Château de Pignerolle

The Chateau de Pignerolle is located to the east of Angers in the commune of Saint-Barthélemy-d'Anjou in the department of Maine-et-Loire in France.

Constructed in 1776 for the director of the equestrian academy in Angers, Marcel Avril de Pignerolle. Built in a neo-classic style with a four column frontage, it is 25m by 17m and lies in a park of 80 hectares.

On 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland. On 2 September, the 125th Polish Infantry Regiment was formed at Pignerolle before going to fight on the Moselle. The Chateau was requisitioned by the Polish government-in-exile. The Polish General Staff settled into the Chateau. Władysław Raczkiewicz became Polish President in Exile on 30 September 1939 and lived at the Chateau of Pignerolles from 2 December 1939.

Shortly after the outbreak of war, the Polish cryptologists, including Marian Rejewski were evacuated to France, where they continued breaking Enigma-enciphered messages working with the French and British code breakers. The Polish Government in Exile were located in nearby Angers.

The battle for France which began on 10 May 1940 with the invasion of the low countries concluded on 22 June 1940. At the time there were numerous Polish military units in France by June 1940, with Polish personnel in the country totaling 80,000 men. The staff from Pignerolle were amongst the 24,352 Polish personnel evacuated as part of Operation Aerial to Great Britain before the Chateau was captured on 19 June and was requisitioned by the Wehrmacht on 8 July. The Polish cryptologists and their support staff resumed work undercover a few months later in Vichy France until the end of 1942.

Following the St Nazaire Raid on 28 March 1942, the commander of the Kriegsmarine, Erich Raeder, decided the risk to certain units of seaborne attack was high and decided to relocate the western command centre for U-boats to Pignerolle.

The Chateau was chosen as it was far enough from the sea to be safe, whilst the radio communications in the area were good as the land was very flat.

Construction began on a command bunker, the same plans were used for the late 1943 bunker Koralle located in Germany 30 km from Berlin, it is three contiguous bunkers, with its 3m thick roof it covers 1,500 sq m, being 34m by 56m in size.

Text adapted from “Château de Pignerolle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Château de Pignerolle ranks #5,133 of 8,764 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #437 of the 675 mapped in France. Founded 1776, it is older than 15% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 638 atlas entries founded in the 18th century. 5 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Angers, 6 km away. It is one of the 69 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of the Loire Valley. See how France compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗