the individual works accessible to a broader public.
activity
The foundation has succeeded in acquiring several well-known fortifications in its catchment area. The foundation capital made available when it was founded and the funds made available to it by friends and sponsors are used for purchase and maintenance. Works, installations, weapons and equipment are repaired and maintained by volunteers and professionals.
organization
The foundation was established on February 9, 2000 as an institution under civil law in accordance with Art. 80 ff of the Civil Code .
The Schwyzer Festungswerke foundation consists of
- the board of trustees,
- the Freundeskreis with three member categories
- the Etzel, Grynau, Sattel, Sihlsee, Selgis plant groups
- the external auditor.
The foundation reports to the Central Swiss Foundation Supervisory Authority in accordance with Swiss foundation law.
Fortifications
The Schwyzer Festungswerke Foundation has taken over fortifications that it maintains and shows during guided tours.
The fortifications that were taken over all date from the Second World War, which continued to be operated in the post-war years and were equipped with newer types of weapons. As part of the Réduit national, these systems were intended to prevent a thrust through the pre-Alpine part of the canton of Schwyz into the Schwyz basin and from there on towards the Gotthard .
The infantry fortress dispositiv consisted of several blocked groups, which reinforced the defensive struggle of the infantry regiments and fusilier battalions with tank and infantry obstacles and explosive objects as well as infantry bunkers. These blocking groups were able to request artillery fire from the mobile artillery, partly from concrete gun emplacements and from artillery works in the canton of Schwyz. Anti-aircraft batteries, some on camouflaged wooden towers built into the forest, protected the barriers against air attacks (room rates and saddle). The bases of these systems are still visible today.
The fortifications consist of street barricades , terrain armor obstacles in the form of tank ditches and tank walls, anti-tank bunkers, machine gun bunkers, shelters, artillery command post caverns, artillery bunkers and permanent artillery beds for the accommodation of field guns of 7.5 cm and 15 cm caliber.
The inventory of the plants already taken over consists of the following plants:
Grynau infantry fortress
The Lin plain was the target of mechanized units or airborne troops in almost all German operational planning because it enabled access to the Schwyz basin and towards the Gotthard. The Grynau Fortress was the target of brisk German espionage activity. The Lin plain therefore played an important role in the army's dispositive, first as part of the Limmat position and from July 1940 as part of the new central space position (Reduit).
The Grynau infantry factory (A6913) was part of the position on the Limmat, which was occupied by the Swiss Army on the basis of operational order No. 2 of October 4, 1939, and which had to repel an attack from the north on the line Sargans - Walensee - Linth - Zurichsee - Limmat - Hauenstein - Gempenplateau . The general personally took care of the expansion of the Linth position with the bridgeheads Grynau and Benkner Büchel and the preparation for the flooding of the Linth plain , which provided for a large-scale flooding south and north of the Grynau.
Construction began in March 1940. In the late summer of 1942 it was taken over by the Ter Bat 146 and the Ter Bat Füs Kp II / 146. The work formed the left pillar of the advanced position on the northern edge of the Reduit Dispositiv of the 7th Division . For its use for the Reduit Brigade 24 the Ter Bat 146 became the Füs Bat 146. The Füs Bat 146 continued to provide the factory crew until the change of the Lintebene area to the Field Army Corps 4 in 1978.
At the end of the 1960s, the fortress was modernized with a 9 cm anti-tank cannon 50 and six machine guns 51. It was disarmed in the 1980s.
The fortress consists of six machine gun bunkers, a bunker for a 4.7 cm infantry cannon and an artillery observation tower, all of which are connected underground by corridors. The bunkers are located near Grynau Castle along the hiking trail that leads from the castle over the Buechberg to Nuolen and Lachen . Information boards show where the path to the bunkers branches off.
Artillery observation tank turret A with originally five spherical arbor slots
The Grynau Fortress defends the Linth Bridge at Grynau Castle (Mg 17 left)
Machine gun bunker Mg 17
Machine gun bunker Mg 20
Mösliflue infantry factory, Benkner Büchel
Blocking point Etzel
With the Battle of France and Italy's entry into the war, Switzerland was surrounded by the Axis powers. With operational order No. 12 of July 17, 1940, the army command withdrew a large part of the troops from the area in front of them and deployed them in the difficult-to-access Alpine region (Reduit), where the German air and tank units could barely show their superiority. The northern border of the Reduit stretched along the border of the canton of Schwyz, formed part of the northern front of this central position and covered one of the possible axes of attack ( Sihl - Schwyz - Gotthard ).
Since the German attack plans provided for the rapid occupation of the Reduite entrances by airborne troops, the general had them permanently secured by strong units, which were called up by means of "silent" mobilization using marching order cards.
The Etzel Bunker History Trail starts at the Büel restaurant above Schindellegi and leads - marked as a hiking trail - over 2 km past 6 posts over the Etzel Kulm to the Etzel Pass .
Bunker Ragenau 2a (A7113)
Enzenau tank ditch
Tank lock in the forest
Bunker Etzel Kulm (A7107)
Etzel Kulm Cavern (A7107)
Artillery observation station Etzel Kulm (A7107)
Lock point Sihlsee
The entire defensive position was given the necessary depth with the construction of further barriers in the Wägital , Sihlsee and Schindellegi / Biberbrugg as well as Altmatt and Oberarth areas .
Sihlsee barrier
Sihlseedamm Hüendermatt with barrier and camouflaged bunker
Bunker Altberg (A7137)
Fortress artillery saddle
The battle of the infantry was supported with the fire of the artillery from the area Sihlsee (7th division) and the area Rothenthurm - Sattel - Arth (6th division).
The three-hour hike for the Sattel Fortress Trail leads over Sattel Kreisel - Sattel Dorf - Hageggli - Schornenrain - Altstafel - AW Halsegg (with Dufour Museum) - Chesselbann - Gwandelenflue - AW Spitz (below A7347, above A7348) - Peterschwändi - Riedmatt - Sattel - KP Eggeli - Sattel roundabout, past various fortresses from the Second World War. The AW Halsegg offers guided tours once a month. The AW Spitz and the Eggeli gallery in the village of Sattel, which was used in 1941 as the command post KP Front and fire control center of the 6th Division for the AW Spitz and Stock as an advanced KP, can be visited on request.
Of the originally four existing systems of the Second World War in the Rigi / Sattel area (AW Barbara A7330 in the Chräbelwand near Rigibahntrasse, AW Verena A7341 in Steinerberg, AW Stock A7345 below the Engelstock, AW Spitz A7347 / 7348) only the artillery casemate works Spitz on the southern slope of the Rossberg accessible and in its original state.
AW Spitz
AW Spitz: 7.5 cm field cannon
Signpost for the fortress path on the Halsegg
Selgis command post
In 1941/1942 the staff of the 4th Army Corps built the underground, protected Selgis command post (A7444) at the entrance to the Muotathal . The system has been continuously improved over time and adapted to the new conditions. After the war, Selgis served the staffs of Mountain Division 9 and for 40 years until 1995 of the Reduit Brigade 24 and, since the 1980s, as part of the "Fliegerabwehr-Warn und Informationszentrale" (FLAWIZ), the central management staff of the Fortress Flab. In the barracks there is a cycle of mural paintings created by the St. Gallen painter Willi Koch in 1943/44.
Literature and film
- Valentin Kessler: The fortifications in the canton of Schwyz . Reprint from the communications of the Historical Association of the Canton of Schwyz, Issue 95, 2003.
- David Mynall: Fortress Grynau. Marchring issue No. 53, Marchring Verlag, Lachen SZ
- Stephan Huwyler: Documentary about life in the fortress Grynau and the espionage activities of the German armed forces . Tuggen 2009
Web links
- Official website of the foundation
- Flyer Infantry Fortress Grynau (PDF; 198 kB)
- Dufour Museum, Halsegg
- Film clip about the Grynau Fortress
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.linth24.ch/Lachen.lachen+M59d690f6645.0.html Linth24: Spies in Grynau
- ^ Gotthard Frick: Hitler's War and the Self-Assertion of Switzerland 1933–1945 . Self-published, Bottmingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-033-02948-4 .
- ↑ Artillery Kasematt-Halbwerk Spitz A 7347, Sattel-Schäfboden ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Fortress Oberland: Video AW Spitz
- ↑ http://www.miss-suedostschweiz.ch/files/Medien/NzA4/PDF-Dokument_275_kB_Die ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Southeastern Switzerland: a film about the Grynau Fortress
