Western Fort in Świnoujście

The Western Fort in Świnoujście, Fort IV (German: Westbatterie, initially Batterie A, in the years 1939–45 Fort Henningsen), is a fort of the Prussian Świnoujście Fortress, built in the years 1856–1861, intended to defend the port against enemy warships. It consists of a single-storey redoubt on a square plan, reinforced by 1863 with masonry wings and surrounded by an earthen rampart and a water moat. After 1878 it was a fortified coastal battery with an artillery terrace and underground casemates.

In the second half of the 19th century the small artillery redoubt was transformed into a redoubt fort. On the earthen rampart raised from the north, successive positions for cannon were designed. At the beginning of the 20th century machine guns and light mortars appeared here. After the First World War the fort was disarmed. In the interwar period a battery of 4 coastal guns of 150 mm calibre was again installed here, whose positions were built on the crown of the northern earthen rampart. In 1941 a concrete command bunker was erected on the western wing of the fort. After 1945 the Russians built in the centre and at both ends of the fort 3 concrete bunkers for coastal guns of 127 mm calibre.

Until the beginning of the 20th century the fort was manned by infantrymen and artillerymen, by about 300 men. After the war a training coastal battery of the III Naval Artillery Detachment was installed here. At the beginning of 1945 the battery took part in shelling land targets, after which its crew destroyed the guns and evacuated westwards by ship. After the war the fort was used by the Soviet navy. In 1962 the site was handed over to the town.

The defensive gate, to which a causeway once led. In the walls of the gate are loopholes for hand weapons.

The square redoubt – the oldest part of the fort – currently used as a museum of the history of the fortress.

Machine-translated from “Fort Zachodni w Świnoujściu” on the Polish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Western Fort in Świnoujście ranks #6,297 of 7,044 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #293 of the 360 mapped in Poland. Founded 1860, it is older than 7% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 496 atlas entries founded in the 19th century. See how Poland compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia (in Polish) ↗