La Coupole - Saint-Omer (France)

Historical information

At the dawn of the 21st century, Western Europe is experiencing the longest period of peace in its history. "La Coupole" recounts the whys and the wherefores, this peace is heir to the unheard-of violence and trauma during the Second World War.

Hitler's secret weapons V1s and V2s

How the peaceful dream of flying in interplanetery space was transformed into a nightmare by Nazi determination ? The best and the worst of human mind, th edangerous connections between science and war. V2 trials in Peenemünde in 1943...

La coupole is a real underground town constructed in 1944 by the Wehrmacht to go ahead with the launch of V2 rockets on London. It is an exceptional site on which the destiny of Europe could have been played out... La coupole as V2 base has never been used, its construction was stopped in January 1944 while US B17s still bombed the site in July 1944...

The main room shows a Reichenberg (V1 kamikaze). The museum starts with the tunnel where the trains with V2s were to arrive. The dome: 72m diameter, 5.5m thick, 55.000 tons of concrete. Destined to protect the room for preparing the launch of the V2 rockets, it today houses two cinemas and the exhibition halls.

Life during Nazi occupation France 1940-1944

What does it mean when a free country is exploited by the conqueror and its people are exposed to fear and violence ? 1940: invasion and exodus... Hunger, fear and separation... War in the air and bombings... The "Atlantic Wall"... The Resistance... Liberation...

Deportation and genocide

Initially designed for the "re-education" of German opponents, the Nazi concentration system, from 1939 became a machine to destroy "the enemies of the Reich" in Europe: the resistants. At the same time the Nazis began the genocide of Jews living in Europe, which lead to the death of 5 million human beings. In 1945 humanity discovered the horror of Nazi camps. Concentration camps to break the Germans (1933-1939)... The "death camps"... Auschwitz... Extermination through work... The discovery of Nazi hell (Spring 1945)...

The space conquest

Images to take your breath away originating from NASA archives and "Star City" (Yuri Gagarin Training Centre, Russia). 1945: the engineers of Peenemünde recruited by Americans, Soviet and French... The Cold War: rockets and the atomic bomb... Sputnik, Gagarine, competition between USA and USSR... Apollo 11.

The official website stands here.

Location information

"La Coupole" museum is located in Wizerne 5 km from Saint-Omer near Calais (France). From Brussels go to Lille (E429 motorway) then A25 motorway towards Dunkirk, exit Saint-Omer..
The visit takes place with an audio guide in your chosen language. There are two cinema rooms, approximately twenty films realised from rare archive images offering more than two hours of projection, animated models, three-dimensional reconstitutions, not forgetting the presentation of V1 and V2 missiles...

Personal note

The greatest added-value of this museum is the quality of information provided to children and people at large -without specific WW2 historical background- willing to discover the Second World War. A must for schools and families. Multimedia techniques used fit to the objectives of this museum (movies and chronologically structured information panels).

This is a rare opportunity to see the Fieseler Fi-103 R "Reichenberg", the piloted V1 which was built up but not used in operations during the conflict (Japanese wanted to make a copy of it and designed the kamikaze unit named "Ohka" by Japanese meaning "Cherry blossom" -The Americans called it "Baka" meaning "idiot" in Japanese- which was deployed against American B-29 bombers).

V1 Reichenberg fallen in Antwerp 1944

See the original Reichenberg here.
See the derived Japanese Ohka there.

An interesting website about Japanese Kamikaze comparing Japanese and American perspectives stands here.