Germany's Atlantic Wall was the most ambitious military fortification program of World War II. With Germany's gradual loss of the strategic initiative to the Allies, in 1942 Hitler was forced to construct an impenetrable wall of fortifications along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coast. This book deals solely with the structures on the French coast, starting with the Pas-de-Calais and extending down to Spain. It features detailed illustrations and diagrams of the various sections of the Atlantic Wall and the role that they played, giving a thoughtful analysis of some of the most accessible fortifications of World War II.
A study of the planning and thinking that went into the creation of Hitler's "Atlantic Wall," which was intended to prevent the D-Day invasion and throw Allied soldiers back into the sea. The book details how and why the Atlantic Wall failed to perform as Hitler intended.
With the ever-growing interest in Hitler's Atlantic Wall, it comes as a surprise that so little has been written about it in the English language until now, that is. In this, the first substantial work in English, author Tony Saunders takes a critical look at the history of the wall, how it was built, what was built and the role it played in the Second World War, together with a guide to what remains to see of it today in France. Hitler conceived the Atlantic Wall during the Second World War as a line of impregnable fortifications along the western coast of Europe to protect his newly conquered empire from seaborne invasion. From 1942 until the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, millions of tons of steel-reinforced concrete were poured into the construction of gun emplacements, bunkers, flak batteries, radar stations, command and observation posts, as well as ammunition dumps and U-boat pens. This huge project stretched from the Franco-Spanish border in the south, following the French Atlantic coast north for 1,500 miles passing through Brittany, around the Cherbourg peninsula, along the coast of Normandy and extending right to the North Sea coasts of Belgium and Holland. More than 12,000 concrete structures were built, many of them so massive that they survive today despite being shelled by battleships, and resisting most post-war attempts by Allied army engineers to demolish them. They are now tourist attractions as well as the focus for a growing number of "fortress" enthusiasts. Richly illustrated, the authoritative text is supported by a selection of contemporary photographs and plans many rare or previously unpublished and present-day photographs showing the amazing endurance of these monolithic fortifications.
The present book presents papers from a symposium held in Hanstholm, Denmark in May 2018: "The Atlantic Wall, in regional, national, and international perspective".The symposium was arranged by three Danish museums in Northern Jutland - Museum Thy, Vendsyssel Historiske Museum (Vendsyssel Historical Museum), Nordjyllands Kystmuseum (Coastal Museum of Northern Jutland) - and Aalborg University. The symposium was part of a project entitled "The Atlantic Wall in Northern Jutland", carried out by the institutions mentioned above and financed by the Velux Foundation in Denmark in the period 2016-18.The aim of the symposium in May 2018 was to situate the findings of the regional project in a national and an international perspective by inviting Danish and European scholars to present results from their research on related subjects. The symposium was organized in four sections: 1) The Atlantic Wall in Europe, 2) Building the Atlantic Wall, 3) The Atlantic Wall, the Danish armed forces and the Cold War, and 4) Musealization of the Atlantic Wall 1945-2017.
German defenses along the Normandy beaches were part of the larger Atlantic Wall fortifications designed to defend Fortress Europe. When Field Marshal Erwin Rommel took command of the invasion front in late 1943, he began a program to enhance fortifications along the Normandy coast as he believed that any Allied assault had to be stopped on the invasion beaches themselves. His most important contribution to the defenses was an extensive program of improvised beach obstructions to complicate any landing attempt. This book analyses these fortifications and describes how the Allied forces overcame them on the morning of June 6, 1944.
The Atlantic Wall : a name which sounds like a slogan, that German propaganda would use with advantage to present to the world the greatest and the most powerful fortification ever constructed. Pierced in a single day, the 6th June 1944, its utility and real value were, in the event, easily challenged, at once consigning the proud Atlantic Wall to a useless fortification for some, a mythical illusion for others. And yet, between these two extremes, the historic reality of the Atlantic Wall lies in the thousands of bunkers consturcted in record time along the whole coast of occupied Europe, from the north of Norway to the buttress of the Pyrenees in France. Some seventy years later, what remains of this gigantic fortification ? This book, illustrated with more than 1,400 photographs, maps and documents, takes the reader to Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, the Channel Islands and France, on a discovery of the most incredible remains
"Hitler's Antlantic Wall first examines the labor force and construction, bunker types and their weaponry, the German defensive strategy and its defects before providing a country-by-country gazetteer of the most significant Atlantic Wall sites from the southwest coast of France , through Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark to the northermost coast of Norway, attacked by the Red Army in late 1944..."--Publisher description.
This book completes the story of one of the most formidable defensive lines in Europe in World War II, looking at the lesser known Mediterranean extension and describing how it was conceived of, built and used. After the alarming collapse of Italy in 1943, the Germans launched a crash building program and the 'Sudwall' (South Wall) sprang up quickly along the French Mediterranean coast and the neighbouring Italian coast around Genoa. The new defenses were bolstered by existing French fortifications of key port towns such as Marseilles and Toulon – many of them bristling with heavy artillery. Whilst describing the wall's physical design features, this book also recounts the defenses' role in the Allied invasion of Southern France; Operation Dragoon – 'The Second D-Day'. As the Germans' worst fears became a reality, the southern Atlantic Wall would face its ultimate test.
