World War II Database

1.  Alan Chanter says:
28 Mar 2020 01:22:28 AM

On 28 May 1938 Hitler ordered the brilliant engineer Dr. Fritz Todt to build the Westwall (Siegfried Line), a line of 5,000 concrete blockhouses, along the border with the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France, to be completed by 1 October, in time to repel any French attack that might materialise in response to Hitler’s planned invasion of Czechoslovakia. To complete the massive task Todt mobilized, on 22 June, 1,000 private construction companies employing half a million workers which he organised into twenty-two brigade-status Construction Management formations (Oberbauleitungen). By late November 340,000 Organization Todt personnel , 90,000 Army engineers and 300 Reich Labour Service (RAD) companies were engaged on the Westwall, with 9,000 railway wagons, 96,000 lorries and 4,100 Postal Service buses transporting workers and materials (the project used 51% of the cement industries annual production). The work continued until the French surrender in June 1940. Later many of the defences would be removed for reuse on the Atlantic Wall, rendering it seriously less effective by 1945.