Submarine Base

The submarine base

The Saint-Nazaire audio-guided tour presents you with the submarine base, an immense block of concrete that dominates the port and bears witness, with gravity, to the Second World War.

A fortress of concrete

The history of the base goes back to 1941, when Nazi Germany had five bases built on the Atlantic seaboard to shelter its submarines, the U-Boats, from Allied air bombings. Raised in only sixteen months on the site of the former transatlantic port, this concrete fortress housed fourteen pens as well as a whole set of workshops, offices, pumping stations and lodgings. Three hundred metres long and topped by a roof able to reach 9.60 metres thick, the structure long remained a major point of defence, occupied until May 1945. Left abandoned for some time after the war, the base is today a place of cultural and tourist activities. From one pen to another, it offers a historical immersion in a dark page of the history of the city, to be travelled with contemplation.

What there is to see

The submarine base impresses with its mass of concrete and the thickness of its roof, a spectacular vestige of the Atlantic Wall. Converted into a cultural space, it hosts exhibitions, tourist facilities and viewpoints over the port. It is a strong stage of the route, at the crossroads of war memory and the cultural life of today.

Practical information

The submarine base is on the port of Saint-Nazaire. While some outdoor spaces and viewpoints are in free access, the cultural sites it houses are generally subject to a charge and open according to hours to be checked on site.

Why was the submarine base built?

From 1941, by Nazi Germany, to shelter its U-Boat submarines from Allied air bombings on the Atlantic seaboard.

What can one do at the base today?

Discover there cultural and tourist activities, exhibitions and viewpoints over the port, in a former military structure.