Germany's West Wall: The Siegfried Line (Fortress) [Paperback]

Neil Short (Author), Chris Taylor (Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Fortress | Publication Date: January 22, 2004

The West Wall (or the Siegfried Line as the Allies called it) played a crucial role in the bitter fighting of 1944 and 1945 in North-West Europe. Constructed in the period immediately after the remilitarisation of the Rhineland in 1936, the Wall stretched for 300 miles from Cleve in the north to the Swiss Border and consisted of some 14,000 pillboxes. The Wall initially blunted the US attack, and Hitler used it as a foundation from which to launch the Ardennes Offensive. This title takes a detailed look at the development and form of this key fortification, examining the principles of its defence in visual depth, and discussing its fate in the wake of the Allied onslaught.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

After completing an Honours Degree in History at the University of Lancaster, Neil Short gained a Master's Degree in Military History at the University of Leeds. He is a fully qualified Management Accountant working for the Ministry of Defence, but in his spare time undertakes research on World War II. Neil lives and works in Bristol, UK.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Although the enormous effort invested in the West Wall as a result of the Limesprogramm undoubtedly increased the strength of Hitler’s border defences they still suffered from a number of shortcomings. One of the main criticisms was that for a system of defences designed to delay an enemy attack relatively little space had been provided for the storage of ammunition or provisions that might allow the defenders to fight an extended campaign. A further criticism was that the main fighting compartment often doubled up as the garrison’s accommodation, or was separate to the main bunker.

The Aachen-Saar Programm sought to rectify these problem and more. The bunkers were strengthened with thicker walls and ceilings. The new designs were also far roomier and new storage areas for food and ammunition were introduced, as was a special room for an observer equipped with either a periscope or observation cupola.

Product Details

• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: Osprey Publishing; 1St Edition edition (January 22, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 184176678X
• ISBN-13: 978-1841766782
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 0.2 x 9.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,253,604 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hitler's Biggest Mistake?, April 29, 2004

By 

R. A Forczyk (MD, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Germany's West Wall: The Siegfried Line (Fortress) (Paperback)

Neil Short's Germany's West Wall, Osprey's Fortress series # 15, is actually a better study of Germany's western defenses than his full-length volume on the same subject. Unlike his earlier work, Short's volume for Osprey provides better graphic detail on the layout of German bunkers and more data on resources used in construction. Overall, the graphic quality of this volume makes this the best low-cost study available on the subject.

Germany's West Wall consists of sections on design and development (11 pages, good); principles of defense (13 pages, adequate); the living site (discussion of construction and habitation); an operational history summary (11 pages); and an aftermath section that includes notes on useful websites and visiting the remaining West Wall structures. There are two maps - the layout of the West Wall defenses and the French 1939 Saar offensive - which are merely color versions of maps in his earlier book. There are seven color plates which depict: a typical bunker under construction; typical bunkers of the Limes and Aachen-Saar programs; a birds-eye view of the defensive system; the Gerstfeldhohe Tunnel System; American techniques for assaulting the West Wall; and the Katzenkopf B Werke. There is also a chart depicting manpower involved in building the wall during 1938-1940.

As in his larger work, Short sees the West Wall as a qualified success, but the lack of a French offensive strategy in 1939 or Allied logistic sustainability in 1944 seem to undermine that conclusion. The color plates provided in this volume provide a better picture of the strength (or lack of) in the West Wall defenses and it is apparent that the system lacked sufficient firepower or numbers to provide an effective linear defense in depth of the German border. Indeed, the West wall was amazingly poorly armed, with few bunkers mounting any weapon heavier than a 50mm anti-tank gun (the bunkers before the war could not mount the larger, more effective 75mm or 88mm guns). The typical bunker built in the 1938 Limes Program - the "Regelbau 10" - provided shelter for a rifle squad and its light machinegun but cost at least 42,000 RM to build - about one-third the cost of a tank. While the Germans were able to supplement the lightly armed West Wall in 1944 with heavier weapons dug in adjacent hasty fighting positions, it appears that the West Wall was based around light infantry weapons, not heavy or long-range weapons. Lacking mobile reserves or heavy weapons, in most cases defenders in the West Wall had to wait for the Allies to approach to virtually point-blank range of less than 1,000 meters.

With the information provided by Neil Short in this volume and his earlier work, it is possible to deduce from the data provided that construction of the West Wall was a huge drain on Germany's resources. Between 1936-1940, about 17,000 bunkers and other structures were built for a cost of somewhere between 900 million and 1.5 billion RM ($360-600 million) - which compares rather poorly with the French Maginot Line built in 1928-1936, which cost about $100 million. The project required over 150,000 workers and huge quantities of steel, gravel, sand and timber; the German transportation network was severely strained to move over 9 million tons of material to construct the West Wall. At a time when Germany was desperately short of steel for tanks and battleships, Hitler was investing thousands of tons of steel reinforcing rods into the West Wall's static "Dragons Teeth". Approximately 9% of the German military budget in 1938-1939 was spent on West Wall construction, versus the 1.3% of the French defense budget spent on the Maginot Line. Upon close analysis, the West Wall appears to have been a huge "White Elephant" of dubious value. If Hitler had invested the resources lavished on static fortifications on mobile forces instead, he could have started the Second World War in a much more powerful position; funds and materials from the West Wall project would have been sufficient to build about nine more panzer divisions and upgrade the existing ones with more Pz IIIs and Pz IVs; the Luftwaffe could have created an additional air fleet; the Kriegsmarine could have built several additional pocket battleships and two dozen more large U-Boats. Indeed, the case could be made that the resources squandered on the West Wall was one of Hitler's bigger strategic mistakes and helped to lose the war from the start.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Germany's Siegfried Line, January 28, 2006

By 

"The History Man" (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Germany's West Wall: The Siegfried Line (Fortress) (Paperback)

The author has provided a concise and detailed description of Germany's West Wall. The graphic detail on the layout of German bunkers is amazing. Overall, I would agree that the graphic quality of this volume makes this the best low-cost study available on the subject.
The book includes a Chronology and chapters on the Design and Development loaded with construction details, the principles of defence showing how the Germans used defense in depth and identifying the various types of bunkers built for the West Wall, The Living Site that describes the construction of the sites through their use and maintenance, Operational HIstory with a combat history of the Siegfried line, and also a chapters on the Aftermath -what happened to the bunkers- and what sites can be seen today. The color plates provided in this volume provide a better picture of the strength (or lack of) in the West Wall defenses and some are really amazing like the cross section of the Gerstfeldhohe Tunnel System at Niedersmiten that was never completed because of the 1940 victory in the West. The detailedd ctuwaway drawing of Katzenkopf B is a bit dark, but really an amazing view of one of hte small complexes. The bunkers were too small to accomodate 75mm or 88mm guns antitank guns, so late in the war their value was limited. The author points out that the typical bunker built in the 1938 Limes Program - the "Regelbau 10" - provided shelter for a rifle squad and its light machinegun but cost at least 42,000 RM to build - about one-third the cost of a tank. This may lead one to question the value of these bunkers, but maybe they need to consider the time in which they were built. The fact the bunkers were designed for light weapons made them adequate in 1939.
Although one reviewer feels that this defense line may have been a poor investment its 17,000 bunkers and other structures served their initial purpose and were still of value in 1944. This book I would highly recommend for a good, clear, concise view of the West Wall.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars West Wall, January 12, 2006

By 

R. Phillips (Manhattan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Germany's West Wall: The Siegfried Line (Fortress) (Paperback)

This small book really spells it out. The Siegfried Line was a relatively advanced system for defense in depth, yet it consisted mainly of small fortified positions. Many of these positions proved inadequate for the weapons of 1944, but in 1940 it was a bulwark that kept the French at Bay.