Discovering an Underground German Nazi Hideout

While I attended the American School of Paris I had an American friend who's Father worked for the American Embassy and had been stationed in Paris for many years.  Jacques Guidry was his name, and he lived in the outskirts of Paris in the city of St. Cloud.

One day Jacques told me and my other friends that near his house there was a old tree in an empty field and next to the tree was a deep hole.  We asked him how deep was the hole and he said very deep, so deep that when he looked in there with a flashlight, he couldn't see the bottom.  All of us were intrigued by what could be down there.  Some of us guessed that it was an old water bed, others guessed it was a bat cave.  The curiosity was killing us so we decided we would meet up on a weekend, come prepared with rope and flashlights and venture down into the mysterious hole.

I told my Father about the hole next to the tree and he too became interested and I convinced him to come along with us, it didn't take a lot to convince him so he agreed.  On a Saturday morning we drove out to an undisclosed location and met my friend Jacques. He and a couple of the other guys were already waiting and we were all eager to start our spelunking adventure.

My Father recommend that we tie one end of the longest rope around the base of the tree and the other end around our waist and slowly drop into the hole.  Jacques was the smallest person, so we volunteered him.  Equipped with a flashlight, we slowly lowered him down into the hole, he used a steep dirt wall to climb down and without a rope it would be impossible.  Throughout his descent, we constantly asked him if he was okay.  When he finally touched the bottom he yelled up to us to send the next person down.  Each person followed Jacques' footstep until the last one was down.

When we arrived at the bottom we were flabbergasted.  We had entered a huge cavern.  At the bottom there was very fine smooth dirt and no rocks.  As we looked up, we estimated we were approximately 40-50 feet below the surface and without the flashlights it was pitch black except for the little light coming in from the hole at the top.  As we grouped together at the bottom, we decided to take all precautions, since it was so dark, we would all stick together, and we would place a metal stake where we stood and tie a string to it.  As we explored the cave, we would unravel the string, always knowing where we started.

The cave was pitch black, every time we turned off the flashlight, we couldn't even see our hands in front of our face. There were several large tunnels both wide and tall that went in different directions, we choose to follow one tunnel.  As we walked through the tunnel we noticed something very strange, there were wires that ran along the top of the walls. My Father was in the Army Corps of Engineers and he confirmed that the wires were telephone lines.  Following the tunnel deeper in, we came to a large cave opening.  Shinning our flashlights into the opening we discovered a large room with about 10 bunk beds along the walls.  The bunk beds were made of metal but oddly they were not rusted some of them still had a mattress but no bed coverings.  In between the bunk beds there were large metal boxes separating the next set of bunks.  We assumed the boxes contained the answers to the mystery, we all got excited and held our breath as we slowly opened the first box. To our disappointment, when we lifted the lid of the box, it was empty, we all let out a deep sigh of disappointment.  Box after box was empty and this made it more mysterious and peeked our curiosity even more.  Why were there bunk beds down here, who was living down here and where did they they go? These were the questions we kept asking ourselves as we walked further down the dark tunnel passage.

Back in the main tunnel we came across another smaller cave.  As we all directed our flashlights on the room it appeared to be set up as an office.  Against the wall, was a old metal desk with a chair, empty file cabinets and several old chairs scattered throughout the room.  Strangely, there were no markings on anything we found so the mystery of the Who, What and Why was still mounting?

As we proceeded deeper into the tunnel corridor, we came to another cave.  This cave was like the first one, bunk beds and metal storage trunks in between the rows of bunks.  Again we cautiously opened a trunk and to our surprise and excitement, this one contained items in it.  

The contents appeared to be military stuff.  We pulled out a helmet and to our amazement, there was a red, white and black German Nazi Swastika emblem.  There was a belt, parts of a military uniform and a pair of dusty boots.  A few other trunks contained items too.  Now the mystery was solved, this was somekind of underground German Nazi military command post. 

All of us were very excited with our new discovery.  We figured that no one had discovered or been down here since WWII, or if someone had already discovered it, why did they leave such valuable items behind?

Further down the tunnel we came to another opening, all at once we shinned our flashlights into the cave to see what we would find and to our surprise there were several old vehicles.  The vehicles were 1930's vintage convertible Mercedes Benz's.  They were faded, dusty and a little rusty but otherwise seemed to be in good working condition.  There was a large Nazi Swastika emblem on the passenger and driver side doors.  We jumped in the cars and pretended that we were driving them.  The question remained, how did these vehicles get down into these tunnels and why?

We proceeded down the tunnel but to our surprise we came to a complete stop.  The tunnel ended to what a appeared to be a solid hand-made brick wall.  

After much speculation we determined that at one time, there was an opening in the tunnel but it had been filled in with bricks to seal off the opening but who would have done this, the Germans or the French?

Coincidentally, we were out of string and we were at a dead end.  Our excitement level was extremely high and we decided to turn around and follow our string back to the beginning.  On our way back, we all expressed our own theories of our new discovery and we kept asking ourselves if we were the first people to discovery this hideout since WWII.  The mystery continued and we wanted answers. We interrogated my Father with question after question but he too, was at a loss.

We arrived back to our original starting point and now we had to decide who was going up first.  We decided that little Jacques should go first again so that he could figure the best way for us to exit.  He grabbed the rope and using the wall he climbed the steep incline back up to the hole and sunlight.  My Father followed him, so that he could help assist us when we got to the top.  When the last one of us was brought out of the hole we dusted ourselves off and each and everyone of us had the biggest smile on our face.  As far as we were concerned we just discovered a major historical jackpot.

Before we departed, one big question still remained, how did those vehicles get inside the cave?  My Father decided we would get in the car and drive around to see what the surrounding area looked like.  What we discovered was that the cave was built next to a river bed so we drove to the other side of the river to see what the area looked like from the other side.  As we approached the area that we determined was where the underground tunnels were located, we noticed that 30 feet up the cliff side was a faded brick arch opening built into the side of the cliff. Collectively, we concluded that at one time in history, there must have been a flowing river running through what was now an dry empty river bed.  The Germans must have come by boat, blasted a hole in the cliffs, made tunnels and established a wartime command post. The cars and troops must have come by boat, unloaded into the tunnel opening and was used as a hideout from the French and Allied Forces.  We had it all figured out and now we were ready to go home and share the news.

The next school day, we decided we were going to share our discovery with our gym teacher because he was always sharing history stories to our class and we thought he was a cool guy.  We figured he could arrange for us to go back and collect some the relic military items that we left behind.  After we briefed him and gave him the location he was super excited and said he was going to schedule a trip out there with us and bring back the goods.  We were all proud of ourselves and were excited to show him our discovery.

A couple of weeks had passed and we were still anxious about our trip to the underground hideout mainly because there were other tunnels that we didn't explore and who knows what other hidden treasures were down there.

Weeks later, on a Saturday morning, I got a call from one of the friends and he said read today's newspaper, I found the newspaper and opened it to the local section and to my amazement, there was a large article about a hidden WWII German Nazi hideout that was discovered by none other than our gym teacher.  What a Rat Fink!  There he was, in front of the tree with a big smile on his face. We couldn't wait to confront him on Monday morning.

On Monday morning, we all met in front of the gym, took a deep breath and all together we entered the gym. When he saw us, he was all smiles and gloating.  I think he thought we were going to congratulate him or something, instead we came face-to-face and asked him why he went out to the site without us and more importantly, why he called the Press to report our discovery.  He basically laughed at us and told us it was no big deal and that it was better that an adult reported it as opposed to teenagers, just like that.

We were all so disappointed and really felt betrayed.  We soon found out that the entire area had been quarantined and the French Government had taken control over the Cave and it's contents.  To this day I have never been able to find out any further information on our discovery.  I have read about many other underground hideouts around France and other European cities but not our specific hideout.