You can find a planty of strange concrete bricks between Lausanne and Geneve. It's hard to guess what are these bricks for that are 15 km. stretched from the Lake Geneve to the mountains. The bricks look like triangles that is why the line is also called as "The Line of Toblerones" - after well known swiss chocolate.
You would not find any information about this line
in city guides and even if you find it - it can take you a whole day to take a
look over all this bricks.
Not long time ago only locals knew about the line.
There were no walking routes- just Swiss cows, who were eating grass near
strange objects.
Not long time ago a Swiss named Gerald Berutto
founded an Association for the Line of Toblerones and created a tourist route
along the line. But when was the line built and what for?
When in the 1940 Germany occupied France,
Switzerland was surrounded by Axis powers. Already in 1930 Switzerland tried to
protect itself from fascist ideology (so called Spiritual Defence -
"Geistige Landesverteidigung") - there was the only one German
speaking antifascist radio and the fascist ideology did not have massive
support.
But after the fall of France in 1940 Switzerland got the idea that it
was necessary to improve the neutrality doctrine to the doctrine of armed
neutrality and only for the fourth time a General took up the post. "The
General" is military post in Switzerland that was specially created for
the war time. The General is something like commander-in-chief. The person who
became the General was Henri Guisan, who became later a national hero of
Switzerland.
Henri Guisan made a speech on 20.07.1940 to the
officers of Swiss army. He declared: "Switzerland will fight to the end.
And even if we do not have any bullets more - we will use our bayonets".
Henri Guisan saw that German army is bigger than the Swiss one, that is why his
goal was to create conditions in which that it would not be justified to attack
this small highland on grounds of military expediency
According to the adopted plan "National
redoubt" the army had to be mobilized, all objects of infrastructure had
to be mined and several military defenses lines had to be built along the state
border. While the enemy is marching further deeper in Switzerland the Swiss
army had to go in the mountains and all objects of infrastructure had to be
exploded. Then the tactics changes to the guerilla war in the Alps. And finally
one of the famous Henri Guisan's orders was to consider as a provocation every
message about capitulation made by public bodies.
"The Line of Toblerones" was one of such
military defenses
lines that was built in the East from Geneve surrounded from
all sides by occupied France. That means that Henri Guisan was ready to leave
this city to the enemy without fighting. "The Promenthouse Line" was
named after the river Promenthouse that flows along this defenses line. Twelve
fortresses with anti-tank artillery were built along the river.
Some parts of the line had to be built on the
private property but even in the wartime private property in Switzerland cannot
be outraged. One of the land property holder descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte
Prince Lui Napoleon gave his land for free and became later active in the French
resistance movement.
There were some problems with the pianist and former
president of Poland Ignacy Paderewski. His private property in Switzerland was
the last thing he had after Germany and Soviet Union seized Poland. After few
months of disputes he agreed to give his private property to Switzerland and
the state helped him later to go to the USA where he led the Polish Government
in exile.
The line consists of 2700 concrete bricks each
weighs 9 tons. The enemy-faced side is cutted in order to make a going tank
hang up.
The blocks are built along natural obstacles -
rivers.
On the other side of these blocks is field that
can be easily controlled by the defending side.
Some parts of these fields are used by golf
clubs.
One of the fortresses built along the line is so
called "Pink house". It looks like a regular house standing near the
road.
Many people wondered why the house looks so
nice. By the way at night there are no lights in the windows. Supposedly, no
one lives there.
But if you come close to the house you will see
that the windows are just painted to pretend being real.
There was always minimum a platoon of soldiers
in the house ready to attack or to defend. By the alarm "doors" and
"windows" were opened and the cannons hidden in the house were ready
to shoot.
That is how nice the house looks.
Fortresses were built also on the line.
There is one more village near the road...
...no, it is just another one fortress with painted windows.
What is the end of this story? Germany did not
attack Switzerland although there were few air battles in 1940 with losses on
both sides. Hitler did not consider Switzerland as a threat to Germany and he
knew that seizing this small highland can cost too much that is why he made an
agreement with this country.
There were some people who criticized
Switzerland for this agreement because Germany was allowed to transit cargo
through Switzerland and there were trade relations between both countries. But
nevertheless Switzerland and its people were saved and one can find Henri
Guisan Street in every swiss city.
The original of the article you can find here.
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