Named in honour of the captain of the Battleship ‘Bismarck’, Batterie Lindemann was the pride of the German Kriegsmarine and became the ‘poster boy’ for propaganda movies and images. If you’ve seen the picture of the solider standing next to a huge gun barrel, then you’ll have seen the scale of the weapons located here.

Located on the hillside at Sangate to the west of Calais, the site was based around three giant S262 type gun towers, or Turms, named Anton, Bruno, and Cesar which were built in 1942 for three 40.6cm coastal naval guns.
Depending on the type of shells used, these weapons had a range of over 50km and could hit targets across the Channel on the south coast of England where they traded blows with the Dover guns.

Today the site looks vastly different to that which was shown on propaganda reels, the destroyed Turms completely covered by the spoil excavated from creating the Channel Tunnel and the area has now been given over to a beautiful nature reserve with a large freshwater lake.
From above the site is still pockmarked with thousands of bomb craters, showing just how much attention the batterie received from Allied aircraft desperate to silence the guns here.
However, there are some remaining buildings which can be visited on a walk along the circular path which surrounds the former batterie complex.

In front of the lake towards the coast stood a rare S100 Fire Control Post, a two-storey observation bunker which also featured a dish type Wurzburg radar and a 10m wide, domed rangefinder for pinpointing targets and detecting incoming attacks.
In 2021 this already overgrown position was blocked off along the entire trench at the rear entrance with chopped up gorse bushes creating a spiky barrier and so cannot be visited. This was due to the level of safety and because of the high number of migrants using the bunkers in this area for accommodation. The rangefinder and radar positions are still visible though and give you an understanding of what was visible from the hillside.

To the east around 50m away is a R655 six-man bunker and ammunition store while heading back towards the main road and Sangate you can find an M151 bunker which served as quarters for officers and personnel. The entrances to this bunker have been sealed. Two long sections of anti-tank wall, a beach obstacle, and a guard post stand nearby too, but they are tricky to spot due to the undergrowth.
Behind the three Turms and just off the main pathway you can still visit two special construction observation posts, with one exhibiting two direct hits from Allied bombers on its roof. Standing on top of them gives you an incredible view of the area and out to sea with the Kent coast visible most sunny days.

On the hillside behind Lindemann was Stp108 Geresheim, a site which boasted six anti-aircraft positions, ammo stores, and troop barracks, and was designed to protect the complex from aerial attacks. As with all the fields surrounding Lindemann, the ground where this site is located is heavily marked with bomb craters.
Parking for the site is just off the D940 road at Parking Hubert Latham. You can see the hillside where Lindemann was located from here and there’s a path which take you on a circuit around the site.