The Abandoned Artillery of WW II - Memel Nord
Seventy years after World War II, boys still like to play war with toy rifles in the yard.
But at an artillery battery in the coastal Klaipeda / Giruliai, the smell of gunpowder—and war—still lingers in the air. Moreover, the ammunition left inside makes it tangible.
Anyone who has ever ended up in Memel Nord basically says the same thing: time has frozen there. It literally throws you back to the early 1940s, when the artillery was rattling the bunker walls and city itself. All of the visitors who ever came here and touched the shells with their own hands have claimed the excursion made them think
Between 1939 and 1944, the fortification in Giruliai was an embodiment of German military prowess. With bombs lifted by elevators from deep underground shelters to the turrets overlooking the Baltic Sea, the facility was state-of-the-art. It had its own electricity generator, and the shells, fired from 12.8 cm caliber Flak 40 howitzers, could reach military targets 17 kilometers away. It is said that one of their downed war planes still rests at the bottom of the sea.
German-built fortifications along the Lithuanian coast in 1939 had to deter enemies approaching by sea, but as the entire Baltic coast fell into the hands of German troops with little resistance, the weaponry was hauled to Norway, according to historical sources.
The Giruliai battery was taken over by Soviet troops at the end of the war. It was used for Soviet defence until 1961. There are around eight to nine German military fortifications from the Second World War on the Lithuanian coast, but only three of them are protected by state heritage watchdogs
While the niches of grayish, graffiti-scribbled Memel Nord today serve as a shelter from a summer downpour for many beach goers, the history student along with his peers strive to exhibit and preserve the war remnants.
Lithuania should be keener to preserve what is left from past years. Out of 20 WWII bunkers sprawled along the Lithuanian Baltic coast, only a few are being taken care of by the state as objects in the cultural heritage registry.
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Those architectures reminds us of history and how much we should value it. War ain't a good thing, not one anyone should wish to experience.
Thats so true....
Great shots a load of history there! 💯🐒
Those are some really powerful images and I find them inspirational. It's such a great idea to do a photo essay on buildings like that. We had a few concrete air raid shelters near our school in Scotland and we used to hang out in them with no real attachment to what they really were. It wasn't until I got older that I started to grasp just how difficult that time must've been to live through. When I see your photos, I really get the WORLD bit of the world wars. Amazing pics.