Prospecting operations on the site of an Aisne tunnel where German soldiers were immured in 1917 made it possible to identify a cavity but without opening up any prospect of entering it, according to the prefecture and the German body in charge. war graves.
These operations were carried out between Monday and Thursday on the Chemin des Dames site, known as the “Winterberg tunnel”, by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (VDK, German war graves commission), with the support of the French authorities, a year after other excavations which had uncovered objects of German soldiers – pieces of uniforms, epaulets, pocket mirror bearing the portrait of Emperor Wilhelm II…
“Precise drilling has confirmed the existence and location of a large cavity, which is almost certainly part of the Winterberg Tunnel,” the VDK wrote on Friday in a statement posted on its website.
A camera was then able to be inserted into this cavity, but the poor visibility conditions did not make it possible to obtain precise images of the interior, explains the VDK.
German soldiers from the 111th Baden reserve infantry regiment, whose number the VDK estimates at around 100, had been immured and died, asphyxiated or of hunger and thirst, in this tunnel following intense fire of French artillery which had caused the collapse of its entrance on May 4, 1917.
While it did not allow the contents of the cavity to be seen in detail, the drilling “revealed that the burial site is safe”: “the cavity is very deep underground and can only be reached with a lot of “efforts”, indicates the VDK which adds that “the location of the hole was carefully sealed” at the end of the exploration.
“The technical difficulties encountered during the various prospecting phases confirmed the impossibility of penetrating without very heavy means into the Winterberg tunnel (…), thus guaranteeing the respect due to the bodies of the soldiers” who perished there, writes for its part the prefecture of Aisne in another press release.
German and French authorities had explained Tuesday during a press conference on the spot that the exhumation of the bodies of the soldiers was not the main object of this operation, but the study of the site, probably destined to become a place of memory.
The future of this “highly symbolic” site will be the subject in the coming months of “a joint reflection between the French and German authorities, in the shared concern of maintaining the memory of this tragic episode of the First World War” concludes Prefecture.