Landing Coast Omaha Beach

D-Day and other catchphrases always come to mind when you hear Omaha Beach.

We were close by so we would have been stupid not to check it out. I have to admit that as a history teacher I always have this uneasy feeling, and as a German I have had it twice. Most of the time I use Bayer as a description to get a little out of it, but I feel ashamed when I see the bunkers and read about how violently the Germans raged as occupiers. It wasn't my generation, of course, but somehow you feel a little different when you see it all.

We wanted to go on a hike that wasn't directly on the landing coast. BUT climate change didn't just hit Calais, but also here, the path above the cliffs was closed because part of it fell onto the beach below. This is bad because it shows that for the Earth it is really 5 to 12 when sea levels rise, then not much of D-Day will be visible on the coastline.

We had a quick look around the beach and then headed off for another hike along the bunkers. That was also a little spooky, I used my cell phone flashlight to look at the inside of a bunker, it was clearly too low for the "master race", but I found it so narrow and depressing that I was outside again after a minute.

The hiking trail was quite nice, we could see the cement and concrete parts of the landing in the waves from a distance. I had to see it up close, so we set off straight away.

The on-site museum is not quite finished yet and is a magnet for visitors; the previous bunkers also had a truly international audience.

For me it was strange that these giants made of steel and concrete were lying on the beach and children were going into the sea or playing with sand. I was probably a little stubborn, I would never go into the water here. This didn't bother the children; they weren't as interested in the remains as they were in the shells.

It is impressive what was achieved back then to defeat the Axis powers and especially the Germans. Unfortunately, it turns out that there are still people today who start conflicts and wars for their worldview; learning from history is sometimes just wishful thinking.