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Origin and history

The Bunker of La Rochelle, now transformed into a museum, was originally an anti-aircraft shelter built in 1941 by the Todt organisation for the Kriegsmarine. Intended to protect the officers of the submarines (U-Boote) stationed in La Pallice, it was built under the Hotel des Etrangers, requisitioned in 1940. The bunker, with an area of 280 m2, consisted of vaults, a bar decorated with marine frescoes, and sanitary facilities, all covered with a new building serving as an extension to the hotel. The accesses, exclusive from the hotel, made it a closed and strategic place during the 350 air alerts suffered by the city.

At the Liberation in 1945, the bunker was briefly used by the National Navy before being sealed and forgotten until 1982. That year, a real estate developer rediscovered it during the demolition of the Hotel des Etrangers. Saved in extremis by Jean-Luc Labour, then employed at the Tourist Office, it was restored and opened to the public in 1984 under the name of Musée rochelais de la Dernière Guerre. The museum closed partially in 1994, then reopened definitively in 2013 after a renovation led by Luc and Marc Braeuer, passionate about history.

The bunker bar, which remained intact, is a unique testimony of the lives of German officers. His marine frescoes, made in 1942 by two German civil artists from Hamburg — Annie Chèrie and Ruth Monsheimer — illustrate underwater scenes and symbols of the Kriegsmarine. These decorators, hired to humanize the place, signed their works under the pseudonyms Chèr and Mon. before continuing their work in other underwater bases, such as Saint-Nazaire or Norway. Their visit to La Rochelle reveals the importance attached to the propaganda and morale of the troops, even in functional spaces.

The Hotel des Etrangers, founded in 1847, was the logistical heart of this military installation. Repurchased in 1899 by Baptiste Menez, then led by his son René from 1924, the hotel became a key place for Kriegsmarine as early as 1941. The neighbouring buildings (8 and 10 rue des Dames) were razed to allow the bunker to be built, whose walls of 2 metres of reinforced concrete resisted shelling. After the war, the hotel was operated by Philippe Menez until 1975, before its partial destruction in 1981. Today, the bunker, the only vestige of that time, offers a dive into the daily German occupation in La Rochelle.

The underwater base of La Pallice, targeted by the 42 Allied raids, miraculously spared the historic city centre. The bunker, designed to house up to 62 officers and two admirals, served as a refuge during the warnings, but also as a place of celebration. The parties were organized there to mark mission returns — often perilous, with an average life expectancy of three weeks for the crews after May 1943. The reopening of the museum in 2013, with its enriched scenography, now allows to understand this unknown part of local history, between military strategy and daily life under occupation.

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