Siegfried Line Museum, Pirmasens

The village of Niedersimten, two kilometres south of Pirmasens, is reached via Bitscher Straße, which continues to Bitche over the French border.

In the course of the building programme for the construction of the Siegfried Line (German: Westwall), during the Nazi era, work on the huge, bunker-like Gerstfeldhöhe fortification began in 1938.

It was intended to have an underground narrow gauge railway that would carry soldiers and military equipment over a distance of three miles to pre-planned battle positions on the nearby French border.

[2] During a one and a half hour guided tour,[2] which runs for roughly a kilometre of tunnel partly hewn out of the rock, the visitor can see an impressive amount of military equipment, mainly received from private collectors.

Its artifacts include an armoury stocked with all types of weapon, including smaller items such as gas masks and machine guns as well as larger exhibits, for example, an anti-aircraft gun weighing more than two tons, large lorries, heavy motorcycles and a VW Kübelwagen.