Submarine Diorama. This over 3 meters lang diorama was built by Siegfried Möhrman in a scale of 1:35. It was one of the last acquisitions made by our funder Prof. Peter Tamm before his passing. It is displayed in our exhibition dedicated to the history of subaquatic warfare, on deck 5 of the museum.
This diorama shows a free interpretation of several scenes that took place outside the submarine bunkers that Nazi Germany had built along the French Atlantic coast during World War II. Such bunkers were built in Brest, Lorient, La Pallice, Saint Nazaire and Bordeaux. Their aim was to be able to repair and prepare the submarines that were on duty against the merchant and military navies of the Allies in the Atlantic ocean. Such operations needed to be protected from air raids. The paramilitary engineering troop Organisation Todt (OT) started planning the construction of the bunkers shortly after Nazi Germany occupied France. The realization of the project was shared with subcontractors from Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. For example: in the construction of the bunker in Brest, a total of 8458 workers were employed during April 1942. 1562 of this workers belonged to the OT. 3438 were payed local specialized workers. The rest were called „auxiliary workers“ – a euphemism to describe different cases of forced labour. Many of this workers were what the Nazis called „Rotspanier“, Spanish citizens that fleed the military dictatorship in their country at the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
The bunker in Brest covered an area of 192×332 meters, with a roof that was 6,2 meters thick. The bunker contained 5 mooring Piers and 10 dry docks. It could contain a total of 20 u-boats simultaneously. The first submarine was tended to in Brest on September the 13th 1941, before the Bunker was even completed.
This over 3 meters lang diorama was built by Siegfried Möhrman in a scale of 1:35. It was one of the last adquisitions made by our funder Prof. Peter Tamm before his passing. It is displayed in our exhibition dedicated to the history of subaquatic warfare, on deck 5 of the museum.