Luc and Marc Braeuer, creators of the museum

Thirty years of action in the service of memory
During the summer of 1994, Luc Braeuer (aged 24, an engineering graduate from ESIEA and serving his military service as an officer at the Saintes airbase) and his brother Marc (aged 27, a graduate of the European Business School) embarked on a project: to transform an abandoned former Atlantic Wall command post into a memorial showcasing the major events that took place in the Saint-Nazaire region during the Second World War. The inauguration of the first museum opened by the two brothers in Batz-sur-Mer took place on July 1, 1997.

From left to right: Jean Rolland, departmental president of the FFI in Loire-Atlantique, Luc Braeuer, Pierre Le Berche, mayor of Batz-sur-Mer, the Sub-Prefect of Saint-Nazaire, Mr. Le Hénaff, first deputy mayor, Jacques Viel, departmental president of the Volunteer Combatants of the Resistance.

On June 18, 1998, the two brothers were presented with their flags by the Association of Veterans of the 8the FFI Battalion of Sarthe.

Luc was thanked for his work by the Regional Prefect Mr. Blangy in Nantes in 1999, in the presence of Mr. Pierre Jarno, president of the Besnier Squadron Association.

May 11, 2000, reunion at the Batz-sur-Mer museum of American veterans of the 66th US Infantry Division and French veterans of the 8the Cuirassiers, 55 years to the day after the surrender ceremony of the German garrison of Saint-Nazaire in Bouvron, where these two units were present at the time.

September 14, 2001, article from Pèlerin magazine "A Blockhouse for Peace"

June 2003, Luc and Marc Braeuer, invited to the annual meeting of 250 American veterans of the Lorient and Saint-Nazaire pockets in Kansas City in the United States.

June 2003, United States, presentation of a statuette by John Drumond, President of the Senate of South Carolina, former pilot of the 9th US Army Air Force.

Speech by Maurice Chauvet on April 2, 2005, a veteran of the Kieffer commando who landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944, for the inauguration of the second museum created by Luc and Marc: the Memorial to Freedom Regained in Quinéville (Manche); after 12 years and 250,000 visitors received, this museum will be taken over by Mr. and Mrs. Herry.

Preface by Captain Henri Boucard for Luc Braeuer's book The tanks of the Resistance

In October 2008, Bob Woon presented Luc Braeuer, on behalf of the Mayor of Falmouth in England, with an honorary plaque to thank him for his work commemorating the British raid on Saint-Nazaire on March 28, 1942, through the book "Raid on Saint-Nazaire" and a scene from the museum in Batz-sur-Mer.

May 8, 2011, souvenir photo of the presidential ceremony in Port-Louis, on a mission for the Sub-Prefecture of Saint-Nazaire to support veterans of the Saint-Nazaire Pocket.

In October 2011, Luc and Marc Braeuer were awarded the bronze medal by General Courcoux of the Souvenir Français.

Summer 2012 in Italy, Luc on the Remora before diving in a mini-submarine for the filming of the documentary U-455, the missing submarine Directed by Stéphane Bégoin, winner of 3 first prizes. Luc and Marc have appeared in a dozen television documentaries, notably with Arte, RMC Découverte and France 3.

Bunker in La Rochelle in May 2013 before its opening, with Hervé Meyer, son of the admiral and Honorary Citizen of the City of Aunis, presenting his father's belongings to the museum. This 3e The museum created by the two brothers presents chronologically the major events that took place in La Rochelle during the Second World War.

May 2013, Luc is preparing the museum panels in an interview with the "pocket-pocketed" La Rochelle residents Robert Brochot, a former photographer from La Rochelle, and Jean-Luc Labour, former Director of the Tourist Office, who saved the site in 1982. The 3e The museum, the Bunker of La Rochelle, was inaugurated on June 18, 2013, with a moving speech by City Councillor and Member of Parliament Mr. Olivier Falorni.

In November 2014, a roundabout in La Bernerie-en-Retz was named after Andrew Hodges, a former Captain in the American Red Cross, at the site of a prisoner exchange in November 1944. His family came from the United States for the event.

May 2015, Luc surrounded by the two authors of the prefaces to his two books La Baule Occupation – Liberation 1939-1942 and 1943-1945 Former Sergeant Randy Bradham of the 66th US Infantry Division and former Chief Brigadier Maurice Moreau of the DCR (Detachment of Combat Reconnaissance), the first to enter La Baule on May 11, 1945, were among those present. Maurice gave talks every afternoon at the Batz Museum from 2009 until November 7, 2021, the day before his death. From 1998 to 2022, Luc wrote 51 books on World War II.

June 2015, American naval base in Norfolk, Luc and Marc invited by veterans of the 94th US Infantry Division who held the front of the Saint-Nazaire Pocket from September to December 1944.

June 2015, with veterans of the 66th US Infantry Division in Charleston.

May 7, 2016, signing by the Mayor of Cordemais of the loan agreement to the Batz-sur-Mer museum of the table on which

The surrender of the German garrison of Saint-Nazaire was signed on May 8, 1945.


On July 1, 2017 in Les Sables d'Olonne, Ms. Line Roux and Marc held a piece of the ribbon from the inauguration of the Blockhaus Hôpital museum, which presents the Second World War in Vendée, a project desired 72 years earlier in this location by his mother Odette, a resistance fighter from Les Sables who was elected mayor in May 1945. Line Roux, president of the Grains de mémoire association, generously contributed to the panels of the 4th museum created by the two brothers by sharing her association's research on the fates of Resistance fighters and deportees from Les Sables.
During the inauguration of the museum in Les Sables d'Olonne on July 1, 2017, Marc presented the panels to Pierre Mauger, a member of the local Resistance and former member of the intelligence network. Confraternity of Our Lady from Colonel Rémy, who had signaled the departure of the battleship to the Allies Scharnhorst from Brest.
On September 30, 2017, Gérard Duvail, the last representative of the FFI in the town, handed over the old flags of the 1st FFI Battalion of Vendée and of the FFI of Les Sables d'Olonne to Luc so that they could be exhibited in the museum.
This museum welcomed nearly 30,000 visitors in 2023.

September 2020, article about Luc Braeuer in issue no. 134 of the La Rochelle municipal newspaper. Since September 2021, Luc has been working on a doctoral thesis in contemporary history on the Ve headquarters of La Rochelle.


In 2020, the National Union of Veterans of Loire-Atlantique presented Marc with the jacket of deportee Raymond Devos, a former member of the intelligence network. Our Lady Brotherhood by Colonel Rémy, now on display in the La Rochelle museum.

General André d'Anselme (son of General d'Anselme, commander of the French Forces facing the La Rochelle Pocket in May 1945) and his nephew were welcomed on June 2, 2023, for the 10th anniversary of ...e anniversary of the Bunker Museum in La Rochelle.


The grand scene of the Liberation in the La Rochelle museum: General d'Anselme is the 2nde The figure on the left. In its 10 years of operation, this museum has welcomed over 350,000 visitors.

November 4, 2023, conference by Luc, invited by the History and Geography Association in the Aunis region, on the Allied intelligence networks facing the La Rochelle Pocket.