The Reserve has many
historic sites from Celtic oppida to the Maginot Line,
including numerous castles and forts and the Dussenheim
Fortified Shelter: so much stone, earth and reinforced
concrete that the French and Germans have laid to protect
themselves from each other. Geisberg and the countryside
around Woerth and Froeschwiller still bears witness to
a particularly bloody episode in Franco-German history,
the War of 1870.
The Fortified Refuge
The Fortified Refuge of Dossenheim has a thick protective
wall of dressed sandstone surrounded by small houses that
are built against it and are still inhabited. On the lower
ground level there are traces of small chambers where
people sheltered in time of trouble in the Middle Ages.
The 1870 Battlefield
The area around Woerth and Froeschwiller was the site
of a ferocious battle on 6 August 1870 (called the Battle
of Reichshoffen). Today it is the site of a museum explaining
the historic importance of this particular day and the
1870 War in European history. There are also numerous
monuments on the battlefield itself.
Blockhouses and turrets
The Maginot line is an extensive fortification consisting
of a multitude of reinforced concrete redoubts armed
with a variety of weapons depending on their situation
and the lie of the land. Many are in Vosges du Nord
such as Schoenenbourg, Four à Chaux (the Limekiln),
Simserhof, and the Dambach sector and with its protective
floodable zone.
Westwall, the Western Rampart, was built in the Pfälzerwald
along the then Franco-German border parallel to the Maginot
Line. The numerous bunkers here give an excellent idea
of these important fortifications.
