The Atlantic Wall: Contemporary Maritime Archaeology

 

Maritime archaeology; the study of the material culture that can inform us about the ways in which peoples in the past engaged with and were impacted by the seas and other waterbodies (Author’s definition). Is the Atlantic Wall maritime archaeology? In his introduction to his magnificent new photobook ‘Atlantic Wall‘, Stephan Vanlfeteren certainly seems to think so. In all honesty, before buying this book, the 5283 kilometres of bunkers along the Atlantic coastline had never really occurred to me as ‘maritime archaeological heritage’. As a maritime archaeologist mainly concerned with ‘old things’, perhaps its relative young age has something to do with it. On the other hand, growing up in West Flanders, second world war monuments were ubiquitous and perhaps this somewhat dulled my sensitivities for war-heritage?

However, when I think about what maritime archaeology is, and the way in which the Atlantic Wall is a clear reflection and reminder of the intense interactions between peoples and the sea during the second world war, it has dawned on me that this monument is perhaps one of the most important pieces of maritime archaeological heritage around. It is equally important as the HMS Wakful, the British destroyer that sank during the evacuation of Dunkirk on 29 May 1940, or the German U-Boats.

The wall, in effect a defence line made up of coastal batteries, barricades and bunkers running from the northern tip of Norway to the southernmost point in France, took less than four years to build. In this short time, the Germans managed to build over fifteen thousand bunkers along the Atlantic coastline. An accomplishment that deserves to be in the list with world-renowned monuments such as Hadrian’s Wall in northern England, the Great pyramid of Giza in Egypt, the Channel Tunnel connecting the United Kingdom with France and Burj Khallifa in Dubai. Although it was the Festungspioniere and later the Organisation Todt that designed the bunkers and supervised their construction, we should not forget who actually built these bunkers. Here and there German soldiers themselves built the fortifications, but elsewhere they recruited workers from among the local populations, first volunteers, later conscripts. Also a large number of Russian prisoners of war and Jews were used and treated as slave-labourers.

George S. Patton, a general in the United States army once said “Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man”. He was right. No matter how impressive the wall was, on the 6th of June 1944, in the course of one long day on four beaches with fifteen thousand casualties, it was breached. D-Day in Normandy rendered the Atlantic Wall useless. The way in which people thought about coastal defence was forever changed. Now, nature has started to reclaim its territory and as Vanfleteren aptly notes “The Atlantic Wall’s fight today is no longer against the Allies, but against nature”.

As a photographer, Vanfleteren casts a different perspective on these grey concrete bunkers. He finds a certain aesthetic value in them that might initially go unnoticed. Especially on the Channel Islands, German architects designed some masterpieces. The observation tower on Guernsey can easily stand along the Guggenheim Museum in New York, while the bunker in Løkken in Denmark reminds of a mosque in the Middle East.

The Atlantic Wall also forces us to face facts on more contemporary issues: our coastlines are changing. As the bunker in Huequeville in France balances on the edge of the cliff it was once solidly embedded in, it is clear nature is gnawing at our coastlines. Because of this, bunkers gradually end up on beaches and sometimes even drown in the sea.

Luckily, there has been a growing trend to protect these monuments from destruction. As I am writing this post, the Netherlands is taking the first steps towards protection and making them accessible for the public. In Germany however, most of the remains have disappeared. An attempt to erase a shameful page in history? In Normandy, D-Day is booming business and bunkers are an important part of tourism revenue. Also in Belgium, a number of bunkers have been protected and an impressive open air museum is located in Raversyde. Also in Denmark and Norway parts of the wall have been preserved (Strubbe & de Meyer 2014).

Even though the Atlantic Wall has certainly not been neglected by historians, I am convinced maritime archaeology can make some interesting contributions as well. Thinking about my own research, a spatial analysis of a bunker complex and landscape come to mind. Furthermore, the ways in which ‘space’ was organised inside these bunkers might cast some light on how military hierarchical structure was (or was not) translated into architecture. I think research like this is certainly justified. After all, is there another monument in our landscape that is such a clear reminder of military interaction with the sea?

Bibliography

Vanfleteren, S. 2014. Atlantic Wall. Uitgeverij Hannibal.