Hohlgangsanlagen | |
---|---|
German Tunnels | |
Part of Atlantic Wall | |
Jersey | |
Site information | |
Owner | Owner of land above tunnel |
Controlled by | States & private ownership |
Open to the public | One open to the public, others can be visited with land owners permission. |
Condition | One fully restored, others maintained, most abandoned |
Site history | |
Built | 1941–1945 |
Built by | Festungsbaubataillone, 4/Gesteinsbohr-Kompanie Btl. 77, Reichsarbeitsdienst, Organisation Todt, various contractors German and local |
Materials | Concrete, steel, and timber |
Demolished | Some (by both Germans and British) |
Events | German occupation of the Channel Islands |
Hohlgangsanlage are a number of tunnels constructed in Jersey by occupying German forces during the occupation of Jersey. The Germans intended these bunkers to protect troops and equipment from aerial bombing and to act as fortifications in their own right.
The word Hohlgangsanlage can be translated as "cave passage installations".[1][2] The Channel Island tunnels are the only ones on the Atlantic wall to be referred to as Hohlgangsanlagen.
All the tunnels except for Ho5 are incomplete, and some never progressed beyond planning. The partly complete tunnels are, nonetheless, substantial in size. Completed sections were used for various purposes such as storage.[2]
In 1944, when construction stopped, 244,000 m3 of rock had been extracted for tunnel digging collectively from Guernsey, Jersey and Alderney (the majority from Jersey). At the same point in 1944, the entire Atlantic Wall from Norway to the Franco-Spanish border, excluding the Channel Islands, had extracted some 225,000 m3.[2]