Driving Down the Rhine - The Maginot Line

One of the fun things about driving with no plan is that you feel free to chase historical markers. Near the town of Marckolsheim there was a sign pointing to a Maginot Line memorial. Sure enough, just on the Northern edge of the town there was an old bunker that had been converted to a museum. Old tanks, half-tracks, and pontoon bridge sections had been positioned nearby to expand the displays.

Now, we had seen pieces of the Maginot line before - along the side of the highways you sometimes see an old turret springing out of the weeds like a big, rusty mushroom. To the north there are supposedly some sections that are well preserved with underground tunnels open for touring. We've not made it there yet.

This museum was just a single bunker with no underground tunnels or anything. Inside they had lots of old WWII mementos on display. Seems that one of the biggest worries for the defenders was the threat of poison gas. Gas masks were on display everywhere. Below is an especially clever one intended for babies.

Just in front of the bunker was a depression in the earth that was proudly marked as a crater caused by a Stutka dive bomber. The bomb had missed, but just barely.

Inside was a history of the bunker, which was manned by local Marckolsheim boys. When war was declared in September 1939, all the villages and cities along the Rhine were evacuated to get the citizens away from the fighting. The citizens of Marckolsheim went to Dordogne to wait for the French victory. In October 1940 they were forcibly returned to Marckolsheim, only to find most of their village smashed to pieces despite the protection of the Maginot Line.