The Siegfried Line: Then and Now

By Daniel Taylor

Features hundreds of maps, illustrations and historical photographs.

The book comes in three distinct sections – the first is an in-depth analysis of the German 'Westwall' defense system built between 1936 and 1944. This includes the build phases, the organization of the workforce and the political background. The second section looks at the Allied campaign to overcome the defenses of the Siegfried Line through the winter of 1944/45, focussing on three major operations by the US, British and Canadian armies. The third section deals with the perception of the Westwall in the eighty years since the war and then outlines a battlefield tour guide of those elements that still survive.

This book includes maps, photographs and illustrations. Of these, around 140 are in a color section making up the concluding section of the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Release date: Apr 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9781399048552

Book preview

PART ONE:

THE WALL IN THE WEST

THE VERSAILLES PEACE TREATY of 1919 left Germany considerably dismembered as well as virtually disarmed and defenceless. In the West, the defeated Reich was forced to cede Alsace-Lorraine, which contained most of its western frontier defences, to France. The Saargebiet, the coal-mining and heavily industrialised area west of the Saar river, was put under a League of Nations mandate. Germany was allowed to keep the Rhineland but the whole territory was to be completely demilitarised: no German troops were allowed to be stationed west of the Rhine and it was forbidden to build any fortifications there. The same restriction applied to the 50-kilometre-wide area east of the river. The Reichswehr, the German armed forces, was limited to a maximum of 100,000 troops. The German navy was seriously curtailed and Germany had to disband its air force completely.

Despite these limitations, during the 1920s and early 1930s the Weimar Republic sought to protect the country’s frontiers. Within the Reichswehr, fortification was the responsibility of six Festungskommandanturen, one in each of the six Wehrkreise (army districts). The Reichsmarine had its own Festungskommandanturen, one in each of its two Marine-Stations-Kommandos (naval station commands). However, while France embarked on the massive task of building the Maginot Line along its borders with Germany, the German fortress engineers could do nothing to counter it.

Forbidden to build fortifications in the West, they turned to their eastern borders. Already in 1921 they began surveys for defensive works in Eastern Prussia and along the German-Polish border east of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, both designed to protect against attacks from Poland. Between 1925 and 1930 a modest start was made with building actual fortifications, although the Inter-Allied Military Control Commission, which operated in Germany until 1927, subsequently forced many of these to be razed or cancelled.

A new start was made in 1931, the engineers reconnoitring and beginning works on the Pommern-Stellung, a bunker line running from Stolpmünde on the Baltic coast south to Landsberg-an-der-Warthe, and the Oder-Stellung, which ran along the Oder river from Grünberg in the north to the German-Czech-Polish border in the south. The 110-kilometre gap remaining between these two lines would from 1934 onwards be closed by the extensive works of the Oder-Warthe-Stellung, the three lines together forming what came to be known as the Ostwall. At the same time, from 1932 onwards, work was underway in East Prussia, notably on what was called the Heilsberger Dreieck (Heilsberg Triangle), a blocking position protecting the territory’s capital city, Königsberg.

Predecessors of the Westwall (1933-36)

After the Nazis came to power in January 1933, the Reichswehr engineers turned their attention to the West. Still scrupulously obeying the stipulations of the Versailles Treaty, they first surveyed and then began construction of two fortified lines located just outside the demilitarised zone, well east of the Rhine but facing west. They were to protect southern Germany and prevent a French advance across that part of the country towards Czechoslovakia. Both lines were named after the various rivers whose traces they followed.

The first, known as the Neckar-Enz-Stellung, was to block an 85-kilometre gap between the Odenwald forest in the north and the Schwarzwald in the south. Construction began in the spring of 1935 and would continue until the spring of 1938. In all, it would come to comprise some 450 structures, mostly machine-gun bunkers.

Dating from around 1930, this poster gives a German perspective of the perceived threat posed along their western border asking, Who needs security in the west? The distribution of forces on the western German border after the peace treaty. The demilitarised zone, shown in grey, combined with the paucity of German military units arrayed against overwhelming French and Belgian armies served to illustrate the need for an adequate defence. The threat was not an empty one. From the end of the Great War France occupied the Rhineland until 1930. In response to the non-payment of adequate war reparations, France occupied the Ruhr in 1923, only withdrawing in 1925. The perceived injustices of the Versailles treaty, ongoing war reparations and the inclination of the French to march into Germany were easy targets on which the Nazi Party were able to justify the reoccupation of the demilitarised zone and for the investment in a defensive line. (Editor’s collection)

The second line, located north of the Odenwald and designated the Wetterau-Main-Tauber-Stellung, was to block the Rhine-Main plain, another suspected corridor of French attack. Some 90 kilometres long, stretching from Büdingen in the north to Klingenberg-am-Main in the south, construction began in 1936 and by 1937 a total of 326 bunkers of medium strength had been constructed.

Simultaneously with the latter, the Reichswehr also began work on another fortified line along part of the Czech border. Known as the Bayerisch-Tschechische Grenz-Stellung, it was to block a possible Czech westward advance into Germany through the Bavarian forests. Eighty kilometres long, from Selb in the north to Eslarn in the south, it comprised some 100 bunkers of simple design. With wide intervals between individual bunkers it could only serve as a temporary stop-line.

Everything changed when Hitler decided that the time had come to rebuild and massively enlarge Germany’s armed forces, this change being marked by the creation of the Wehrmacht on 16th March 1935, followed shortly by the re-introduction of military service on 21st May of the same year.

As part of this massive transformation, the army’s Corps of Fortress Engineers was completely reorganised. The old Inspektion der Pioniere und Festungen (Inspectorate of Engineers and Fortresses) was split into two separate agencies, the Inspektion der Pioniere (Inspectorate of Engineers) and the Inspektion der Festungen (Inspectorate of Fortresses), both under the unified command of Generalmajor Otto-Wilhelm Förster (who retained his old title of Inspektor der Pioniere und Festungen).

The Inspektion der Festungen was given two subordinate bureaux, the Inspektor der Ostbefestigungen (Inspector of Eastern Fortifications) and the Inspektor der Westbefestigungen (Inspector of Western Fortifications), both initially stationed in Berlin. Below them, at the level of regiments, came six Festungs-Inspektionen (Fortress Inspectorates) and one echelon further down, at battalion level, a number of Festungs-Bau-Gruppen (Fortress Construction Groups). On 1st March 1936, the latter were renamed Festungs-Pionier-Stäbe (Fortress Engineer Staffs). Two of the fortress inspectorates and seven of the engineer staffs were stationed in the West: Festungs-Inspektion V, with headquarters in Heilbrunn, commanded Festungs-Pionier-Stäbe 10, 11 and 12; Festungs-Inspektion VI, with command post at Aschaffenburg, had Festungs-Pionier-Stäbe 13 to 16.

Generalmajor Otto-Willhelm Förster. (SSETO)

The Pionier-Bauprogramm

(March 1936-May 1938)

On 13th January, 1935, in a plebiscite supervised by the League of Nations, the population of the Saargebiet, the industrial region along the Saar river bordering on France, voted by a massive majority of 88 percent for re-unification with the German Reich. A year later, on 7th March 1936, German troops re-entered the Rhineland, marching into Cologne and other cities, thereby unilaterally ending the demilitarisation of that border region and flouting the Versailles Treaty.

The Westwall was built in various stages between 1936 and 1940, each stage either thickening or extending the line. The three main phases were the Pionier-Bauprogramm (March 1936-May 1938), the Limes-Bauprogramm (May-October 1938) and the Aachen-Saar-Bauprogramm (October 1938-December 1939) but these were followed by various smaller construction programmes: work on the Geldern-Stellung (September 1939-June 1940), which pulled the line further north all the way to Kleve; the Orscholz-Riegel (January-June 1940), which comprised a switch position between the Moselle and Saar rivers; and the Spichern-Stellung (January-June 1940) which reinforced the defences of Saarbrücken. Moreover, before work on the Westwall was begun, there had been the construction of defence lines further away from the frontier: the Neckar-Enz-Stellung (1935-38) and the Wetterau-Main-Tauber-Stellung (1936-37), and the first stage of the Pionier-Programm was a blocking line known as the Ettlinger Riegel (1936-37). The Luftwaffe added its share by building the Luftverteidingungszone West to back up the Westwall line with anti-aircraft defences (May 1938-1942).

Even before that happened, on 23rd February, the Inspektion der Festungen was ordered, under the strictest secrecy, to begin surveying locations for fortifications in the Rhineland. Over the following weeks, German engineer officers, dressed in civilian clothes and travelling in civilian cars, toured the Rhineland, surreptitiously surveying and planning sites for a fortified line along the country’s western frontier.

In the face of the fierce foreign disapproval of the re-occupation of the Rhineland, the Generalstabschef des Heeres (Chief of the German General Staff), General der Artillerie Ludwig Beck, advised Hitler to refrain from building fortifications west of the Rhine but Hitler brusquely rebuffed the suggestion, ordering the Inspektion der Festungen to continue its surveys of the Rhineland. The task was passed to Festungs-Inspektion V, under Generalmajor Rudolf Schmetzer, and mainly carried out by Festungs-Pionier-Stab 11.

Many of the earlier machine gun bunkers were based around the MG08 of First World War vintage. The weapon was mounted on a sliding base that could be withdrawn behind the shield and an armoured shutter closed the embrasure. A second shutter covered the viewing slot. (SSETO)

The project pressed ahead rapidly. On 12th March, just five days after the Rhineland occupation, the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH – Supreme Command of the Army) instructed the Inspektor der Westbefestigungen, Generalmajor Richard Speich, to begin the construction of fortifications blocking the Saar River crossings in the Saarland and along the Upper Rhine.

By this time, the army fortress engineers had formulated various Ausbaustärken (strength categories) that would standardise the thickness of reinforced-concrete roofs and walls of the planned fortifications. In all there were six:

Ausbaustärke A: 3.5 metres

Ausbaustärke A1: 2.5 metres

Ausbaustärke B: 1.5 metres

Ausbaustärke B1: 1 metre

Ausbaustärke C: 60 centimetres

Ausbaustärke D: 30 centimetres

At the same time, based on the experiences gained in the trench warfare of the First World War, the fortress engineers had determined three so-called Ausbauformen (forms of fortified defence) that could be applied along both the eastern and western borders.

The strongest type was the so-called Festungs-Ausbau, also known as ‘Befestigtes Gebiet’ (fortified area) or ‘Festungskampffeld’ (fortress combat field). Similar to the ‘gros ouvrages’ of the French Maginot Line, this comprised a fortress complex, or group of fortresses, that could withstand an enemy attack for an indefinite period. Fortifications of this type would be of Baustärke A, A1 or B, be fitted out with a variety of weapons for all-round defence and be able to survive independently, having their own machinery to generate electricity, heating, lighting, fresh air, water supply and drainage. Troops here would not come out to fight in the open but would battle the enemy from the interior of their combat stations. All fortifications within a Befestigtes Gebiet were to be linked by a subterranean tunnel system, which would also contain barracks, machine rooms, stores and ammunition depots. A main gallery would run parallel with the front, several hundred metres to the rear, connecting all positions within the sector. Galleries running back from the main tunnel to entrances lying well to the rear would allow troops to enter the fortress system safely and well out of reach of enemy action. Because of the huge cost and effort involved in building them, fortifications of this type were to be strictly reserved for particularly threatened areas. As it turned out, fortifications of this kind never actually materialised along Germany’s western frontier.

The second type of fortification was the Stellungs-Ausbau (line of fortifications). This comprised a series of separate bunker positions of medium strength (Baustärke B, B1 and C) which were to be positioned sufficiently close to one another to form a continuous line of mutually-supporting machine-gun positions. As a rule, this would mean four to six bunkers per kilometre (although in particular important sectors it could rise to ten or even 20 bunkers per kilometre). The fortifications would include casemates for anti-tank guns, observation posts, command posts, troop shelters and ammunition depots. Compared to the larger fort complex, the Stellungs-Ausbau had the advantage that defences could be gradually built up and supplemented quite rapidly; the bunkers were smaller and more difficult to hit, hence their protective cover could be thinner, resulting in savings both in building time and materials used.

The third and last type was known as the Sperr-Ausbau (blocking position). The weakest of the three defence systems, it comprised construction of a limited number of bunkers of lesser strength (Baustärke B1, C and D) placed at river crossings and main roads close to the frontier, their task being to hold up and delay enemy attacks. This type called for about one bunker per kilometre of the line.

A trait peculiar to German bunker construction was the use of Regelbauten (standardised structures), which introduced a limited number of prescribed designs for various types of bunkers, which could be fitted into any site. All units conformed to exact specifications regarding dimensions, shape, accommodation for troops and provision for guns. This system not only allowed for efficient calculation of the amounts of building materials and fortress weapons needed and of the financial cost per bunker, but also minimised misunderstandings between the commissioning engineers and the building contractors.

There were four standard forms of doorway created for the Regelbau programme. This is the 110cm access door that was used as the main entrance on most bunker types. The accordion player was not a standard feature. (SSETO)

The initial series of Regelbauten, introduced in 1935, consisted of thirty-nine different models and sub-models, twenty-one in strength category B1, twelve in category C and six in category D. By May 1938 the list had grown to fifty-three models (thirty-seven of strength B1, eleven of C and five of D), comprising thirty-eight types of machine-gun nests, eleven types of anti-tank gun casemates, two types of observation posts and two types of command posts. For example, Regelbau B1-11a was a machine-gun nest with an armour-plate roof and an observation cupola. (See the Bunker Design section from page 55).

Many of these early Regelbauten were already outmoded when they were being built. Characteristic of the machine-gun bunkers was that they could only give frontal fire, with an arc of 60 degrees, which made it difficult for them to create interlocking fields of fire. The bunkers of D strength were not gas-proof and, with only 30 centimetres of concrete, could at best only protect against shrapnel.

Construction in 1936

In April 1936, the Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht (Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces), General der Infanterie Werner von Blomberg, and the Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres (Supreme Commander of the Army), Generaloberst Werner Freiherr von Fritsch, agreed to refrain from building long linear fortified positions as adopted by their French counterparts with the Maginot Line. Instead, they decided to only carry out surveys for fortifications along the western frontier between the Rhine and Moselle rivers and meanwhile concentrate on building blocking positions of the lighter Sperr-Ausbau type.

In particular, they ordered the construction of a blocking line at the Upper Rhine south of Karlsruhe, at a point where the Franco-German border aligns with the river. Its purpose was to stave off a possible French attack through the Rhine valley. Starting at the town of Ettlingen, immediately south of Karlsruhe, and running eastwards at a right angle with the river, the ten-kilometre-long line was known as the Ettlinger Riegel-Stellung (Ettlingen Blocking Position). Comprising a series of machine-gun bunkers of lighter strength, protected by water-filled ditches and infantry obstacles, it was completed in 1937. This, therefore, was the very first segment of what later became the Westwall.

General von Blomberg was the first professional soldier to hold the post of Supreme Commander of Germany’s Armed Forces – a role hitherto held only by the Kaiser or head of state. The power and influence he had made him a target of the pernicious influence of both Herman Göring and Heinrich Himmler, who conspired against him. Threatening to reveal the somewhat salacious past of von Blomberg’s young wife, they were able to force him to resign in January 1938. (SSETO)

By June 1936, following Blomberg and Fritsch’s directive, the Inspektor der Westbefestigungen had drawn up a plan for the strengthening of Germany’s western border. Limiting itself to the frontier with France, the scheme envisaged the construction of fortifications along a 350-kilometre stretch, from the small town of Irrel, in the forested Eifel region sixteen kilometres north-west of Trier, to the village of Neuburg, on the banks of the Rhine near Karlsruhe (where it would link up with the Ettlinger Riegel). It then continued south along the east bank of the Rhine all the way to the Swiss border at Basel. An analysis of the terrain between the Moselle and Rhine had shown up four areas that could potentially serve as main avenues of attack for invading French armies. From north to south they were:

The Moselle valley near Trier.

The Saarland between the Schwarzwälder Hochwald and Saarbrücken.

The valley of the Blies river near Zweibrücken.

The Wissembourg Gap (the classic corridor of attack for invading forces and the route taken by the French Army in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870).

These gaps were now to be closed with eleven groups of fortresses of Ausbaustärke A, and the intervening ground was to be protected by a continuous line of fortifications of the lesser Stellungs-Ausbau type. The northern half of the line – the stretch from Irrel to the Rhine, a distance of some 150 kilometres – was considered of prime importance and would get the most resources. The southern half, the Upper Rhine sector, being shielded by the river itself and by the difficult obstacle of the Schwarzwald behind it, was assigned less weight.

As a rule, the line was to be constructed as close as possible to the frontier but not in such proximity so as to allow the other side to see the fortifications. For this reason, it could not pass through the Saar valley south of Beckingen (as the French would have been able to clearly observe the works from their side of the river), necessitating its trace to be drawn in a wide curve north of Saarbrücken, running via the Hoxberg mountain and the Hilgenbach and Göttelborn Heights to Zweibrücken. For the same reason, the valleys of the Saarbach and Wieslauter rivers in the Palatinate Forest further east could not be used. Here the line was positioned a full seven kilometres from the frontier. The whole building project was predicted to take six years, until 1942.

General Werner von Fritsch was appointed chief of the German Army Command in 1934, serving under von Blomberg. His rampant anti-semitism and preference for dictatorship over democracy made him a strong supporter of the Nazi regime within the Army and this helped his advancement. Indeed, he was key in changing the army’s oath of allegiance from the State to the Führer. However, like von Blomberg, he fell foul of the machinations of the Party and was forced to resign after spurious allegations about his sexuality were circulated. He was exonerated but his career was thwarted. During the Polish campaign in 1939 he received a gunshot wound to his thigh, slicing an artery. He died within a minute. (SSETO)

Hitler approved the plan – which became known as the Pionier-Bauprogramm – on 26th June 1936 and work started immediately. Building followed the same procedure as had been developed for the fortifications in the East: the fortress engineers surveyed a particular site and determined the type and strength of bunker to be erected there; they then contracted a civilian building firm which undertook the job of actually erecting the structure, all being co-ordinated and supervised by the army engineers.

The expansion of work necessitated the deployment of additional engineer staff groups. By February 1937, the number of fortress inspectorates in the West had been increased from two to three (the new one was Festungs-Inspektion VII) and the number of subordinate Festungs-Pionier-Stäbe from seven to eight (the new one being No. 17).

As had been planned, the engineers initially concentrated on fortifications of the Sperr-Ausbau category, building individual bunkers to block river bridges and main roads. By the end of 1936 a total of 156 had been completed: twenty-two in the Merzig–Völklingen sector (in the Saarland), eighteen in the Reichenbrunn–Dellfeld sector (in the Zweibrücken area), ten in the sector Oberotterbach–Büchelberg (in the Wissembourg Gap), and one hundred and