Friday 14 June 2013

TODT MUSEUM



Museum as fortress? Something for the heritage industry? It's about ten miles from Calais and near where we had a family holiday three weeks ago, in an area thick with Second World War memorabilia. Mr Todt was chief architect of the German motorway system in the 1930s. He was employed to design this massive gun emplacement, to house a gun pointing directly towards Dover. And now it's private museum, the work of an individual enthusiast. It's an enormous space inside, with lots of weapons and some puzzling signage: 'The funboards are specific to this site . . .' In one glass case there's an RAF string vest as issued apparently to all pilots, the idea being that when you were taken prisoner you unravelled your vest and used it as a rope to climb down from your cell. Can this really be right?

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