Atlantic Wall

The Atlantic Wall did not withstand the allied landings on June 6, 1944. But the hundreds of bunkers, machine gun nests, command centers and artillery emplacements that Hitler built along the wind-swept sand dunes of western and northern France are still very much visible today.

In Brittany, Normandy and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais they are omnipresent on some stretches of the coastline. Holidaymakers sunbathe next to them. You even see them in private gardens.

Now, Bernard Bracq, the mayor of the northern coastal town of Wissant, not far from Boulogne-Sur-Mer, says he wants to demolish three huge bunkers that, he believes, disfigure the beach in this protected nature park and which are a safety hazard.

"There's a whirlpool effect when the waves hit the bunkers, which flushes out sand at the foot of the bunker walls creating really deep pools," Bracq told TF1 television. "Young people jump off the bunker roofs into these pools and it's very dangerous. One person died doing this three years ago. The bits of exposed metal are also dangerous."

Pricey plan

Destroying the three large bunkers on Wassant beach will cost 450,000 euros ($552,500) - with the central government in Paris promising to pick up 80 percent of the bill. For many, this is worse than a waste of money.

Jean Renard, who works for a local environmental pressure group called Dune d'Aval, says the Atlantic Wall has become a useful rampart against the waves.

"The dunes are eroded by the sea at a rate of four or five meters each year," says Renard. "And, if the bunkers are demolished, my estimation is that that will rise to 10 to 15 meters a year. In five years the water will start reaching the houses."

For other inhabitants, elsewhere along the coast, it is important to preserve the bunkers because of what they evoke.

"You can feel what our forbears went through when you look at these constructions," says one man. "I don't think they should be destroyed."

This woman says remembrance is a duty: "It is right to show young people what happened so that it doesn't happen again," she says.

The bunkers were built to take aerial and artillery bombardment. Typically the reinforced concrete walls are 3.5 meters thick. Some constructions bore 200 meters into the ground. Even if some French politicians now want to sweep away these vestiges of World War II, they are going to take quite some demolishing.

Author: John Laurenson (dfm)

Editor: Rob Turner