DOWN BY THE BEACH
The Atlantic Wall - on the coast of Denmark
The Atlantic Wall was once a 5,000-kilometer-long coastal defense line built by the Nazis in occupied territories to ward off an Allied invasion. It stretched like an iron belt along the sea from the coasts of Norway through Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium to France and the Spanish border.
Today, as the coast is gradually being lost, the bunkers built in the Danish dunes look like stranded UFOs from a bygone era - marked by the stormy sea and half submerged in the sand. They tower like bizarre, almost surreal sculptures in the carefree Danish holiday landscape and silently tell the story of war and transience.
These mighty colossi, which seemed like impressive climbing frames to me as a child, only later revealed a double truth in their creation, history and meaning: the raw brutality of times gone by and the persistent will of nature to reconquer, slowly reclaiming its lost peace.
©2022 Anne Gabriel-Jürgens