St. Nazaire submarine bunker

St. Nazaire submarine bunker

The submarine bunker St. Nazaire ( French Base sous-marine de Saint-Nazaire ) was built by the German Navy in Saint-Nazaire on the French Atlantic coast during the Second World War . It was one of five large submarine bases that the Third Reich had established in occupied France.

history

Before the Second World War, Saint-Nazaire was one of the largest ports on the French Atlantic coast. During the western campaign , the German army reached Saint-Nazaire in June 1940. The port was immediately used for submarine operations. U 46 was the first to reach Saint-Nazaire on September 29, 1940.

In December, a commission from the Todt Organization (Oberbauleitung Süd) inspected the port to investigate the possibility of building a submarine base that is safe from air raids. Soon after, work began on the construction of a submarine bunker under the direction of engineer Probst. The area selected for construction was the docks and buildings of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique company . This company's buildings were demolished to build the bunker. Construction began in February 1941 with the submarine boxes 6,7 and 8, which were completed in June 1941. From July 1941 to January 1942 the submarine boxes 9 to 14 were built and from February to June 1942 the submarine boxes 1 to 5. The work was completed with the construction of a bunker tower.

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  The submarine bunker under construction, April 1942

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  A submarine entering St. Nazaire

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  The crew on an incoming German submarine on June 15, 1942

Between late 1943 and early 1944, a fortified lock was built to protect submarines during their transfer from the Loire and the submarine boxes. The lock is 155 meters long, 25 meters wide and 14 meters high. The roof of the bunker has an anti-aircraft armament .

The construction of the bunker

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  View from the submarine bunker to the fortified lock

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  Grate

The bunker is 300 meters long, 130 meters wide and 18 meters high, which corresponds to an area of ​​39,000 m² on the ground and a concrete volume of 480,000 m³. The roof is 8 meters deep and consists of four layers: the first is a 3.5 meter thick slab of reinforced concrete; the second is a 35 cm layer of granite and concrete; the third is a 1.7-meter-thick layer of reinforced concrete, and the fourth is a layer of steel girders known as a “fan grate” that is around 1.40 meters thick.

Todays use

In 1994 the city of Saint-Nazaire decided to convert the disused bunker area into a location for various museums while retaining the historical buildings.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The chunky submarine bunker at Saint-Nazaire , accessed November 28, 2018.

literature

• Lars Hellwinkel: Hitler's Gate to the Atlantic - The German Naval Bases in France 1940–1945. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86153-672-7 .
• Janusz Piekałkiewicz: Sea War: 1939-1945. Blandford Press, London - New York 1987, ISBN 0-7137-1665-7 .
• Clay Blair: Hitler's U-boat War: The Hunters, 1939–1942.

Coordinates: 47 ° 16'33 "  N , 2 ° 12'9"  W.