Siegfried Line Museum, Pirmasens

Geschichte

The Siegfried Line Museum at Pirmasens (Westwallmuseum Pirmasens) is a museum in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate that is housed in a former subterranean fortification on the edge of the village of Niedersimten in southwest Palatinate (region). Its theme is war, but it also views itself as a memorial to peace. It was founded by the Gerstfeldhöhe Society (Verein HGS Gerstfeldhöhe) and is run in cooperation with the town of Pirmasens.LocationThe "Westwall" museum lies underground in the former fortification of Gerstfeldhöhe. The village of Niedersimten, two kilometres south of Pirmasens, is reached via Bitscher Straße, which continues to Bitche over the French border. Two decommissioned tanks guard the entrance to the fortress and museum.HistoryIn the course of the building programme for the construction of the Siegfried Line (Westwall), during the Nazi era, work on the huge, bunker-like Gerstfeldhöhe fortification began in 1938. Vaulted galleries, thousands of yards long, were blasted and hewn out of solid rock. It was intended to have an underground narrow gauge railway that would carry soldiers and military equipment over a distance of three miles to pre-planned battle positions on the nearby French border. After the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, the construction project was continued for another year before being abandoned.