Normandy Secrets: Forgotten Nazi Arms Caches a Bonanza for Historians

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/new-research-into-nazi-world-war-ii-arms-caches-in-normandy-a-1043432.html



German troops in Normandy: The area is home to vast Nazi weapons caches that have only now been studied.

Normandy Secrets: Forgotten Nazi Arms Caches a Bonanza for Historians
By Frank Thadeusz
July 13, 2015 – 05:58 PM



There are several attractions to recommend in the Normandy spa town of Bagnoles de l'Orne, including its Belle Époque Quarter and its widely renowned hot springs. But the village is also located next to a beautiful natural preserve, a forested region that looks straight out of a fairy tale.

Most visitors to the forest, however, are unaware of the leftovers from a dark chapter of history that litter the bucolic woodland. There are no plaques and no signs hinting at the intricate system of secret munitions and fuel depots that were established in the forest by the Wehrmacht, Germany's World War II army. Starting in 1943, the Nazis dug hundreds of bunkers into the floor of the Forêt des Andaines to hide vast quantities of munitions, fuel and provisions.

The German military believed the depots would be crucial in the approaching defensive battle against the Allies. And they ensured that they were well hidden. The British and Americans knew that the Germans were storing weapons in the region. But the munitions dumps were so well hidden that Alliance airstrikes were largely ineffective. In an article in the most recent issue of the International Journal of Historical Archeology, David Passmore, a physical geography professor at the University of Toronto, notes: "Postwar survival of features has been remarkably good in this forested setting. ... This likely constitutes one of the best-preserved and most extensive examples of a non-hardened World War II archeological landscape yet documented in Western Europe."

Passmore and his team have now conducted the first in-depth study of the region. People have long been aware that the Nazis once stored munitions in the forest near Bagnoles-de-l'Orne. But the extent of the facility, as well as its sophisticated organizational system, was largely unknown.



Map: Germany's Wehrmacht established an intricate network of supply depots in the forests of Normandy.