KOSTOLNÁ-ZÁRIEČIE, SLOVAKIA—According to a Miami Herald report, a farmer in western Slovakia discovered the lower portion of a World War II–era Nazi machine gun nest in his field. The reinforced concrete structure, also known as a kugelstand or a kugelbunker, would have been spherical in shape with a hole in the top. A gunman would have been sheltered by the nest while still able to fire a weapon. As many as 1,000 machine gun nests are thought to have been built by the Nazis in Slovakia during the war. The field where the lower section of the sphere was found would have been near the front line between the Nazi army and the Soviet and Romanian armies during the last few months of the war in 1945. A metal detector search of the field did not recover any additional artifacts, however, suggesting that fighting did not reach this particular machine gun nest. After the war, some of these structures in Slovakia were destroyed, while others were left in place and repurposed as flower pots or playground equipment. This one has been now moved to the Trenčin Museum. To read about archaeological remnants of the D-Day Allied invasion, go to "Letter from Normandy: The Legacy of the Longest Day."
