Germersheim (DE)

History of the fortified town of Germersheim

With the declaration of possession on 30 April 1816 by the Bavarian King Maximilian I Joseph, the Palatinate henceforth belonged to Bavaria. However, with the recovery of the left bank of the Rhine, it was also decided that the Rhine should once again be developed into a strong border defence in the event of renewed military conflict with France. The German Confederation therefore decided as early as 1815/16 to provide the town of Germersheim and the Rhine crossing with strong fortifications. In this case, the Kingdom of Bavaria remained in charge of the implementation, which realised the construction project with funding from the German Confederation, but ultimately built a Bavarian state fortress.

The fortress had the task of securing the river crossing and providing a firm base to cover the border against France. The crossing over the Rhine at this point was also the shortest connection between the Palatinate fortress of Landau and the right bank of the Rhine.

After King Ludwig I commissioned Engineer-Major Friedrich Schmauß to draw up the fortress plans in December 1832, the ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of the fortress took place on 30 June 1834. The foundation stone was then ceremoniously laid on 18 October 1834 at the head of the Beckers front line, exactly at the obtuse angle where it meets the Schmauss front line in front of the centre of the Seyssel barracks, in commemoration of the Battle of Leipzig.

If you want to travel back in time, you can explore the massive walls of the historic fortress on one of the popular fortress tours or a staged tour with historical costumes.

Architecture of the fortified town of Germersheim

The basic principle of the fortification was the polygonal caponier system in the Nine-Dutch style, or, as was common for fortresses of the German Confederation at the time, the so-called „New Prussian fortification style“. A system characterised above all by the caponiers or trench defences and casemated defensive buildings.

In the polygonal system, the ground plan is a polygon with straight or slightly broken fronts. Here in Germersheim there are 6 front sections, Beckers, Schmauß, Lamotte, Diez, Reuß and Carl, which surround the town for 3,200 metres as the main rampart or town rampart in the „nine Dutch style“. The infantry galleries of the main rampart began at the Diez front, passed through the Lamotte, Schmauß, Beckers and part of the Carl fronts, and had a total length of around 1,800 metres. This section formed a dry trench system with a trench width of up to 32 metres. From the infantry gallery, close defence could be taken over when the enemy was in the trench. However, it was also possible to move troops underground without exposing them to direct fire. The other 1,400 metres of the rampart had a wet trench system and therefore no galleries. This was fed by the backwater of the Queich at the Diez front - a sluice leading to the Rhine - and the tributary of the „Altbach“ - a branch of the Queich - at the Carl front.

In the centre of each frontage, a building was built into the trench from the rampart, the caponier or trench defence. They are equipped with embrasures so that the length of the trenches could be taken under fire with guns or rifles. The sections to the west and south-west were particularly strong, as an attack from this side was to be expected. The caponiers of these Schmauss and Becker sections were therefore designed with two legs, like a horseshoe. This meant that a larger number of guns, six on each side, could be deployed. The other fronts, which were additionally secured by the natural terrain, such as the Rhine, oxbow lakes and morass, are single-legged. The ditch defence is separated from the rampart and, as it is located deeper in the ditch, can be over-shot from the main rampart. These buildings were secured by a revetment, also in the „nine-Dutch style“. As this was located in front of the ditch defence, it was lower than the main rampart so that it would have been possible to take over the long-distance defence from the main rampart via the revetment. This is followed by another 20 metre wide ditch.

From the outer trench wall of the important fronts, Schmauß, Beckers, parts of Carl and Lamotte, where a connecting gallery was often constructed in the trench wall, a defence mine system emanated, the tunnels of which led underground out into the „glacis“. The main tunnels were 6 to 7 metres below the natural ground level and 10 metres below the edge of the glacis. They were lined with bricks and had a height of 1.87 metres and a width of 1.14 metres up to the vaulted crown. Smaller side tunnels, measuring 1.23 metres high and 0.60 metres wide, branched off from the main tunnels. In the event of war, black powder barrels would have been placed in the mine system to blow them up if the enemy were above them and thus hinder the enemy's advance.

The mine system alone was built from 1855 to 1861, i.e. 6 years, resulting in a total construction time of 27 years for Germersheim Fortress.
Military buildings are also part of the „New Prussian style“ inside the city. The barracks complexes are not purely troop accommodation, but so-called defensive buildings. They are usually aligned parallel to the rampart in order to provide a last line of defence in case the enemy got over the rampart.
The actual entrances to the fortress and therefore also to the town are located to the north of the arterial road towards Speyer and to the east towards the Rhine. They are secured by two fortress gates, the Ludwig Gate and the Weissenburg Gate.

The fortifications are completed by ten outworks and outlying fortresses, which were built around the main rampart in the rayon area and also extended to the parts of Germersheim on the right bank of the Rhine. These included the bridgehead at Philippsburg, which, together with the town fortifications, protected the two Rhine bridges. The fortifications of this belt fortification were laid out at intervals of 600 - 1,700 metres around the town.