Hitler's Siegfried Line - Softcover

Short, Neil

Softcover

ISBN 10: 075094501X ISBN 13: 9780750945011

Publisher: Sutton Pub Ltd, 2007

Synopsis

The Siegfried Line was a mammoth wall of German defenses that stretched from the Swiss border in the south to Aachen in the north, approximately 300 miles long and, in places, up to 20 miles deep. Built by Nazi Germany between 1936-38, over 500,000 workers were involved in its construction. This book gives a detailed historical background to the Siegfried Line, and a guide to what is left to see of it today. The line was not designed to thwart a full-scale offensive, but rather to delay any attack sufficiently to allow the German reserves to mobilize. In the "phoney war" (1939–40) it was effective enough to prevent the French from launching a pre-emptive strike when German forces were heavily engaged in Poland. Certain sections of the defenses saw some of the fiercest fighting of the Second World War. Many of the defenses have since been dismantled, but some still remain today. This, the first English language guide to the Siegfried Line, is fully illustrated and will appeal to anyone interested in the rise and fall of Hitler and Nazism, or in the Second World War in general.



 



 

About this title

About the Author

Neil Short studied at Lancaster University before taking an MA in Military History at the University of Leeds. He has continued his interest in military history and has published a number of books and articles on modern fortifications.

Review

Neil Short's Hitler's Siegfried Line is a useful general history of the German West Wall defenses in the Second World War, but it is far more of a general history than a technical study. Readers seeking answers to the historical significance of the West Wall will find this volume satisfactory, but serious professionals interested in the exact composition and disposition of the West Wall defenses will put down this volume empty-handed. At times it also appears that the author's heart was not in this task, as he readily admits in the introduction that the publisher pushed him into writing on a subject that he had not specifically researched - honest, but an inauspicious start. Hitler's Siegfried Wall consists of six chapters, with the first covering the genesis of the wall in 1919-1939, four on the wartime history of the wall, and a final chapter that covers post-war demolition of the wall. The author provides six simple maps: the general layout of the defenses; the French 1939 Saar offensive; the Allied offensives of September 1944, October-November 1944, December 1944 and February-March 1945. While the author provides a number of photographs to support the text, there are far too many shots of "Dragons Teeth" and far too few of actual bunkers. The author's narrative is heavily oriented toward covering the operational history of the wall - much of it drawn from Charles MacDonald's excellent official history, The Siegfried Line Campaign. However, the three main things lacking in this volume are comprehensiveness, technical detail and analysis. The Germans built the West Wall in five phases: two defensive belts were built around Frankfurt and Stuttgart in 1934-1935; the Pioneer Program of 1936-1938; the Limes Program of 1938; the Aachen-Saar Program of 1938; and final improvements in 1939-1940. The Luftwaffe also built an air defense belt behind the West Wall fortifications. The author fails to provide a comprehensive history because he mentions the air defense belt, the Frankfurt-Stuttgart defenses and several large artillery batteries in the Black Forrest area, but then never discusses their composition or role. Nor does the author make any great effort to distinguish the differences behind the various phases, beyond basics that the Pioneer Program produced fewer, but bigger bunkers than the subsequent phases. Short even manages to miss the "A Werkes", which were to be very large forts in the West Wall; the "A Werke" begun near Istein was to have a garrison of 2,600 soldiers and mount 88mm and 170mm guns. There is also a paucity in technical detail; while the author provides basic data on the cost and concrete required to build certain bunkers, he provides no sketches on their appearance or discussion of their internal layout. Nor does the author provide even a single sample of how the West Wall defenses actually appeared on a particular piece of terrain (e.g. distance between bunkers or defensive belts). The author does make an attempt at analysis, but it is restricted to the operational value of the West Wall. As Neil Short sees it, the West Wall was primarily designed to deter a French attack while Germany seized Czechoslovakia and Poland; it was a gigantic bluff - and it succeeded. Thanks to the Allied perception of the West Wall's strength, Hitler was able to leave only minimal forces in the west while he crushed Poland in 1939. However, Short sees the West Wall's actual combat value as somewhat less, since many positions were tactically unsound (no examples provided) and many of the bunkers were only lightly armed. In 1944, Short believes that the West Wall did contribute to the "Miracle of the West" in slowing and stopping the Allied offensive near the German border, even though U.S. forces did penetrate the line fairly easily in several places. --R. A Forczyk

Edition details

• Publisher: Sutton Pub Ltd
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 075094501X
• ISBN 13: 9780750945011
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 174