The Azeville Battery

Azeville is a town populated township of Montebourg hundred and fifteen people at the beginning of the Second World War. His face is that of an unchanging town, built in the eighteenth century, backed by its church and bell gable. The population lives from agriculture and livestock. Between Azeville suddenly in history begins in March 1942 when the construction of a battery in the perfect site, according to the German military authorities to defend the east coast of the Cotentin. This irruption of world history in the heart of the Bocage shows in Normandy and France that of the Organisation Todt in charge of the building the Atlantic Wall. For over two years, the same garrison of one hundred and seventy soldiers, coexists with Azevillais to serve this fortified place archetype of modern war, the concrete, built to an industrial model by three hundred prisoners of the German Reich. Starting from unpublished archives, this book helps to explain this monumental construction of coastal defense, a little-known fortified heritage which has structured landscapes, and governs the relationship between the military and civilians, foreign and local.