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Origin and history

Fort Schoenenburg, located on the border of the communes of Hunspach and Ingolsheim in Lower Rhine, is an artillery structure of the Maginot Line, built between 1930 and 1935. Designed to withstand enemy assaults, it has eight blocks (six battle blocks and two entrances), connected by three kilometres of underground galleries equipped with an electrified railway. It was planned for 600 men and housed a self-contained electrical plant, ammunition stores, a barracks, and a powerful ventilation system against combat gases, learning from the lessons of the First World War.

During World War II, Fort Schoenenburg played a key role in the fighting in June 1940. Between 14 and 25 June, he fired 13,388 shells, resistant to German bombardments (56 420 mm shells, 3,000 150 mm shells, etc.) until 1 July 1940, six days after the armistice, on the order of the high command. Damaged by German sabotage in 1945, it was repaired at the beginning of the Cold War before being abandoned in 1968.

Since 1982, the Association of Friends of the Maginot Line of Alsace has managed the site, restored to the same state in 1939. Unlike other museums, Schoenenburg does not present any added weapons: it offers an authentic immersion in the living conditions of the soldiers, with sound ambiences and a course of 3 km to 30 meters underground. Ranked a historic monument in 1992, he won 2nd place in the French Favorite Monument in 2022.

The structure is distinguished by its innovative defensive architecture. The fighting blocks (or "fronts"), 1500 metres away from the entrances (the "rears"), were connected by a gallery equipped with a 60 cm track for the transport of ammunition. Each block had a specific role: 75 mm turrets (blocks 3 and 4), 81 mm mortars (block 5), or infantry casemates (blocks 1 and 6). The underground plant, the heart of the fort, housed four 165 horsepower Diesel Sulzer generators, capable of feeding the ensemble in autonomy.

The defence systems also included GFM bells (machine gun gunner), gas filters, and a secret emergency exit hidden in the forest. The command post centralized information from the observatories to direct the shooting. After 1945, the fort was modernized during the Cold War, but its defensive vocation ended in 1968. Today, the visits, of about two hours, allow to discover this masterpiece of military engineering, witness to the history of the twentieth century.

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