I’m trying to verify a rather horrific anecdote I read many years ago in a history magazine issue concerning military strategic and tactical failures. The Maginot Line was discussed, with a detailed section on how ineffective it was against the Blitzkrieg. According to the author, portions of the French military were encircled and trapped within the underground bunkers, pillboxes, and fortifications by the Germans. Most surrendered, but a few refused and continued to fire at the enemy. Not wanting to engage in a costly room-by-room sweep of the complex, the Germans instead collapsed tunnels and sealed the entrances and gun ports with concrete. As a result, an entire company was imprisoned.
Several months/years later, a highway construction crew punched through a section of the Line. Inside, they were shocked to find less than a dozen half-insane survivors who’d subsisted on dwindling supply dumps, rats, and other soldiers. Seems farfetched, but I’m curious: did this (or something like it) actually happen?
Never ever heard of that story, even as an urban legend.
Which makes me assume it’s fake because how could such an event not be widely known? Everybody knows, for instance about those stranded Chileans who resorted to cannibalism in the Andes. Everybody knows about this Japanese soldier who “kept fighting” on an island for a couple decades after the end of WWII.
How could finding demented soldiers who had survived for years in an underground fortress by resorting to cannibalism not be a world famous story, with a detailled article on wikipedia, books, a movie or two and so on?
I vaguely remember that some years ago there was a movie about German soldiers trapped inside a subterranean fortress and going crazy. Could have this movie (or something similar) inspired the UL?
Not something that mutated from World War 1 New Zealand trench rumours, is it? During World War 1 German black propaganda claimed that Kiwis ate their prisoners in their trenches. I can well imagine the Third Reich coming up with similar propaganda to slander the French.
In the Kessel of Stalingrad Germans were also reported to resort to Cannibalism in their foxholes, although in the conflict the Japanese and starving Leningrad citizens provided the most cases.
Never heard this story before. It’s almost certainly false. There were a few fortifications that refused to surrender. But the Germans didn’t just leave them there or try to seal them off (the connecting tunnels were deep underground and were more inaccessible than the forts). Instead they would use smoke grenades and start bonfires around the vent ports and asphyxiate the defenders with smoke.
I hope the OP does not mind but I am borrowing the title of this thread for a screenplay, but using an exclamation rather than a question mark: “Cannibals in the Maginot Line!”
I think Tom Cruise would be good as a French officer who gets his leg chewed off.
Another reason to suspect that this story is false:
Why would anybody be building a highway at that time? And why one across the border, where the Maginot line was located? And highways are built across the top of the land, maybe digging a few feet down for the roadbed – so how would they get deep enough to reach Maginot line caves?
There was the Russian fortification that got overrun that still had people fighting months afterwards, and they collapsed fortifications on them inside because they wouldnt surrender - Brest Fortress.
I imagine that probably was related to the reputation of the Maoris for cannibalism. I would guess that there were at least some Maoris among the NZ troops.
More than 2000 Maori served in the New Zealand (Maori) Pioneer Battalion as pioneers (essentially combat engineers) in World War One and no one really knows how many Maori were in the regular line battalions.
There was also The Blockhouse, which was based on a supposedly true incident…which may indeed be what the OP was remembering. Though it was two German soldiers who were supposedly trapped, and no cannibalism was involved.
I abhor the implication that the French Army was a haven for cannibalism. It is well known that they had the problem relatively under control, and that it was the Belgians who suffered the largest casualties in this area.
Yours etc.
Little Nemo in a white wine sauce with shallots, mushrooms and garlic.
