June 24th, 1999 - Arrived in Frankfurt, Germany. This was to be a very busy day. I rented a car, which, to my surprise, turned out to be a Mercedes Benz minivan — it was a great vehicle. I drove to Ramstein AB, exchanged some money and headed south through Pirmasens and Dahn towards the French border then on to Lembach and Ouvrage du Four-a-Chaux (FAC).
I met up with Martin Rupp at FAC. We had corresponded with each other via e-mail over the previous couple of years but had never met. Our planned day and a half together turned into 4 days and took us from the Rhine, to the Saar, and to the Moselle at Metz and Thionville.
Martin and I headed east on D65 to the Col du Pfaffenschlick and turned left on D51 towards Climbach. Just down the road on the left sat the Ouvrage Ouest of the the enormous Ensemble du Hochwald, arguably the largest ouvrage of the Maginot Line.
Hochwald consists of 14 blocs with 3 entries, an antitank ditch defended by 9 infantry casemates, 8 kilometres of underground galleries, 2 electrical power stations, plus a number of independent observation blocs and uncompleted central redoubt.
We parked along the side of the road and walked down the hill into a field which contained the western fort and the left flank of the Hochwald ridge including the start of the 2+ km-long antitank ditch. Only Hackenberg and Rimplas had similar ditches. They were too costly and abandoned in later plans. I was able to photograph blocs 12, 13, 14, and 15. The view from bloc 12 looking west was magnificent.
