Today at 10:00 • Updated today at 10:15
On March 4, 1976, at one o’clock in the afternoon, a deafening explosion sounded just under the smoke of Roosendaal. Concrete debris and pieces of braided metal fly meters high into the air. With the bang, which can be heard and felt far and wide, the ‘bunker of the Zeg’ is a thing of the past.
Marius Broos, 24 years old at the time, captured the devastation with his camera a few hours later. He had known the bunker all his life. “I was fascinated by the structure. There were several smaller bunkers in the area, but this one really stood out because of its size. You actually only saw these types of defenses on the coast,” says de Roosendaler.
Since 1944, the German command bunker had stood lonely and abandoned along the Rijksweg near Zegge. The colossus was about ten meters in diameter and five meters high and towered meters above the landscape.
“During the explosions, everyone within a radius of three hundred meters had to leave the area and traffic was stopped.”
In the mid-1970s, the concrete colossus became an obstacle during the widening of the highway from two to four lanes. On January 17, 1976, explosives are placed at the rear and a first test explosion follows. In the following weeks, three more controlled explosions will follow to finally demolish the structure.
“Unfortunately, because of my work, I could not see the explosions with my own eyes, but I always went to have a look later in the day. I remember that steel nets had been placed over the bunker to contain flying debris. During the explosions, everyone within a radius of three hundred meters had to leave the area and traffic was stopped. After each explosion, they collected the rubble with a shovel,” says Marius.
Little has been officially recorded about the bunker itself. “You won’t find anything about it in the archives,” explains Broos, who later delved into the history of the building. “As far as we know, it was a command bunker, intended for senior officers to continue command after an Allied attack.”
According to him, the Germans assumed for a long time that an invasion would come from the west. “The bunker was strategically located: high up, next to important arterial roads and at a sufficient distance from the coast. From here they could overlook the surroundings and, if in danger, withdraw towards the east.” Ultimately, however, the Allies advanced from the south and the bunker was probably never used.
During the Second World War, the construction of bunkers was usually outsourced to Dutch contractors. Workers carried out the excavation work and poured the concrete under the supervision of German soldiers. The bunker at Zegge was also built in this way in 1944.
Memory of a police officer
Retired police officer P. Bellanger from Zegge described what he could remember about an article in the Brabants Nieuwsblad of September 11, 1975:
“I remember that about thirty to thirty-five men worked on it for about six months. These were people who were asked to cooperate by the Germans. The cement was stored at farmer Dirven, nearby. One of the men who worked on the bunker, Nol de Valk, gave away a lot of cement to the farmers in the area. At a certain point the Germans noticed this and Nol went to jail for a month.”
The junction of the current A58 from Zegge towards Roosendaal is now located where the bunker once stood. “It is hard to imagine that such an imposing structure has stood here for decades,” says Marius. “It was also fifty years ago. Fewer and fewer people still remember it. Fortunately, I still have the photos. I take good care of them.”
