The 6 Best Military Museums in Alsace, Grand Est

Unique restored and visible witness of the Maginot Line in the area, the casemate Mémorial Maginot du Haut-Rhin is located in the south of Haut-Rhin, between Mulhouse (France) and Basel (Switzerland). After years of major works by a small groupe of passionated people, we are able to open this casemate, renovated and equiped like in 1940, the turret shelter and the museum of the second world war.

For more than half a century, the fortresses of the Maginot Line have been part of the Northern Vosges landscape. Built between 1930 and 1935, the Four-a-Chaux fortress in Lembach is one of the major buildings of this defensive line situated about ten kilometres (6 miles) from the German border so as to protect France during the Second World War. The fort’s location, south of the village of Lembach in a limestone hill, is what makes the fort so special. This large mountain installation that was manned by 580 troops has about 5 kilometres (3 miles) of up to 30-metre (100-foot) deep underground galleries. It stretches over a 26-hectare (75-acre) area and is equipped with an incline that is unique in Alsace. It has been open to visitors since 1983 and guided tours allow you to discover all of this huge fortress’s wartime installations and to perfectly understand how it operated.

Located in a former cantonal court, which was also a military hospital during the First World War, the Serret Museum has three themes: - The Serret Museum, with its rich collection of weapons and equipment from the First World War, allows visitors to discover, through numerous objects and photographs, this tormented period. -Come to discover the major stages of the history of the valley of Saint-Amarin on the first floor. -The granary is an opportunity to (re) discover the activities that animated the life of the inhabitants of the valley in the XIX and XXth century.