Short Bunkertour to the Westwall in
the Eifel - the "Buhlert"
At the beginning of January 2008 I decided to check my ideas
on which bunkers to visit that year. Pretty high on my list of
priorities were the reminaing bunkers of the Westwall, since the
destruction of them is ongoing and many disappear every year or
get closed off from the public permanently. In regard to my
experiences with the Ostwall the summer before, I was very curious,
how the Westwall bunkers would look in comparison. A bonus was
that some friends formour computer club wanted to join me in my
endeavours. So after a short discussion with them, we settled on
visiting the bunkers at the end of january already. We met at the
place of one of our friends from the club who is not living too
far away from the Buhlert. Dressed accordingly for the rather cold
(yet not snowy) weather, we headed towards the Huertgen forest,
equipped with tons of maps and my usual overplanning. I printed
out maps from some forums showing the location of the bunkers
superimposed on a google maps prinou of the forest. Most forums
claimed, that the bunkers were hard to find in the dense forests,
so I planned a lot of time to find them.
The
Bunkers
Following a short walk through the not really wintery forest, we
managed to reach the approximate location of the first bunker. It
was actually extremely easy to find, since the strom last year
most tress in that area came down and so woodworkers removed a lot
of the thick bushes and trees. In the end it was very obvious to
find. But the bunker itself was way smaller then the ones of the
Ostwall, pretty tiny compared to the MG bunkers that we saw there.
And this was the biggest of the four bunkers we were about to see
that day.
(Bunker 139/140 at the Buhlert)
The first Bunker (Number 139/140)
is a "Doppelgruppenunterstand mit angehängtem
Kampfraum". Means: Two groups of soldiers were supposed to be
stationed in it as oppsed to only one i the other bunkers of the
Buhlert position. To defend themselves they had a tiny balle room
next to the bunker door facing backwards and an MG bunker attached
(but not interconnected!) to the bunker facing towards the west.
To access this battlestation, the soliders needed to leave the
bunker and enter the position from the back again. We entered the
bunker very carefully using our headlights and flashlights, took
pictures and were a bit shocked to find it so small and
claustrophobic. A little bit of disappointment set in with my
friends: *These* were the big and scary looking bunkers out of war
movies and the propaganda films we were shown in school and in
documentaries? These small, sparsely equipped concrete blocks?
(Inside of thebunker, you can see
one of the resint areas in the bunker. To the left on the wall are
still remains of the bunkbeds.)
(Easy to see, how small the
entrance to the machinegun position is.)
Exactly. This is how you can tell
the difference between movies, propaganda and harsh reality. It
was quite clear to all of us, that these tiny bunkers had not very
much of a chance against the american tanks approcahing them.
We went on our way to explore the
other three bunkers of the Buhlert position. A few hundert metres
later, we found a small path leading into the woods and at the end
of it, we found anouther bunker. The same happened to the other
ones, they were all easy accessible in winter by following the
little paths.
(View of the bunker from the main
path.)
In one of the Bunkers we could still
see scars from the battle in a very astonishing and frightening
way. Incredibly well preserved on on e of the walls you could
still see remains from the battle here end of january/beginning of
february 1945. It looked like a grenade went off in the bunker and
left a thick track of soot on one of the walls as well as concrete
craters that were created by grenade splinters penetrating the
bunkers walls. Whoever was in the bunker at that time, had
probably no chance to escape that. We could also see bulletholes
from MGs and tank guns that went through part of the armoer plates
and iron clads on the MG position of this bunker.
(Explosion traces on the wall and
floor of the bunker.)
(Perforated armored plate.)
We shared a beer
among friends and checked out the other bunkers. They did not
differ very much from each other, so after seeing them we
retreated and called it a day. It started to get dark and for the
evening we enjoyed a nice fondue together to celebrate our success
locating and visiting those places.
(Yummy fondue to end a rather nice
day among friends.)
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