"offensive. The Hindenburg Line ( or Siegfried Position) was a German defensive position of World War I, built during the winter of 1916–1917 on the Western Front, from Arras to Laffaux, near Soissons on the Aisne. The official name for German defensive line construction program before and during the Second World War that collectively came to be known as the ""Westwall"" (and ""Siegfried Line"" in English) changed several times during the late 1930s reflecting areas in progress. These programmes were all pushed forward with the highest priority, putting a concentrated demand on available resources. The origin of the name ""Westwall"""
"the Allies as the Siegfried Line), a defensive system built along Germany's western frontiers in 1938–40, but partly dismantled in 1943–44 to provide materials for the Atlantic Wall. Model told OKW that this would require 25 divisions of fresh troops, but these were no longer to be had. Instead the line was held by patched-up divisions escaping from the debacle in France, and ""Volksgrenadier"" divisions made up from transferred Navy and Air Force personnel, older men and teenagers: these units were fit for static defence, but not much else. Nevertheless, the Germans now had certain advantages. In military terms, it"
"but furthered scientific knowledge and revealed details of the line's construction. Nature conservationists consider the remains of the Siegfried Line valuable as a chain of biotopes where, thanks to its size, rare animals and plants can take refuge and reproduce. This effect is magnified because the concrete ruins cannot be used for agricultural or forestry purposes. Siegfried Line The term Siegfried Line refers to two different German defensive lines, one during the First World War and the other during the Second World War. The original was a line of forts and tank defences built by Germany in northern France during"
"the long supply route. But by the fall of 1944, this has largely been resolved (Red Ball Express). As part of the Siegfriend Line Campaign, the Allies tried to push into Germany towards the Rhine. As a first step, Aachen was captured during a heavy battle. The Germans now had the advantage of their old fortification system, the Siegfried line. During the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, the Allies fought a long battle of attrition with the Germans, which ended initially in a stalemate, with the Allies unable to take the complete forest. The battle of the Hürtgen Forrest was later"
"Siegfried Line and advance into the Ruhr, Germany’s industrial heartland. The operation required the 1st British Airborne Division and the American 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions to seize several bridges over rivers and canals in the Netherlands, the main target being the bridge at Arnhem. This would allow General Brian Horrocks' XXX Corps to advance approximately 30 miles up an 'airborne corridor' to relieve the 10,095 men flown into Arnhem, charged to capture and hold the bridge over the lower Rhine and so enable the Allied forces to advance into the Ruhr valley. They were told they would be relieved"
"World War II, and the first city on German soil to be captured by the Allies. The battle ended with a German surrender, but their tenacious defense significantly disrupted Allied plans for the advance into Germany. By September 1944, the Western Allies had reached Germany's western border, which was protected by the extensive Siegfried Line. On 17 September, British, American, and Polish forces launched Operation Market Garden, an ambitious attempt to bypass the Siegfried Line by crossing the Lower Rhine River in the Netherlands. The failure of this operation, and an acute supply problem brought about by the long distances"
"Westwall but referred to by the Allies as the ""Siegfried Line"", was built farther east during the 1930s opposite the French Maginot Line. This line stretched more than and featured more than 18,000 bunkers, tunnels and tank traps. The network of defensive structures stretched from Kleve on the border with the Netherlands, along the western border of the old German Empire, to the town of Weil am Rhein on the border to Switzerland. It was planned in 1936 and built between 1938 and 1940. From September 1944 to March 1945 the Siegfried Line was subjected to a large scale Allied"
"Division held the area of the Siegfried Line they had seized against German Attacks throughout the winter during the Battle of the Bulge. Military actions at the Siegfried Line up to 15 December alone brought death, injury or captivity to more than 250,000 soldiers from both sides. The First and Ninth U.S. Army suffered 57,039 battle casualties (dead, wounded, captured, missing in action); 71,654 non-battle casualties, i.e. accidents, diseases such as pneumonia, trench foot, frostbite, and trauma. German Armed Forces are presumed to be 12,000 dead, 95,000 captured (documented), and an unknown number of wounded. On 16 December 1944, German"
"Siegfried Line running through the Hochwald Forest; and finally the Hochwald Layback covering the approach to the ultimate objective of Xanten. The first phase began on 8 February 1945, with the 2nd Division's advance following up one of the largest artillery barrages seen on the Western Front. The Germans had prepared significant defenses in depth, both within the outpost screen and the Siegfried Line itself, and to add to the Canadians' difficulties, constant rain and cold weather obscured the battlefield. However, by the end of the first day, the 2nd Division had captured their objectives—the fortified towns of Wyler and"
"Hitler Line The Hitler Line was a German defensive line in central Italy during the Second World War. The strong points of the line were at Aquino and Piedimonte. In May 1944, the line was renamed the Senger Line, after General von Senger und Etterlin, one of the generals commanding Axis forces in the area. This was done at Hitler's insistence, in order to minimise any propaganda significance should the line be penetrated. The line was a so-called ""switch line"", joining the Gustav Line at Monte Cairo and providing a fall-back position behind the Gustav Line should it be penetrated."
"the Allies' progress, inflicting heavy casualties and taking full advantage of the fortifications of the ""Westwall"", known to the Allies as the Siegfried Line. The Hürtgen Forest cost the U.S. First Army at least 33,000 killed and incapacitated, including both combat and non-combat losses: German casualties were at least 28,000. Aachen eventually fell on 22 October, again at high cost to the U.S. Ninth Army. The Ninth Army's push to the Roer River fared no better, and did not manage to cross the river or wrest control of its dams from the Germans. Hürtgen was so costly that it has"
"William Borah, who, commenting in September 1939 on the inactivity on the Western Front, said, ""There is something phoney about this war."" The Polish Army general plan for defense, Plan West, assumed that the Allies' offensive on the Western front would provide a significant relief to the Polish front in the East. While most of the German army was engaged in Poland, a much smaller German force manned the Siegfried Line, their fortified defensive line along the French border. At the Maginot Line on the other side of the border, British and French troops stood facing them, but there were"
"overall cost of the Siegfried Line Campaign in American personnel was close to 140,000. The 9th Armored Division of the First Army captured the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen on 7 March 1945. The First Army was the first enemy of Germany to cross the Rhine since the Napoleonic Wars. By the time the bridge collapsed after 10 days, the First Army had built two heavy duty bridges across the Rhine and established a bridgehead 40 kilometers (25 mi) long, extending from Bonn in the north almost to Koblentz in the south, and 10 to 15 kilometers (6.2 to 9.3 mi)"
"back in operation. Also, the men were tired from more than 90 days of battle. The ensuing limitations and delays in the 1st U.S. Army's advance and the initial approach of the renewed operation away from the City of Aachen allowed the Germans to reorganize their defenses and to move reinforcements into the almost undefended city. The Siegfried Line or Westwall of German border defenses around Aachen Forest and the city of Aachen had a line of dragon's teeth and pillboxes (the Scharnhorst Line) near the border. A second set of more extensive fortifications (the Schill Line) was inside Germany."
"high casualty rate that resulted. The prospect of such fighting in World War II was made even worse by the construction by the Germans of the Siegfried Line (or West Wall), a continuous belt of barbed-wire entanglements, minefields, anti-tank obstacles, forts and trenches, the strength of which was greatly exaggerated by German propaganda. Churchill's trench cutters would cross no man's land in the dark and, protected by an artillery barrage, the attacking force would advance in the relative safety of the cut trench and burst upon the surprised defenders. Churchill explained what he had in mind to Stanley Goodall, who"
"the Siegfried Line was the subject of a popular song: ""We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line"". A French version by Ray Ventura (« ""On ira pendre notre linge sur la ligne Siegfried"" ») met a great success during the Phoney War (« Drôle de guerre »). When asked about the Siegfried Line, General George S. Patton reportedly said ""Fixed fortifications are monuments to man's stupidity."" During the post-war period, many sections of the Siegfried Line were removed using explosives. In North Rhine Westphalia, about thirty bunkers still remain; most of the rest were either destroyed"
"a significant attack, and there was relatively little fighting on the ground. This was also the period in which the United Kingdom and France did not supply significant aid to Poland, despite their pledged alliance. While most of the German Army was fighting against Poland, a much smaller German force manned the Siegfried Line, their fortified defensive line along the French border. At the Maginot Line on the other side of the border, French troops stood facing them, whilst the British Expeditionary Force and other elements of the French Army created a defensive line along the Belgian border. There were"
"having been de-militarised following the First World War. The Limes Programme began in 1938 following an order by Hitler to strengthen fortifications on the western German border. ""Limes"" refers to the former borders of the Roman Empire; the cover story for the programme was that it was an archaeological study. Its Type 10 bunkers were more strongly constructed than the earlier border fortifications. These had thick ceilings and walls. A total of 3,471 were built along the entire length of the Siegfried Line. They featured a central room or shelter for 10-12 men with a stepped embrasure facing backwards and"
"the Siegfried Line. One month later he was killed in action while fighting deep in Germany. Edward G. Wilkin Edward G. Wilkin (May 25, 1917 – April 18, 1945) was a United States Army soldier who was a recipient of the Medal of Honor — the United States military's highest decoration — for his actions fighting in World War II. Working ahead of his unit he engaged German forces single-handedly and then aided another unit in clearing casualties to safety in the face of enemy fire. He was killed a month later. Wilkin joined the Army from Longmeadow, Massachusetts in"
"of the line but the majority was left untested. When the campaign finished, transportable weapons and materials (metal doors for instance) were removed from the Siegfried Line and used in other places such as the Atlantic Wall defences. <nowiki>The concrete sections were left in place in the countryside and soon became completely unfit for defence. </nowiki> The bunkers were instead used for storage. With the D-Day landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944, war in the west broke out once more. On 24 August 1944, Hitler gave a directive for renewed construction on the Siegfried Line. 20,000 forced labourers and"
"and Siegfried-like bunkers had numerous weaknesses, such as having destructible air inlets and firing holes, being too large (camouflage and costs), being easily overrun by small sapper teams (at Sedan a few German soldiers destroyed several MG bunkers with pre-fabricated bombs and smoke grenades), and being blinded by small concentrated smoke screens. The flexible defense lines were almost immune to small sapper teams or small smoke screens, and had easily targetable objects. Mannerheim Line The Mannerheim Line (, ) was a defensive fortification line on the Karelian Isthmus built by Finland against the Soviet Union. During the Winter War it"
"Siegfried Line by the end of 1944. After the war, the repatriation for demobilisation of the troops took time. Even in 1946, months after VE-day there were still about 1.5 million troops in Europe. The housing and management of the thousands of troops awaiting embarkation on a ship for home was a problem. ""Life"" magazine reported the widespread view among American troops of France as ""a tremendous brothel inhabited by 40 million hedonists who spent all their time eating, drinking, making love and in general having a hell of a good time"". By the late summer of 1944, soon after"
"Gothic Line The Gothic Line (; ) was a German defensive line of the Italian Campaign of World War II. It formed Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's last major line of defence along the summits of the northern part of the Apennine Mountains during the fighting retreat of the German forces in Italy against the Allied Armies in Italy, commanded by General Sir Harold Alexander. Adolf Hitler had concerns about the state of preparation of the Gothic Line: he feared the Allies would use amphibious landings to outflank its defences. To downgrade its importance in the eyes of both friend and"
"that he had been reassigned. Hitler had issued orders that the Siegfried Line was to be held at all costs. The rapid Allied penetration of the border fortifications had disrupted German communications, command structure, and their entire defense of the west bank of the Rhine. It would have been logical to fall back to the east side of the Rhine and regroup, but Hitler absolutely refused to allow a retreat and irrationally demanded that his Army recapture the territory it had lost. Units that were threatened with the possibility of being overrun or surrounded could not fall back to a"
"success. Columns of armor and infantry that were supposed to advance along parallel routes found themselves on the same roads. This, and terrain that favored the defenders, threw the German advance behind schedule and allowed the Allies to reinforce the thinly placed troops. Improved weather conditions permitted air attacks on German forces and supply lines, which sealed the failure of the offensive. In the wake of the defeat, many experienced German units were left severely depleted of men and equipment, as survivors retreated to the defenses of the Siegfried Line. The Germans' initial attack involved 410,000 men; just over 1,400"
"United States Army, and from December 1944 defended the Siegfried Line (called the ""Westwall"" by the Germans). The XIII SS Army Corps was forced to withdraw into the Saarland and the Palatinate where it started to destroy the Rhine bridges. In April 1945 between Main and Jagst it came up against the 4th US Armored Division and took part in heavy fighting around the Tauber – Colombia line and around Würzburg and Nuremberg. The Corps then fought a withdrawal to the Danube and around Munich. On the orders of Simon the bridges over the Isar approaching Austria were not blown"
"with the task of building the German autobahn network. Todt recruited Dorsch to serve as his deputy and ""Leiter"" (head) of the OT Zentrale office in Berlin, working on the autobahn project. In 1938 Dorsch played a leading role in the building of the Siegfried Line (known as the ""Westwall"" in German), a vast defence system stretching more than along German's western borders from the Netherlands to Switzerland. From December 1941 he directed the construction of the Atlantic Wall along the western coastline of occupied Europe, though his work was criticised by the military for ignoring input from the Army"
"depriving more than 2300 people of shelter. Donald J. Gott and William E. Metzger, Jr. were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions during the bombing run on November 9, 1944. On the ground, Saarbrücken was defended by the 347th Infantry Division commanded by Wolf-Günther Trierenberg in 1945. The US 70th Infantry Division was tasked with punching through the Siegfried Line and taking Saarbrücken. As the fortifications were unusually strong, it first had to take the Siegfried Line fortifications on the French heights near Spicheren overlooking Saarbrücken. This ""Spichern-Stellung"" had been constructed in 1940 after the French had"
"informed on the situation, slowing the Allies' progress, inflicting heavy casualties and taking full advantage of the fortifications the Germans called the ""Westwall"", better known to the Allies as the ""Siegfried Line"". The Hürtgen Forest cost the U.S. First Army at least 33,000 killed and wounded, including both combat and non-combat losses, with upper estimate at 55,000; German casualties were 28,000. The city of Aachen in the north eventually fell on 22 October at high cost to the U.S. Ninth Army, but they failed to cross the Rur or wrest control of its dams from the Germans. The battle was"
"all time. The plan, as outlined by Field Marshal Montgomery, required the seizure by airborne forces of several bridges on the Highway 69 across the Maas (Meuse River) and two arms of the Rhine (the Waal and the Lower Rhine), as well as several smaller canals and tributaries. Crossing these bridges would allow British armoured units to outflank the Siegfried Line, advance into northern Germany, and encircle the Ruhr, Germany's industrial heartland, thus ending the war. This meant the large-scale use of Allied airborne forces, including both the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, along with the British 1st Airborne Division."
"Siegfried Line throughout the fall of 1944. The German Ardennes Offensive occurred as the holidays approached. A planned move to a field in Belgium was canceled. During the Battle of the Bulge, the 392d, after escorting C-47s on a resupply drop to encircled troops at Bastogne, conducted an armed reconnaissance of the Trier area. Early in 1945 a desire to standardize the fighter-bombers in Ninth Air Force, the group transitioned into Republic P-47 Thunderbolts. Pilots flew Lightings on combat missions while training at the same time with the Thunderbolt. Using the Thunderbolt the group was again cited in a Belgium"
"immense psychological value. The mindset of the city's defenders was further altered by the different attitude the local population had toward them as they fought on home soil for the first time; one German officer commented, ""Suddenly we were no longer the Nazis, we were German soldiers."" Aachen and its sector of the front were protected by the Siegfried Line, consisting of several belts of inter-connected pillboxes, forts, and bunkers protected by extensive minefields, ""dragon's teeth"" anti-tank obstacles, and barbed wire entanglements. In several areas, German defenses were over deep. Learning from their experiences on the Eastern Front, the Germans"
"Beyond the first line, which consisted of trenches, shell holes, and listening posts, the Allies would have to push through the dense forest to the main battle lines. The next battle line, which was about in depth, had turned back all Allied attacks over the last four years. This battle line, which consisted of wired trenches that were firmly held, was referred to by the Germans as """"Hagen Stellung"""" (""Hagen position""). The Next German battle line, referred to as the """"Hagen Stellung-Nord"""" (""Hagen position-North""), was ""basically a machine-gun-covered, pre-sighted artillery target."" This was a very well entrenched location utilizing both"