Batterie Grosser Kurfurst was once the pride of the German Kriegsmarine and boasted four massive special construction S412 type casemates, or ‘Turms’ as they were also called for 28cm SK L/50 naval guns – the same type found on First World War battleships and later used as coastal guns.
Also known as Stp155 Tummler, the batterie was built in 1941 to fire across the narrowest part of the England Channel – the Dover Straits - upon the south coast of England.

It featured over forty buildings including personnel shelters, barrack blocks, a field gun garage, a large hospital bunker, kitchens, anti-aircraft positions, a machinery/generator bunker, Tobruks, MG posts, and two massive ammunition storage bunkers.
Most of these bunkers can still be seen today if you walk along the network of pathways and cycle tracks which link Audinghen, Floringzelle, and Waringzelle.
That is except for the four ‘jewels in the crown’ S412 casemates where the four guns were positioned as these were destroyed by Allied engineers following their capture so they could never fire upon England again.
All four of the casemates are on farmland and are incredibly dangerous to visit following their destruction so please don’t venture near them.

The huge, multi-room ammunition bunkers which once supplied shells to the four guns can still be seen. These were so large that a truck could drive through the middle of them to collect the ammunition.
The one at Waringzelle is closed and on farmland but the one north of Audinghen can be walked through with care. Inside there are six rooms for storage, the first two as you enter the building both with additional annexes, and four of them have the remnants of overhead rail systems which aided in the movement of the 28cm shells used at the Grosser Kurfurst batterie.

Like many of the larger bunkers here, and at the nearby Todt Batterie, there are rooftop structures which all line up with each other and functioned as observation and communication positions.