Antitank walls at Collioure, Port Vendres….
You’ve probably sat on the beach and spread out your towel with the shelter of a beach wall behind you but have you ever wondered what it was doing there?
Here in the P-O, it was very likely to have been part of the Sudwall, a small part of the Atlantic Wall. This massive 864km defence network was built by the occupying Germans between 1942 and 1944 on the orders of Hitler. It covered the French Mediterranean coast and other coastal areas in France, its aim to repel a possible allied invasion from the sea, and prevent the landing of motorised vehicles
Both antitank walls and reinforced concrete blockhouses were put up quickly with limited resources and in many cases, cheap labour provided by prisoners and locals.
Hitler ordered the construction of these fortifications in 1942 and more than half a million French workers were drafted to build it. The fortifications often included large coastal guns, trained on the sea, (bunkers and machine gun tracks still exist today at Cap Béar next to Port Vendres) batteries, mortars, and artillery, and were usually manned by thousands of German troops
Walls were built at Collioure on the Faubourg beach, at the Bay of Paulilles, on the Benardi, Factory and Fourat beaches, and at Banyuls on the Elmes beach. Most beaches at Port Vendres were unsuitable for landing motorised vehicles but anti tank walls were built on the Tamarins beach.
