Submarine bunker
Submarine bunkers are built over harbor or shipyard facilities for the production or maintenance of submarines . To protect against air attacks and enemy fire, these bunkers were provided with reinforced concrete armor . They could also serve as a military base for submarines. The first so-called submarine shelters were built on the German side during the First World War . Most of the submarine bunkers were built during World War II or during the Cold War .
German submarine bunker of World War II
The name was based on the initial letters of the locations: " V alentin" comes from V egesack , the location of the Vulkan shipyard. The submarine pen in Hamburg- F sink werder called " F ink II ," the bunker W aspen stand in W ilhelmshaven in K iel there was the submarine pen K ilian .
The German Reich built and operated submarine bunkers in Germany , France and Norway . The Todt Organization was in charge of its construction, which , due to its enormous structural and logistical capacities, was alone in a position to carry out such a large number of such enormous construction tasks under great time pressure. The largest bunker of this type is located in Brest , the second largest and largest in Germany is the Valentin submarine bunker in Bremen-Rekum .
There are other submarine bunkers in Saint-Nazaire , La Rochelle- La Pallice, Bordeaux and Lorient, as well as in Trondheim ( Dora 1 and 2 ) and Bergen , both in Norway. Other German places where submarine bunkers were located are Helgoland , Hamburg - Finkenwerder and the Kilian submarine bunker in Kiel ; these bunkers were blown up after the war, only remains of the wall are visible in Finkenwerder ( Fink II ). The Hornis submarine bunker in Bremen has been built over with a high-rise office building.
Some of the submarine bunkers on the French Atlantic coast have a ceiling thickness of up to 10 m of reinforced concrete and a grill-like structure made of concrete crossbars on the roof, in which aircraft bombs should get caught or explode above the actual bunker. Many of these ceiling reinforcements could not be completed by the end of the war, so that some of the grids were only partially built, with others only the longitudinal beams were completed.
In addition, they are equipped with locks and tide-independent harbor basins to ensure that they can be used during the large tidal waves of the Atlantic.
France
The plant in Bordeaux
The Bordeaux submarine base with its seven dry and four wet boxes has a size of 245 m × 162 m and a height of 19 meters. Construction of the bunker began in September 1941 and was completed by May 1943. Construction work on the ceiling reinforcements began in mid-1943, but was not completed by August 28, 1944, when the port was cleared.
The Brest plant
In June 1940, Wehrmacht troops occupied northern France in the western campaign, and soon afterwards the German occupiers began to fortify the port of Brest . Other coastal locations were also fortified (see Atlantic Wall ). Brest is located in a 180 km² natural harbor, the Bay of Brest . The very large facility in Brest included the actual submarine bunker, a power station and numerous docking facilities .
After the Allies landed in Normandy ( Operation Overlord ), they succeeded in building their bridgehead in the Battle of Brittany (from August 1, 1944). From August 7th to September 20th there was extensive fighting for Brest (see Battle of Brittany # The German Defenders ).
The two submarine flotillas stationed here, the 1st U-Flotilla and the 9th U-Flotilla, were dissolved or relocated to other locations. Since the end of the war, the entire area has served the French fleet as a base for outpost boats and the like. A visit is possible in parts as a guided tour. The tour is possible for members of NATO and EU countries without prior notification. Prior registration is required for visitors from other countries.
The submarine bunker in Brest (June 2006)
Brest submarine bunker (August 1944)
The facility in La Rochelle-La Pallice
The port of La Pallice was used by the German Navy as a base for submarines from 1940. In the spring of 1941, construction of the bunker began. The covered lock and the left part with seven submarine berths, as seen from the sea, were built within just six months. In 1942, the facility on the right side of the bunker was enlarged by three more berths. The small quay previously on the right edge was preserved and was accessible by trains. The bunker is 192 meters long and 159 meters wide. The roof structure consists of two layers of reinforced concrete, each about 3.5 m thick. The total thickness of the roof is 7.3 meters. Numerous smaller bunkers were built in the immediate vicinity. They served as defense systems or formed the infrastructure of the base, such as engine sheds, fuel stores, military hospitals, and power stations.
Main structure of the submarine base in La Rochelle-La Pallice (2016)
Construction of the La Pallice complex in 1942
La Pallice's submarine port facilities were not destroyed in World War II. A kind of standstill agreement between the fortress commander of La Rochelle, Vice Admiral Ernst Schirlitz , and the French negotiator, Frigate Captain Meyer, resulted in the city of La Rochelle and the port facilities of La Pallice being handed over intact on the day of the German total surrender on May 9, 1945.
After the war, the French navy mainly used the main structure; In the 1990s, however, large parts of the building were still freely accessible, including the interior. The surrounding area and the former submarine docks have been used more and more as a trading port since the mid-1990s. In the meantime (2007) a visit is no longer possible, as the surrounding port area is not allowed to be entered.
The La Pallice submarine bunker served as the backdrop for the films " Das Boot " and " Indiana Jones - Raiders of the Lost Treasure " and is now partially used as a warehouse by the French Navy.
The facilities in Lorient
The submarine bunkers in Lorient were the largest German submarine base in terms of their expansion during the Second World War. Six individual bunkers of different sizes with berths and docking areas for the boats were built and put into operation here, a seventh remained unfinished. Characteristic for the bunker systems in Lorient are two extraordinary constructions that were not available at any other German base and of which one was only planned in a greatly modified form for the Bremen submarine assembly bunker Valentin , but was not implemented:
- the slipway in the fishing port built in 1936 by the French . In their connection there was a turntable and two unique cathedral bunkers, which are still there today.
- the bunkered towing system and the transfer table between the two bunkers Kéroman I and II built on the mainland.
Another special feature of the Kéroman systems is the training system for submarine rescue exits, which is now used as a museum. In order to practice dealing with the diving rescuer in detail, a bunker attached to Kéroman II was built and equipped with appropriate facilities for simulating emergency exits. The training facility, which the Germans called a diving pot and later renamed the “Tour Davis” by the French sailors, was a training location for submariners until the base was abandoned. Except for minor modifications, the immersion pot can still be viewed in its original condition.
Another detail of the facilities in Lorient are two wrecks in the harbor basin directly in front of Kéroman III, which were sunk there by the German troops to prevent torpedo planes from attacking the lock gates. These ships were reparations payments to France after the First World War .
Between 1940 and 1942 the office of the commander of the submarines , Rear Admiral Karl Dönitz, was located on the Kernével peninsula west of the Kéroman facilities, which belongs to the Lorient suburb of Larmor. In Larmor Plage and on the Gâvres peninsula there was also a bunkered coastal battery.
Until the mid-1990s, the bunker complexes in "Port de Pêche" and on the Kéroman peninsula served the French Navy. Today they only accommodate civilian users and are partly unused. A few shipyard halls for the construction of sailing boats were built on the site. The area in front of the towing area of the cathedral bunker was redesigned; there is now a ramp for the launching of sailing boats. Since the complete demolition of the facilities proved to be too costly, only parts of Kéroman IV and the station were demolished. Kéroman III and the diving tower can be visited as part of a guided tour. Almost the entire area of the Kéroman base is accessible to visitors, at least from the outside.
Lorient was besieged from August 7, 1944 to May 10, 1945 (details here: Battle of Brittany # Siege of Lorient (August 7, 1944 to May 10, 1945) ).
The plant in Marseille
Martha is an unfinished German submarine bunker that was built in the port of Marseille from 1943 to 1944.
The facility in St. Nazaire
In 1941, the German occupation troops began building the submarine base in the port of St. Nazaire, using a large number of slave labor . 480,000 m³ of reinforced concrete were used, whereby the built-up area was 39,200 m². Initially, the facility only housed a base for two submarine flotillas that were used in the Atlantic. In 1942 it was expanded into a war shipyard and then housed workshops, medical facilities and canteens. In the wider area, numerous bunkers were built as part of the Atlantic Wall . Other facilities, mainly located near the mouth of the Loire , housed depots and other infrastructure facilities. As an important port and shipyard city, St. Nazaire also had a very large dock, the only one on the Atlantic coast that was suitable for large battleships like the Bismarck or the Tirpitz .
Bomb grids on the submarine bunker in St. Nazaire (as of July 2005)
Main structure of the submarine base in St. Nazaire
The submarine bunker from the waterside
View from the submarine bunker
The numerous air raids on the port and the surrounding city resulted from this war importance. On March 28, 1942, the port, especially the large dock, was the target of a British command company under the code name Operation Chariot . However, only the dock entrance was destroyed. The bombings did little damage to the bunker, but large parts of the city were destroyed. From 1943 onwards, it was to be deliberately bombed to be uninhabitable. Despite the Allied reconquest of France in 1944 , the Germans kept the city as an enclave until the end of the war (see here ).
After the war, the entire submarine base was transferred to the French Navy , which used the bunker as a depot for civil and military ships. From 1948 until the 1990s, the base was used as a warehouse by trading companies. In the years 1953 to 1959 the bunker was last used as a shipyard; eight mine clearance boats launched here. In 1995 the city began with the execution of the "Ville-Port" project, which includes a redesign of the city center and the inclusion of the port with the submarine base. Today the main structure is integrated into the city center and houses the tourist office, a café and a viewing terrace that covers almost the entire roof. Furthermore, the submarine S637 Espadon has been housed in the covered lock since August 1986 and serves as a museum; here, too, the roof can be accessed as a viewing platform.
Germany
The plants in Bremen
Hornet submarine bunker
The submarine bunker Hornisse is a former building dock for the former AG Weser shipyard in Bremen. The dock was built in 1939, but due to the increasingly intense submarine war, it was converted into a submarine shipyard from 1944 onwards. An office building was erected on the ceiling of the bunker at the end of the 1960s.
Valentin submarine bunker
The submarine bunker Valentin, often also called the submarine bunker Farge, is a building located in the Bremer district of Rekum on the Weser, which was built during the Second World War from 1943 to March 1945 using forced labor. In the bunker, submarines of the type XXI were to be assembled from prefabricated sections. As a result of bombings - the ceiling was hit by a Grand Slam bomb - and the approaching end of the war, the submarine bunker was not completed. With a floor area of 35,375 square meters, it is the largest free-standing bunker in Germany and the second largest in Europe. One million tons of gravel and sand, 132,000 tons of cement and 20,000 tons of steel were used in the construction.
The facilities in Hamburg
Fink II submarine bunker
Fink II was the name of the submarine bunker on the Rüsch Canal on Finkenwerder , which was built from 1941 to 1944 on the site of the Deutsche Werft . In 1945 it was blown up. Today the Fink II submarine bunker is located there .
Submarine bunker Elbe II
The facility on Heligoland
Nordsee III was a German submarine bunker in the south port of the island of Helgoland , which was blown up by the Allies after the war (see also the demolition of bunkers on Helgoland ).
The facility in Kiel
Kilian was the name of the submarine bunker on the premises of the Kiel Navy Shipyard, which was built from 1941 to 1943. In 1945 it was mostly blown up.
Another bunker stood on the premises of the Deutsche Werke Kiel and was named Konrad .
Norway
The facility in Bergen
Bruno is a German submarine bunker in Bergen , which was replaced by Engl. Bomber was damaged by Tallboy bombs .
The plants in Trondheim
Dora 1 and Dora 2 are two submarine bunkers in Trondheim . Dora 1 was handed over to the Navy on June 20, 1943, while Dora 2 was never completed.
Further planned submarine bunkers
Additional large submarine bunkers were planned during the war. The plans from 1942 envisaged the construction of 5 new large bunkered submarine yards in Rügenhafen , Gotenhafen , Danzig , Trontheim and Nikolajew . Furthermore, submarine bunkers were planned in Swinoujscie in Pomerania and on the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea . Most of these projects were either abandoned or postponed.
For example, the submarine bunker Weichsel I was to be built in Gotenhafen and the submarine bunker Weichsel II in Danzig (on the site of the Schichau shipyard ).
The Vistula I submarine bunker was to have two halls with water basins. The following dimensions were planned: water basin width 17.5 m each, a basin length of 110 m and a 20 m wide workshop platform. These buildings were supplemented by a multi-storey workshop section with an area of 3000 m² per water hall. The company Dyckerhoff & Widmann received the order to build it on December 14, 1942.
The Vistula II submarine bunker was to have 3 halls with water basins. There were also three bunkered workshop areas (each 2000 m² in size). The company Siemens-Bauunion received the order to build it on December 16, 1942. The plans for the submarine bunkers Weichsel I and Weichsel II were given up again at the end of January 1943 or changed to include the construction of unspoiled submarine yards at the same location.
Towards the end of the war (i.e. after the loss of the bases on the French Atlantic coast and the increasing allied air threat), some construction projects were resumed. So saw z. B. new plans of November 28, 1944, the construction of a large submarine bunker in Gotenhafen with 24 submarine boxes (the main task of the bunker should be the repair of type XXI submarines ).
In 1944, parts of the Rügenhafen building project were resumed. The construction work for the canal penetration to the Jasmunder Bodden and the construction of a submarine bunker (with 24 boat boxes) in the Banzelvitzer mountains on Rügen were resumed at high pressure. Due to the war situation, however, the project was no longer completed.
Attacks on German bunkers during World War II
Some of the bunkers were considered "safe against any caliber" in their time, for example those in Brest and La Rochelle . The British Royal Air Force formed a squadron, the No. 617 Squadron , also known as "Dam Busters", which dropped heavy bombs like the Tallboy or the Grand Slam .
On June 14, 1944, during the first massive daytime raids since May 1943, 22 Lancasters of No. 617 Squadron attached the heavily fortified facilities in Brest. They did some preparatory work before the approach of the actual first wave of bombers. Several hits were recorded, and one of the Tallboy bombs hit the ceiling.
On August 5, 1944, 15 Avro Lancasters of the 617th attacked the submarine bunkers in Brest and scored six Tallboy direct hits, all of which penetrated the several meters thick, specially reinforced ceiling. A Lancaster was shot down by the flak. Subsequent efforts by the Kriegsmarine to reinforce the remaining bases with even thicker concrete ceilings withdrew urgently needed resources from other construction projects.
In addition to the Tallboy bombs, the so-called Grand Slam bombs were also used from March 1945 .
Sources
Before handing over the bunkers as part of the surrender, German soldiers destroyed most of the plans, construction drawings, maps, photos and other records relating to the bunkers. In the Federal Archives-Military Archives Bunker submarine Lorient can be found for only a privately owned shipyard diary from 1942; There are hardly any files on the Brest base either. The war diary of the Naval War Command gives only limited references to the events in the ports. A scientifically untapped series of photos from the construction phase, produced on behalf of OT, is in the DHM archive in Berlin.
The war diaries of the commanding admirals and naval commanders in France are almost completely preserved.
Cold War era submarine bunker
Albania
At the northern end of the bay of Porto Palermo in Albania there is a former submarine base of the Albanian Navy with a submarine bunker that was blown into the mountain and clearly visible from the castle and the coastal road. When the Soviet Union ended its military presence in Albania in 1960/61 and Albania then leaned on the People's Republic of China , construction of the submarine tunnel began with Chinese help in the late 1960s. However, China soon withdrew from the joint venture, leaving Albania to complete the construction on its own. The tunnel is more than 650 meters long and 12 meters high and provided space for four 75-meter-long whiskey-class submarines . Inside were all the necessary supply systems. The associated barracks are now largely empty and in a rather neglected condition. Even the fence is hardly in place. Nothing is known about the condition inside the submarine bunker.
Croatia
The Yugoslav People's Army also uses submarines and a submarine bunker is located on the island of Vis . It was carved into the rock and has not been used today. It is freely accessible on foot or by lake. (Coordinate 43 ° 4 ′ 41.3 ″ N , 16 ° 10 ′ 53 ″ E )
- Submarine bunker Šibenik
- Parja tunnel submarine base, Vis island
- Submarine base on the island of Brač
Montenegro
The Yugoslav Navy has built another submarine bunker on the Luštica peninsula .
Norway
During the Cold War, NATO had a submarine bunker built on the Norwegian Ramfjord on the Olavsvern military base . This was shut down by the Norwegian government in 2009 and sold to businessman Gunnar Wilhelmsen in 2013. Later the Wilhelmsen naval base was rented to a Russian private company.
Russia
The Soviet Navy supposedly had around 15 tunnels built for submarines in the 1960s to protect them from first American strikes.
Balaclava
Close to Sevastopol , the main base of the Black Sea Fleet , the Soviet Union built the Balaklava submarine bunker as a secret and atomic bomb-proof base after the Second World War. In a tunnel it contains an approximately 600 meter long submarine canal with access to the sea as well as a dry dock with workshops and a nuclear weapons storage facility.
Pavlovsk
The Soviet Navy built a submarine bunker near Fokino (Primorye) for the Pacific submarine fleet in Pavlovsky Bay (coordinate 42 ° 52 ′ 19 ″ N , 132 ° 31 ′ 5.5 ″ E )
Gajievo
Jagelnaya Guba (Gadschijewo) submarine base , Murmansk, Kola Peninsula for the Northern Fleet
- Submarine bunker Vilyuchinsk, Kamchatka for the Pacific Fleet
Sweden
The naval port of Muskö was a secret, underground naval base on the island of the same name on the east coast of Sweden during the Cold War .
Today's submarine bunkers
China
Sanya
On the island of Hainan which maintains China the Yulin Naval Base near the city of Yulia. The underground facilities are also used to accommodate submarines.
Jianggezhuang
Another submarine bunker has been built near Jianggezhuang in Qingdao Province.
See also
literature
- Rainer Christochowitz: The submarine bunker shipyard "Valentin". The submarine section construction, the concrete construction technology and the inhumane use from 1943 to 1945. Donat, Bremen 2000, ISBN 3-934836-05-4 .
- Jan Heitmann : Boats under concrete. The Hamburg submarine bunker. (Series of publications by Hamburger Unterwelten eV, Vol. 1) Elbe-Spree-Verlag Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-931129-32-3 .
- Lars Hellwinkel: Hitler's Gate to the Atlantic. The German naval bases in France 1940–1945. Ch.links, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86153-672-7 .
- Rüdiger Lubricht, Nils Aschenbeck and others: Factory for eternity. The submarine bunker in Bremen-Farge. Junius, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-88506-238-0 .
- Jak P. Mallmann-Showell: German submarine bases and bunker systems. 1939-1945. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-613-02331-8 .
- Sönke Neitzel : The German submarine bunkers and bunker yards. Construction, use and importance of bunkered submarine bases in both world wars. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 2004, ISBN 3-7637-5823-2 .
- Karl-Heinz Schmeelke, Michael Schmeelke: German submarine bunkers yesterday and today (= weapons arsenal. Highlight. Vol. 11). Podzun-Pallas-Verlag, Wölfersheim-Berstadt 2001, ISBN 3-7909-0714-6 .
- Dieter Schmidt, Fabian Becker: “Valentin” submarine bunker. War economy and forced labor. Bremen-Farge 1943–1945. Edition Temmen, Bremen et al. 1996, ISBN 3-86108-288-8 .
Web links
- Submarine pen La Rochelle (Engl.)
- Gerd Wipfler, Archive DHM inventory: photo series from the construction period , from it 26 photos publ. 2014 at spiegel.de (photographed on behalf of the Todt organization )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. as well as internal links
- ↑ Submarine bunker in Hamburg on geschichtsspuren.de
- ^ U-boat base Bruno. www.battlefieldsww2.com, accessed September 19, 2015 .
- ↑ Bergen. www.dambusters.org.uk, accessed September 19, 2015 .
- ↑ a b c d e f Sönke Neitzel , Die Deutschen U-Boot-Bunker und Bunkerwerften, pp. 144–149.
- ↑ http://glowe-marinekanal.de/geschichte/2.versuch.html
- ↑ Lars Hellwinkel: Hitler's Gate to the Atlantic , p. 8f. The 'War Diary of the Naval War Command 1939–1945' is available as a facsimile edition in 87 volumes.
- ↑ Cold War era Albanian bunkers ( Memento from February 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Secret Norwegian naval base now has Russian renters. world.wng.org, accessed January 9, 2018 .
- ↑ Russians rent a Norwegian military base. Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 9, 2015, accessed on January 13, 2018 .
- ↑ englishrussia.com: Photos of the bunker
- ↑ https://de.sputniknews.com/militar/20101214257884576/
- ^ Copy of the order to Gerd Wipfler , DHM, December 2, 1942
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