Abandoned places

A deathly silence blows through the streets of the mining village of Asproni. Halfway through the twentieth century, the last resident closed the door behind him.

From September 1943, forced labourers excavated a vast underground tunnel complex in Mimoyecques on the outskirts of Calais.

Landslides and floods have chased out the residents of Gairo from their increasingly dilapidated homes.

One of the dunes of Blériot-Plage, west of Calais, was crowned with a command post in the autumn of 1943. The coastal batteries of Waldam, Oldenburg, Bastion II, Fort Lapin, Sangatte and Lindemann were controlled from here.

During the Second World War, the Germans built an observation bunker between Zuydcoote and Leffrinckoucke on top of the dunes.

Like the capital, Berlin, the German port city of Hamburg was fortified with two concrete Flak Towers ('Flaktürme' in German) between 1942 and 1944.

On the night of April 25 to 26, 1940, the British Royal Air Force bombed the German capital Berlin. For Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, it was unpalatable to have bombs hit the capital of his Third Reich.

In the run-up to the Second World War, Adolf Hitler ordered the construction of a defense line in the west of the country, the so-called West Wall. You will still find hundreds of meters of tank barriers in Aachen, Germany.