Fort de Douaumont
Fort de Douaumont, or simply called Fort Douaumont by the Germans, is the largest work in the fortification belt around Verdun and the best-known position in the entire area of the former battlefield. The installation was constructed in two expansion stages between 1885 and 1913 following the Franco-Prussian War under the concept of General Séré de Rivières. As was initially customary, the fort was built of lime-sand stone. After high-explosive ammunition was adopted by all European armies in the mid-1880s, massive concrete reinforcements were carried out. These are still clearly visible today on the exterior above the original sandstone. The fort also received its modern artillery equipment, consisting of a 155 mm and a 75 mm Gallopin model retractable gun turret, each with an armored observation cupola. Additionally, two retractable machine gun turrets with additional observation cupolas were installed.
Fort Douaumont was captured almost without a fight as early as the afternoon of February 25, 1916, by several companies of Brandenburgisches Infanterie-Regiment 24 (24th Infantry Regiment). Surprising to the Germans, the only presence was a garrison of approximately 60 men consisting of older age cohorts, which was intended to maintain the technical operations of the essentially disarmed installation. In the following months, the fort rendered invaluable service to the Germans as a transit station, military hospital, and storage, command, and shelter facility directly behind the front lines.
After a French attempt to recapture the fortress narrowly failed against German reserves brought up to the area on May 22, 1916, the fort was recaptured on October 24, 1916, as part of a major French offensive and was not given up again until the end of the war. Until this time, it was under heavy French artillery fire day after day, making reaching and leaving the installation dangerous. Due to these circumstances, German soldiers gave Fort de Douaumont the nickname “Coffin Lid”.
On May 8, 1916, a severe explosion accident occurred in the fort, in which, according to various accounts, several hundred to a thousand German soldiers met their death. After flamethrower oil had accidentally ignited in the completely overcrowded corridors, the soldiers stationed there fled into the central area of the fort. Due to their soot-blackened faces, they were mistaken for French Senegalese troops and fought with hand grenades. As a result, a hand grenade depot initially caught fire. Subsequently, French 15.5 cm shells stacked in the main corridor of the fort exploded. All lights went out, and there was a heavy development of heat and smoke. Panic broke out. Many of the soldiers who were not killed directly by the explosions were trampled to death or died of smoke poisoning. A large portion of the victims was later walled up in two front rampart casemates of the fort, at the approach to which a memorial has been established today.
After the battles for the fortress, disputes developed between individual members of the Infanterie-Regiments 24 (24th Infantry Regiment), most notably between the officers Cordt von Brandis (8./IR 24) and Eugen Radtke (6./IR 24). Both claimed to have been the first officer in the actual fort area. Cordt von Brandis, who achieved this reputation through a misunderstanding, had entered the fortified work only after its capture and had admitted this in subsequent years. Alongside Hauptmann (captain) Hans-Joachim Haupt, commander of the 7./IR 24, he received the highest military order “Pour le Mérite” for the capture of the fortress. After the war, he wrote several books about the battles, as well as the regimental history of the Infanterie-Regiment 24 published in 1930 entitled “Die vom Douaumont”. He was courted by the National Socialists as the Hero of Douaumont and accepted this role not entirely unwillingly.
Eugen Radtke, who in all probability as commander of the 6th Company was indeed the first officer in the fort, was seriously wounded as early as February 26, 1916, and suffered a walking disability. He received no military honor. Radtke never got over this injustice. Until the late 1960s, through a multitude of statements—for example to the Reichsarchiv, individual historians such as German Werth, or even to the Federal Ministry of Defense—he endeavored to clarify the actual sequence of events, the role of his 6th Company, and the alleged fraud by Brandis. Ultimately, however, the name Cordt von Brandis remains closely linked to the capture of Fort Douaumont in military historical accounts.
As part of a commemorative event for 35 fallen German soldiers whose remains were found in the summer of 2008 on the hill of Vauquois and who found their final resting place at the Cheppy war cemetery, the European, French, and German flags were raised at Douaumont on November 13, 2009. All three flags have been flying together on the armored fortification ever since.
Over several years, extensive work took place on the exterior grounds of Fort de Douaumont under the responsibility of the Mission du Centenaire 14 – 18 and under the direction of the Verdun-born Colonel Alain Artisson. The parking lot was completely redesigned and paved. Another access option was created by opening the former wartime entrance. In order to reach the ground level of the museum entrance, which continues to exist, an elevator system was built alongside an additional footpath. The new overall concept was officially opened in May 2018.
Excursion: Dr. Benno Hallauer, * 1880 in Danzig, + 1943 in Auschwitz
One of the Stabsärzte (staff surgeons) active in Fort de Douaumont in 1916 was the Berlin gynecologist Dr. Benno Hallauer. During the explosion disaster of May 8, 1916, through his fearless deployment in the gas-contaminated corridors of Douaumont, he saved the lives of dozens of soldiers. He produced a report on the events for his superior authority, the III. preußische Armee-Korps (III Corps), 5. Infanterie-Division (5th Infantry Division), from which the full drama of the events emerges.
A copy of the report can be found adjacent.
As early as 1913, Dr. Hallauer had taken over the management of a private women’s clinic in Berlin at Schiffbauer Damm 31/32. Due to gas poisoning, he was discharged from military service shortly before the end of the war in 1918 and thereafter devoted himself intensively to his private medical practice. His women’s clinic quickly became known and appreciated beyond the region. When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Dr. Hallauer and his family, as Jews, were exposed to massive reprisals, although as a doctor he was initially allowed to continue practicing due to his service in the First World War.
In 1937, Dr. Hallauer was sentenced by the Berlin Regional Court to a prison term of nine months for “insidious slander of the Führer”. During his imprisonment, he lost his clinic through compulsory auction. In 1939, his medical license was revoked. Attempts by prominent personalities at home and abroad, among them Albert Einstein, to enable his emigration from Germany failed. Dr. Benno Hallauer was forced to relocate to Breslau and was active there for some time at a Jewish hospital as a “practitioner”. In 1943, he reportedly was deported from Breslau with his second wife to the Auschwitz concentration camp and murdered there.
After Cordt von Brandis had already attained unjustified fame and dubious notoriety in connection with his version of the capture of Douaumont, after the Second World War he also came forward with the claim that he had brought about the release of Dr. Benno Hallauer and another doctor from the Auschwitz concentration camp and their subsequent departure through personal intercession with Rudolf Hess. A corresponding letter from Von Brandis from 1971, written about a year before his death, is available. According to the current state of research, however, Dr. Benno Hallauer was not liberated, but was likely murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. This distortion of facts also casts a dubious light on the historical figure of Cordt von Brandis.
The clinic building at the then address Schiffbauer Damm 31/32 at the Berlin Spreebogen was demolished as early as 1940 in the course of Albert Speer’s plans to redesign the capital of the Reich. The property was transferred back in 1997 to a son of Dr. Hallauer who had emigrated to the USA and become a well-known dermatologist there. As early as 1998, a renewed expropriation for compensation took place in connection with the move of the Federal Government to the Spree. Since the late 1990s, the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus with the library of the German Bundestag has been located on the site. In the foyer of the library stands a bust of Dr. Benno Hallauer, which was created in 2005 by the graphic artist and writer Wieland Förster on behalf of the Bundestag administration.
Although this is a remarkable family biography spanning several epochs of European history, the fate of this doctor finds hardly any mention except for brief treatises in medical literature and isolated private research papers. In the book “Verdun 1916” by Dr. Olaf Jessen, the events are briefly discussed. In Chapter 9 and in footnote 79, without closer engagement with the accessible sources, the author assumes that the doctor at Douaumont was not Dr. Benno Hallauer, but rather Dr. Wilhelm Hanauer from Frankfurt am Main. Jessen appears to rely on a publication of the report of May 8, 1916 by the German Argonnerwald Memorial Committee e.V., which appeared in 1991 in the series “Information for Battlefield Visitors”. Here an error occurred in the transcription of the signatures executed in Sütterlin script, so that in the first published copies Hallauer mistakenly became Hanauer. This error was promptly corrected. The representations in Dr. Jessen’s book are therefore incorrect.
were AI-edited (notice pursuant to Art. 50 Regulation (EU) 2024/1689).