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Also posted in the Off Topic Forum

While visiting this past week, I walked with some local friends into the fields behind the village and was shown what appeared to be an extensive network of unreinforced trenches. In one area near the trench there was a circular cement structure less than 2 meters in diameter. It had a metal band around the circular opening in its center. It was said to be a machine gun emplacment. During a further walk in the same area, we came upon 2 conical mounds which were said to be bunkers covered over with dirt and vegetation.

I would be interested to learn whether these stories have a basis in fact. I was unable to find any information on line. I tried Feldgrau but could not find a way to register and post a topic.

Gerard

Don't know if there are any online sources by try google search of Westwall. You could check Amazon to see if there are books on fortification types such as "Fortress Europe - European Fortifications of WWII by Kaufmann & Jurga. Hope this helps. Would be interested in what you find. Good Luck!

Thank you for the suggestions. I will report back if anything surfaces.

Gerard

Do you have any photos that you can show?

With the vegetarian overgrowth, a photo would not be useful, although one can reasonably see that the mound was too symetrical to be entirely natural. I believe that we did take a photo of the alleged machine gun nest and I will forward that when able. I did do some research today and see that some of the Westwall fortifications were certainly erected in that area, Pirmasens in particular, but no map was sufficiently detailed to make any judgement in the Schopp area. I did learn that troops were marched from the Schopp train station (still in use) to Pirmasens just before the outbreak of WWII.

Gerard

Maybe you should contact the museum in Pirmasens and see if they can help you any further:
==> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_ ... _Pirmasens

Many thanks, Thorsten. I have sent the museum a message and will share the reply.

Regards,
Gerard

Thorsten, I did send a note last week, but have received no reply. Necessarily, it was sent in English, so perhap there's the rub!

Regards,
Gerard