Death Wire, a horror along the border.
Death Wire, silent witness to German means of destruction
This is a 200-metre-long reconstruction of the Death Wire that was constructed by the Germans in the summer of 1916 to prevent ‘unwanted border traffic’ between neutral Netherlands and occupied Belgium. Unwanted traffic includes: deserting soldiers, even young patriots who wanted to volunteer for the Belgian army, spies, letter and other smugglers, ordinary citizens who could no longer cope with the occupation mentally and physically.
The first electric wire barrier had already existed earlier, halfway through 1915, south of the then separate municipalities of Hamont and Achel. As a result, the municipalities found themselves in a kind of no-man’s land. Until the summer of 1916, that is, when the German occupier put a stop to it. The Death Wire ran from the Drielandenpunt in Vaals to the Belgian coast. You can imagine the terrible scenes that took place here. On the strip near Hamont-Achel, 17 people are said to have died at this Wire.
Figures are known that over the entire length of this ‘border’ there must have been more than 1,000 victims, most of them ordinary citizens. It sounds improbable, but many more thousands, reportedly even 20,000 people, managed to get through the barrier unscathed. For example, a rubber framework was used to get through safely, and some even managed to jump to the Netherlands with … a pole.
The barrier was guarded by older, sometimes injured German soldiers.
Ingenious construction:
The construction usually consisted of 5 or 7 rows of iron wire on wooden poles of up to 2 metres high. There was an opening of about 30 centimetres between the wires. The bottom wire was stretched 25 centimetres above the ground. There were three rows next to each other, the outer ones served as a deterrent. On the middle row were porcelain pots that served as insulators. On the wire was a high voltage of no less than 2000 volts alternating current, comparable to the impact of a lightning strike. Every 50 meters a pole provided the power supply.