Westwall Museum, Conc
The Westwall Museum Konz in the listed bunker Villa Gartenlaube is located in the city center of Konz , Rhineland-Palatinate , Trier-Saarburg at the confluence of the Saar and Moselle . The museum consists of a restored bunker and a thematic exhibition on the West Wall in general and the West Wall Fortress of Konz in particular.
The museum has war as its theme, which is why it sees itself as a memorial to peace .
Siegfried Line fortification Conc
Konz played a special role in the construction of the western wall. At the confluence of the Saar into the Moselle, a possible breakthrough of an enemy in the Moselle valley should be prevented. In the former municipal area alone, 25 bunkers, including two B-works, were built. Many fortifications were also built on the opposite side of the Moselle.
All bunkers preserved in Konz were blown up and are at best preserved as ruins. The best preserved bunkers are our museum bunker and its immediate neighbor. A waterworks that was built to supply bunkers and is now located in the grounds of the Roscheider Hof open-air museum has been preserved almost intact . Seven bunkers have been preserved as clearly recognizable ruins, many more as mostly overground concrete blocks in the forest or in vineyards.
On the opposite side of the Moselle , which today belongs to the municipality of Trier , there are still many ruins of bunker systems, some of which are very impressive.
The bunker
The Villa Gartenlaube was built as part of the pioneer program in 1937 in the expansion stage B1 (1 m wall thickness and 80 cm concrete ceiling) and was an absolutely special construction.
It originally consisted of four rooms. Gas lock , crew room for five soldiers , an ammunition room and an attached combat area which was made unusable by the Americans in early 1945 . The slab 7P7 was blown out with the ceiling. In 1963 the rest of the fighting compartment was removed.
The armament of the bunker probably consisted of a MG 08 or an MG 34 , whereby the 08 was often used in the first bunker systems.
The name Villa Gartenlaube goes back to a lettering inside the bunker. Many of the formerly 25 bunkers in the (then) Konzer municipality had such nicknames. The neighboring bunker that was also still preserved but not renovated was called Saar-Mosel-Klause and the no longer preserved B-Werk at the mouth of the Saar was called Filzlaus .
Post war history
In the 1950s and early 1960s, the residents used the facility as a wood store for the wood-burning stoves that were in use at the time. Since the houses later switched to oil, the bunker was locked and more or less was forgotten.
During this time, the passage of the emergency exit was sealed with a wooden panel and fir trees and ivy were planted along the bunker wall.
In the 1970s a workshop was set up in the building in front of the bunker , a heavy machine was placed in front of the still existing reinforced door and the blue canopy was built. The armored door could no longer be opened by the machine and rusted shut.
In the 1990s the machine was removed and the door, since it could no longer be opened, sealed with concrete.
restoration
The reason for the restoration was the search for a well-preserved and conveniently located bunker in order to restore it as a museum bunker. For this purpose, the bunker was acquired by the Federal Agency for Real Estate Tasks in June 2014 .
The bunker was completely overgrown with trees, grass and climbing plants and so the renovation began in May 2014 with tree felling. 420 kg of garbage, 1,100 kg of contaminated wood, 2,300 kg of iron and steel and 10.2 tons of rubble were removed from the interior of the bunker. The stalactites that have grown from the ceiling over 50 years have not been preserved, as they are in large numbers in the surrounding unrestored bunkers. In order to make the entire system understandable to visitors, the fighting room on the bunker ceiling, no longer in its original state, is indicated as a wooden structure in 2015.
sightseeing
The museum is open for individual visits on the 2nd and 4th Sunday afternoons of each month. Every year on the second weekend in May there is a museum festival with exhibitions and activities on a special topic. In 2017, for example, “The Americans are coming”.
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 41 ′ 57.8 " N , 6 ° 34 ′ 18.9" E