Dark Tourism

At the beginning of October 1944, the British Air Force bombed the sea dike at Ritthem in the Netherlands. The aim was to flood Walcheren and force away the German army.

The German army spared no expense to make the eleven bunkers of Stützpunkt Groede resemble a cosy Dutch village.

On the left bank of the Scheldt in Fresnes-sur-Escaut in Northern France, this centuries-old fire engine building bears witness to the ceaseless struggle of miners and engineers against the groundwater in the underground galleries.

In 1938, the Organization Todt, the construction company of the German Third Reich, began constructing the West Wall (or Siegfried Line), a German defence line from the Netherlands to the Swiss border.

At the end of the First World War, the French Army built an observation tower to monitor potential movements of the German forces. 

In 1926, the French Ministry of Defense unveiled plans to fortify the country's eastern borders against possible surprise attacks, such as during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.

Tête des Faux is a 1208-meter-high mountain in the French Vosges, and its large stature also explains the strategic role it played during the First World War.