Location:
Province: Podkarpackie
District: Strzyżowski
Parish: Frysztak
Distance from Tarnow: 53 km
Driving directions from Tarnow: Tarnów – Pilzno (National Road No. 4/73, towards Rzeszów) – Brzostek (National Road No. 73) – Klecie (National Road No. 73) – Januszkowice – Gogołów – Stępina
Between the villages of Stępina and Cieszyna an interesting fortification built by Nazis in the years 1940-1941 is located. It’s the biggest system of rail bunkers and one of the two preserved in Poland. It covers an area of 0,5 km² and comprises 7 buildings made of reinforced concrete with barbed wire fence:
- aboveground rail-tunnel bunker – a unique example of defensive architecture of this kind in Europe
(length: approx 480m; width: 8,3m; height: 12m, thickness of the walls: 2m, ogival design, an entrance two-wing gate opened automatically, over the tunnel a net was spread, on which trees were planted as camouflage; inside in a special hollow there was a railway track with platforms on both sides under which some different-sized compartments are located. Access to those compartments was from the platforms.) - aboveground bunker – engine room, formerly having power and filtering devices
(connected with the rail bunker by three underground passages) - 5 battle bunkers – 2 guard houses (one later transformed into a loop-hole bunker) and 3 other with machine-gun stands.
In that complex from 27th to 28th August 1941 a meeting between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini concerning military aggression against USSR took place. The bunker was large enough to hid Hitler’s special train called „Amerika”. It is believed that Hitler returned to Stępina Cieszyna on October 1941. Himmler, Keitel and Rommel together with other Wehrmacht’s generals and marshals visited bunker as well.
After the war the bunker served as a military equipment storage, than as the Fish Trade Centre (Centrala Rybna), and subsequently as a seat of Association of Agricultural Guilds. Nowadays it’s the property of Frysztak commune and protected by national law under Krajowy Program Ochrony Zabytków Architektury Obronnej plan. All of the buildings have survived to this day in good condition and are open to the public.
See more at: www.frysztak.pl and www.wrota.podkarpackie.pl (Polish only)
- Latitude : 49.87384
- Longitude : 21.580067