War museum Caen Normandy Memorial, Centre for History and Peace in Caen (Private Tour)

In the morning the driver guide will pick you up at 06:40 am at the following adress : LIDO 116 Avenue des Champs-Elysées, 75008 Paris

(Easy to access by metro Line 1 and  just get off at the Metro station « George V » or RER A « Charles de Gaulle Etoile)

The Caen Memorial, built on a former blockhouse, is known to be the memory of the Second World War and especially the allied landing that took place not far away. However, the memorial has a broader function of making the visitor aware of the subjects of war. To this end, a wide range of photographs, planes and other war objects are exhibited in the different rooms of the memorial.

During your visit, you will discover the different stages of the 2nd World War from the rise of fascism to the landing in Normandy via the Shoah. Numerous films offer you a competitive and varied visit. A space is also devoted to the Cold War and press drawings.

In constant renewal for ten years, it is today at the heart of the reflection on the place of history in our societies.
This year you can discover a new film entitled "1944: Saving Europe".

1941: Germany launched operation Barbarossa against the USSR and Japan attacked Pearl Harbour. The Soviets and the Americans joined the Allies in their fight against the Axis countries: the European war became a world war.

Globalization of the Conflict

In 1941, the war went global. Since 1939, the Third Reich had spread in search of conquest: Europe, the Balkans or North Africa, when Hitler come to the aid of Mussolini’s Italian troops who had been defeated by the British in Egypt. Meanwhile the Reich was also waging a war without quarter in the Atlantic, relentlessly attacking allied convoys en route for Europe. Both the African campaign and the battle of the Atlantic are featured in large displays at the start of the first room.

In Asia, Japan had already invaded China in 1937. In 1941, these two distinct wars were combined, setting the whole world aflame. The first room is devoted to the two military events which marked 1941: in June, operation Barbarossa, starting the flood of German troops into the USSR and the spread of the conflict to the East; in December, the Japanese attack on the American naval base of Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States, previously the Arsenal of Democracy, into a war which duly became a global conflict. The war with Japan features significantly here, which is intentional.

40% of the victims of the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945 died in the Asia-Pacific theater, including 24 million Chinese. Japanese expansionism and its often brutal military conquests were made possible only by excessive worship of the Emperor, unquestioning nationalist fervour and an authoritarian system headed by the Japanese army. Finally, there is a large display devoted to the Japanese warrior, an essential cog in the Japanese war machine.

Before leaving this first room, be sure to take in this large photograph, a snapshot of the immense geopolitical upheavals in the world after September 1939: the globe shows the territory controlled by the Reich through progressive military conquest. The copy presented here is an Austrian globe presenting the border modifications made in 1943. A unique model.

THE D-DAY LANDINGS

Operations started on the night of 5/6 June, with airborne troops being parachuted down while heavy bombers pounded the coastal artillery batteries deemed to present the greatest danger. Meanwhile, an armada of 5000 ships (including a thousand battleships) crossed the English Channel and took up position off the beaches without being spotted by the Germans, who were battered by the storm that still raged and weakened by the loss of their radar stations, which had been destroyed over the previous few weeks. The surprise was therefore total.

At 5:45 a.m., the battleships opened fire on the Atlantic Wall defences, while the landing craft carrying the first assault waves drew nearer their targets.

Utah Beach

At 6:30 in the morning, the American 4th Infantry Division under General Barton, supported by amphibious tanks, reached the La Madeleine dunes on Sainte-Marie-du-Mont beach. As luck would have it, coastal currents had carried their landing craft two kilometres south of the planned location, where landing would have been a good deal more dangerous. Weakened by air and sea bombardment, German resistance was not up to scratch. The Americans only suffered minor losses, with some fifty dead and around 150 wounded. By the early afternoon, they had joined up with the 101st Airborne.

Omaha Beach

Omaha Beach forms a 7-kilometre indentation between Vierville and Colleville-sur-Mer, with cliffs on either side. It was overlooked by a sheer embankment bristling with field guns, mortars and machine guns.

The Allies were well aware of the dangers of an assault on a spot that seemed like an inevitable trap, but it was the only possibility. Inaccurate bombing had left German defences almost intact – and these were further reinforced by the unspotted arrival of the 352nd Infantry Division. In the morning of 6 June, the men of the 1st and 29th American Divisions, under the command of Generals Huebner and Gerhardt, suffered full-scale carnage. Pinned down on the beach in the midst of dead bodies and burned out equipment, it took them almost 6 hours to extricate themselves, climb the embankment and reach the plateau that overlooked it. By the evening, they had only managed to penetrate a mere 2 kilometres inland.

Sword Beach

The sector to the west of the Orne, between Langrune and Ouistreham, was strongly fortified. General Rennie’s 3rd British division had also been reinforced by two special commando brigades. The landing took place at Hermanville and Colleville. Heavy fighting was required to take Ouistreham. During the afternoon, Lord Lovat’s Special Brigade reached Ranville and Bénouville bridges (Pegasus Bridge) and joined up with the paratroopers. The 4th Brigade, however, was struggling to take Lion and Luc-sur-Mer, leaving a breach between Sword and Juno through which a detachment of the 21st Panzer infiltrated in the evening and reached the sea… only to turn back again. The core component of the tactical plan, the larger portion of the 3rd division, had been delayed by German fortified position and failed to take Caen as planned.

Gold Beach

The British 50th Infantry Division under General Graham reached Asnelles and Ver-sur-Mer at around 7:25 in the morning. German resistance was strong at both ends of the landing zone, but the enemy troops were pushed to the centre and were unable to prevent the British from penetrating inland. In the evening of 6 June, the 50th Division’s vanguard was at the gates of Bayeux, which they entered the following day without bloodshed. Meanwhile, in the late afternoon alongside the coast, the 1st Hampshire regiment took Arromanches, where one of the artificial ports was to be set up.

Juno Beach

The sector between Courseulles and Saint-Aubin was put in the hands of General Keller’s 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, supported by the 48th Commando of the Royal Marines. With coastal reefs making navigation difficult, the landing craft were late in arriving. They reached the shore at high tide and came straight up against the obstacles that Rommel had put in place, causing heavy casualties and obstruction of the beaches. After some fierce fighting and the loss of a thousand men (including 300 killed), the Canadians finally managed to join up with the British forces that had landed at Gold Beach and establish a solid bridgehead a dozen kilometres deep (the record for the day). They had not, however, achieved two of their objectives – Route Nationale 13 and Carpiquet aerodrome.

This exhibition space deals exclusively with the Invasion of Normandy, a key episode in the liberation of Europe.

For the first time ever, this exhibition cover every detail of the Invasion of Normandy. Indeed, few people really know how much Normandy suffered following 6 June 1944. 20,000 inhabitants of Normandy were killed, that is a third of all French civilians killed during the Second World War. Towns were razed to the ground in mass bomb attacks, battles as fierce as those on the Eastern front raged, civilians were subjected to terrible suffering and many were evacuated, the German army fled and was pursued.

The Battle of Normandy was not supposed to last more than a few weeks. It would only end on 12th September with the liberation of Le Havre, one hundred days after the Landings.

Film « 1944 : Saving Europe » (Duration: 19 minutes)

Comprised of exclusively archive footage, the film « 1944, saving Europe » recounts all the stages of the battle up to the liberation of Le Havre.

19 minutes of History and emotion plunge the audience into the heart of the battle as they have never seen or heard it before.

July : The Allies Mark Time

Their taking of Cherbourg at the end of June had been a major success on the part of the Americans. Once the town’s port was rehabilitated, it would serve as a logistics base for the reconquest of France. But the month of July, which saw fresh attacks being launched in the south, was a good deal less favourable to the allied cause. In the “bocage” of Cotentin, the GIs strove to gain the upper hand and suffered terribly for it. It was “the hell of the hedgerows”. The fields were fiercely defended by the Germans and had to be taken one by one, at the cost of considerable and repeated losses. The advance was discouragingly slow. “This damn war could well last twenty years!” one American general bemoaned. On their side, the British and Canadians were blocked at the gates of Caen, which they had hoped to take on the evening of the 6 June. It is true that they were confronted with the best the German army had to offer, with its formidable Wehrmacht and Waffen SS armoured divisions.

The Liberation of Caen                              

After a month of siege, Montgomery decided to try a frontal attack on Caen in an attempt to break the deadlock. On 4 July, the final attack was preceded by a Canadian assault on the 12th Panzer SS Hitlerjugend entrenchments around Carpiquet and its aerodrome, which were taken after hard fighting. On the evening of the 7th, heavy aerial bombing opened a breach in the German defences to the north of Caen. The Canadians and British finally entered Caen on 9 July. The right bank of the Orne, however, was not to fall for another ten days and the Germans were able to re-establish their lines of defence south of the town and continue to block the road to Falaise.

Operation Cobra : The American Breakthrough

General Bradley had put the finishing touches to a plan for getting his troops out of “the hell of the hedgerows”. Operation Cobra was launched on 25 July with massive aerial bombardment to the west of Saint-Lô that opened up a passageway through the enemy lines. The armoured divisions swept into the breach and overran the Germans, who were severely weakened after weeks of fighting and had no more in-depth defences left likely to stave off the assault. The front cracked from end to end and the Americans forged ahead with dazzling speed, advancing 60 km in six days and entering Avranches on 30 July before taking the fight on into Brittany under Patton’s leadership. The war of movement had replaced the war of position.

The Falaise Pocket

In mid-August, the success of Operation Cobra and the failure of the rash counterattack launched in Mortain upon Hitler’s orders gave General Bradley the idea of carrying out a vast encircling manoeuvre. Forced to fight on the run, the German armies were rapidly caught between two pincers (Anglo-Canadian to the north and American to the south), which inexorably closed upon them. Relentlessly pounded by aircraft and artillery, the pocket grew smaller by the day, finally closing once and for all on 21 August, near the village of Chambois.

The Germans cross back over the seine

The German armies in Normandy had not been annihilated in the Falaise pocket. They were, however, no longer in any fit state to hold off their adversaries. At the end of August, the hour had come for retreat to the Seine, and then on to the borders of the Reich. The Allies tried their best to encircle the enemy to the south of the river, but were not quick enough. Almost all the bridges over the lower Seine had been destroyed. Nonetheless, using ferryboats and whatever other means of transport they could rig up, the Germans managed to get 240,000 men and 30,000 vehicles across upstream and downstream of Rouen, at the price of having to abandon much of their heavy equipment. The operation was carried out in good order despite allied aircraft attacks, which were hampered by cloudy skies.

Located beneath the Mémorial de Caen museum, this command post played a crucial role during the Occupation and the Battle of Normandy. A new display presents the military aspects of the German occupation, as well as the history of the Atlantic Wall, from its construction to its role during the D-Day Landings.

The Caen Mémorial museum was inaugurated on 6 June 1988 after being built on top of an underground gallery which contained the command post of Generalmajor Wilhelm Richter, commander of the 716th German infantry division which guarded the coastal sector from Omaha to the mouth of the Orne. In 1943, the German commander decided to base his general headquarters in this former quarry, which had also been used as a firing range by the French Army.

A tunnel measuring 70 metres long and 3 metres tall was dug in the limestone rock. The Allies were aware of the existence of this structure through information provided by the French Resistance.

The Transmission Center

The bunker contained a radio transmission center and was equipped with a ventilation system, generator and water cistern. A team of secretaries, telephonists, cartographers and officers worked constantly beneath this thick limestone shell. A small garrison was in charge of defending the structure. Each of the three entrances on alternate sides was defended by a machine gun. Double-leaf armoured doors completed the defence system.

The 716th ID and D-Day

On the plateau overlooking the quarry, a buried tank and minefields protected the immediate surroundings

n the night of 5 to 6 June 1944, the general staff of the 716th ID was informed of unusual aerial activity and parachute drops to the east of the Orne and west of the Dives. In the small hours of the morning, the HQ staff received a stream of information from the CPs along the coast. This information had to be collected and analysed before reporting to the higher echelons. The long-awaited D-Day landings had finally taken place. This position was at the centre of the operations.

Richter reported the situation to General Marcks, commander of the 84th army corps headquartered in Saint-Lô. The following night, the general officers met to devise a strategy aimed at driving the Allied troops back to the sea, but the tank counter-attacks were repelled and the front line remained in the same place for several weeks. During the battle, the underground galleries were used as a CP and shelter for the troops. During the main offensives, they were turned into a makeshift hospital. The CP was finally abandoned on 23 June. Canadian soldiers took possession of the premises on 9 July.

The World after 1945

From the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the second half of the XXth century is decrypted in this space.

From Occupied Germany to Divided Germany

The division of Berlin into two zones of influence, from the end of the Second World War until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, is without doubt one of the most remarkable symbols of the Cold War.

Berlin paid a very high price for war – due to a lack of male workers, the women were called on to clear the city’s ruins. Cold and hunger were a constant torment to the city’s people. The United States’ Marshall Plan brought an end to these difficulties but heightened the division brought about by the occupied sectors – the unity of Berlin was no longer but a memory. In Europe, the occupied zones gradually chose their side and two ideological blocs were formed.

From The Blockade to the Berlin Wall

To prevent the mass migration of East Germans to the west side of the city, the GDR authorities erected a barbed wire curtain between East Berlin and West Berlin in the night of 12 to 13 August 1961.

The Soviet blockade of the western sector of the city in 1948 was the first major crisis of the Cold War. It would require all the ingenuity of the Berlin airlift by the West to bring the blockade to an end. The creation of two Germanys in 1949 transformed the sectors of Berlin into two fronts – according to ideology, that of the “Free World” on one side, and that of the “Anti-Fascist World” on the other. But the western side seemed more welcoming and many East Berliners took refuge there.

To prevent this exodus from the East, the East German authorities built what they called “the anti-fascist protection wall” during the night of 12 to 13 August 1961, in order - so they said - to “protect” their citizens. The Berlin Wall, named the “Wall of Shame” by the West, which was initially just breeze-blocks topped with barbed wire, grew over the years to become a genuine defence system, a double wall between which stood a death zone.

Surveillance, Escape and Crossing

Over 230 people were shot dead by the Vopos (East German security forces) between 1961 and 1989, as they tried to flee “to the other side of the wall”.

The “wall system” was closely guarded by GDR soldiers, either from their observation towers or during patrols in military vehicles. Before taking position, these young men underwent extremely strict, indeed brutal, training. They were ordered to shout a warning then shoot at any fugitive. But surveillance was not limited to the wall. The entire East German society was spied on. The regime’s political police, the STASI (abbreviation of “State Security” in German) established an extensive system of intelligence and repression.

Despite the huge risk involved, tens of thousands of East Germans tried to escape to “the other side of the wall”. Over 230 people were killed by VoPos (East German soldiers in charge of security) between 1961 and 1989. Escape attempts came in every form imaginable – from digging tunnels, fleeing on a boat (in places the wall was a river border), making hiding-places in car boots… to even crossing in a hot air balloon.

However, most escapes were made during the early years. The wall was more permeable then, in places just rolls of barbed wire. Some border guards were also tempted to escape, or at least help their compatriots escape. On 15 August 1961, a photo of the spectacular jump made by VoPo Conrad Schumann could be seen throughout the world.

Berlin : City of Spies and the War of Waves

West Berlin became a center of espionage, radio was used by both sides to broadcast their values

After the war Berlin was transformed into a hub of East and West espionage. The delicate position of West Berlin, a small, isolated territory in the middle of a Communist country and occupied by the military of three countries (France, United Kingdom, United States), favoured the development of western intelligence and eavesdropping activities. Soviet bloc spies also took advantage of this proximity, and conducted numerous missions.

West Berlin, as a window on Western economics and culture, broadcast Western values over the radio, with, for example, the RIAS (Radio In American Sector) much listened to in the East, as much for its information as the liberty of the musical programme. East German Authorities had few illusions as to the impact their programmes had in the West. They none the less taunted the western camp, from the highest monument in both Berlins, the television tower (Berliner Fernsehturm) which was also a radio antenna. Its construction had begun in 1965 at the heart of the city.

Fall of the Berlin Wall

1989 saw the the collapse and dismantling of the Soviet bloc. After the Iron Curtain was split open in Hungary, the fall of the Berlin Wall opened the way for German reunification.

During the night of 9 to 10 November 1989, the Berlin Wall, after ripping the city in two and separating families for 38 years, fell at last under popular pressure. The two sections of the Wall presented in this room give you an idea of the proportions: at the top (3.60 m) there is a pipe in cement to prevent all escape attempts using grappling hooks. Painted from the East shortly after the fall of the Wall, by the artist Manfred Butzman, these concrete sections were saved during the dismantling. As the whitewash applied by the East German police has not withstood the weather, the fresco has fortunately reappeared. The artist depicted rabbits, very present in the no man's land of the Wall system, to symbolize the fate of the fugitives ("get shot at like rabbits") and more generally as a symbol

of freedom and peace. The expression "Hase bleibt Hase", "Once a Rabbit always a Rabbit" advocates a peaceful revolution.

After the fall of the Wall and the decriminalization of passage to the West by RDA authorities, unending lines of Trabants hurried towards the border. The car which was meant to symbolize the success of the socialist system was, in the end, used as a vector for freedom.

Since its inauguration in 1988 when the Israeli President planted the first tree, the Park has continued to create new gardens and commemorative sites to honour the memory of Resistance fighters and Allied soldiers who died in Normandy.

Every year on 6 June, Landing commemorations are organized in the gardens of the museum.

The American Garden

In 1994, to mark 50 years since the liberation of Europe, the American Garden was officially opened. With a fountain symbolizing life at the center, plaques of the fifty American states have been erected nearby.

The Canadian Garden

In 1995, it was the Canadian Support Committee’s turn to create its own garden...

Designed by twelve students of architecture from the universities of Montreal and Ottawa, the Canadian Garden encourages reflection.

The low wall lists the name of the 122 Normandy communes liberated by Canadian soldiers. The black granite slab is inscribed with Virgil's words: "Nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo" (no day will ever erase you from the memory of time).

The British Garden

In 2004, Prince Charles inaugurated the British Garden...

This Garden was designed and built on behalf of the British Friends of Normandy with the help of the City of Caen.

Various sculptures evoking the participation of the various forces in the conflict: the Royal Air force, the Royal Navy and the 15 British divisions are represented by cypress trees planted alongside a colonnade in bloom.

During the return drive to Paris you will have time to relax aboard the minivan before to be dropped off in Central Paris  (Drop off in front of the "LIDO DE PARIS 116 Av. des Champs-Élysées, 75008 Paris") in the evening around 05:00 pm.

Easy there to catch a taxi cab either to find metro stations (Ligne 1 Métro : George V)