An Impregnable Front: The Atlantic Wall

“Not so in the West! If the enemy here succeeds in penetrating our defenses on a wide front, consequences of staggering proportions will follow within a short time. All signs point to an offensive against the Western Front of Europe no later than spring, and perhaps earlier.

For that reason, I can no longer justify the further weakening of the West in favor of other theaters of war. I have therefore decided to strengthen the defenses in the West, particularly at places from which we shall launch our long-range war against England. For those are the very points at which the enemy must and will attack; there--unless all indications are misleading--will be fought the decisive invasion battle.”

Adolf Hitler (Fuhrer Directive 51)

Hitler was well aware that the success of his campaign hinged upon keeping Europe a one front war. Allied forces invading Western Europe and creating a second front meant certain disaster for the German forces. Hitler’s solution was to prevent the Allied forces from crossing the Western coast of Europe. Hitler sought to create an unbreakable fortification that spanned from Norway to the border with Spain. He wanted a complex set of heavy weaponry and pillboxes to be installed at venerable positions along this coastline. Hitler also order reinforcements to be set up near the front to provide a quick defense in case the Allied forces were able to push past the beaches. Hitler wanted to leave the Allies without even the smallest foothold into Western Europe. This impregnable fortress became known as the Atlantic Wall. 

"It is my unshakeable decision to make this front impregnable against every enemy" 

Adolf Hitler

Hitler placed Erwin Rommel in charge of creating the Atlantic Wall. After his defeat by Eisenhower in Africa, Rommel was moved into Europe and ordered to provide motivation for the completion of the Atlantic Wall by the spring of 1944.

                                             

                                                                   Erwin Rommel

Rommel quickly began fortifying the Atlantic Wall. Rommel’s goal was to create a complex set of deadly obstacles so that the Allied forces would not be able to get past the beaches. Rommel knew that if the Allies were able to secure a landing zone, German defeat was certain. Rommel was a perfectionist and did not stop adding to the Atlantic Wall until the beaches were a series of death traps waiting for the Allied soldiers.

Rommel first ordered the beaches of the English Channel to be mined.  From 1941 until 1944 on million seven hundred thousand mines had been placed haphazardly along the coastline. Rommel requested that one mine be laid for every ten yards of a one thousand mile wide section of French coastline. He then made the same request for an eight thousand mile section of coastline with more mines in areas of strategic importance, placing in total another forty million mines.

                                    

In addition to flooding and mining the French countryside to prevent paratrooper landings, Rommel created a set of deadly obstacles that the Allied forces needed to overcome on D-Day. The first set of obstacles was the Belgium gates. Rommel placed these ten feet tall gate like structures attached to antitank mines 250 yards from the high water mark. About 20 yards up the coast sat heavy long tipped with mines drove deep into the sand. The steel hedgehogs made up the third band of obstacles. The steel rails set at ninety-degree angles could tear up the bottom of the landing crafts.  Should the Allied soldiers navigate these obstacles and avoid land mines placed irregularly across the beach, they were met with machine gun fire from the concrete pillboxes. Rommel placed the artillery so that the entirety of the beach could be covered with gunfire. The soldiers also had to cross barbed wire and antitank ditches and concrete barriers before finally reaching the bluffs.

Rommel’s Atlantic Wall was broken on June 6, 1944 and the Allies were able to establish a secure foothold in Europe. This failure is not a testament to the inadequacy of Rommel’s fortifications. Rommel’s obstacle course claimed many Allied soldiers on D-Day. The failure of the Atlantic wall is rather a testament to the will of the Allied soldiers to defeat the German forces and liberate Europe.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

“Assault Plan.” U.S. Army Center of Military History. Last modified October 2002. Accessed February 9, 2014. http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/100-11/ch2.htm#Enemy.

“A View From Inside.” The National D-Day Memorial. Accessed February 9, 2014. http://www.dday.org/history/the-enemy-nazi-germany/a-view-from-inside.

Brooke, Richard S. “Operation Overlord: The D-Day Landings.” Combined Operations Command. Accessed February 8, 2014. http://www.combinedops.com/Overlord.htm#TheGerman Defences.

“German fortifications: D-Day on Normandy.” World War 2 Headquarters. Accessed February 8, 2014. http://worldwar2headquarters.com/HTML/normandy/beacheads/germanPillbox.html.

Görlitz, Walter Otto Julius. “Rommel, Erwin: Normandy and Conspiracy.” Enclyopedia Brittanica’s Guide to Normandy 1944.” Accessed February 9, 2014. http://www.britannica.com/dday/article-8423.

Laurenceau, Marc. “The Atlantic Wall in Normandy.” D-Day-Overlord.com. Accessed February 8, 2014. http://www.dday-overlord.com/eng/atlantic_wall.htm.

Williams, Brian. “The Atlantic Wall.” Military History Online.com. Accessed February 8, 2014. http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/dday/prelude.aspx.