Fort Pannerden

A fort was built at the tip of land where the Rhine and Waal rivers diverge.

The Rhine splits into the Waal and the Lower Rhine. This point was of great strategic importance and soon some fortresses were built to control both rivers.

Fort Pannerden was built in 1869 to guard the strategically important Pannerdens Kanaal. This channel was the source of water used to inundate land for the Second Dutch Waterline. This waterline is a military defense line established by temporarily flooding the land and setting up armed forts in order to control access roads. A few years after it was completed, the design of the building was made obsolete by advances in weapons technology: armored steel gun emplacements were built on top of the building.

In WW1, the Dutch stayed neutral. The Fort was manned, but there was no need for fighting. Between the World Wars, a sergeant lived at the fort with his family.

In WW2 the fortress was no match for the superior German forces. It was surrounded by tanks and airplanes, and surrender was the only feasible course of action. After the war, Fort Pannerden was a welcome source of building materials for the reconstruction of houses and farms in the surrounding countryside, and a good place to dump unwanted rubble and munitions.

One can reach the old bunkers and fortress when going to the outer point of the riverlands.