I recently bought the Osprey book on the siegfried Line / Westwall. It is a very good book, by the way. During the course of the book, mention was made of the various other defensive lines created by Germany - those made during the war (Atlantic Wall, the various lines in Italy) and one tantalising hint about the 'East Wall'. The Westwall was made to basically prevent the 2-front war, and dissuade France/Britain from attacking while Germany annexed land out East. Which it successfully did. The Eastwall was (from the small amount of info the book held) a slightly lesser fortified line along the Polish border intended to help protect the German border from any naughtiness the Poles might get up to. I was simply wondering whether there was any other record of the 'Eastwall', and whether it played any part in defending against the Soviets. Bearing in mind that the Westwall was largely abandoned between 1941 & 1944, to the point where many of the door keys had been lost :roll: , would the Eastwall have been worse off? Yes, the Westwall bunkers were supposed to have been maintained...
theres a large an happy website on the prussian fortification system - which was fairly extensive.. germans wouldnt have forted the entire east front but would definetely have forted the eastern prussian borders. thats probly yer ostwall... the closest the germans ever came in world war 2 were the "Tiger" and "panther" lines. concrete and construction steel were a very short commodity in germany pre-war and during the war Todts organisation was the major consumer and he focused mainly on autobahn and westwall projects - concrete an steel were in such short supply they were forced to go with small obstacles deployed in depth rather than a solid defensive net like maginot. so any major fortification work in the east would have been pre-WWI
Where is this website? The book did state that the Eastwall was a far lesser wall than the Westwall, as there was less need for it, so you are probably spot on there. One little quibble (Sorry, never can resist! ): They decided to go with defense in depth anyway, then discovered quite how little concrete / steel they had. The Germans had developed the 'defence in depth' idea in WW1, and realised that it was a far more effective defensive measure than a 'stop line' like Maginot. According to the Osprey book, anyway.
defense in depth correct.. but the wehrmacht preferred more bunkers and blockhouses. there were a lot of construction projects underway and limited suupplies of conccrete and reinforcing steel pretty much shut it down... ya can blame the Krauch beauracracy with in the 5 year plan for that.. Krauch was the only man in Germany that had any vision past lunchtime. http://www.ostwall.com/Grundrisse/Karten.zip this is 4 photos with a total schematic of the entire ostwall system down to minor detail. guess where i got it ? =) http://www.ostwall.com/ now if this site makes a liar out of me again... please dont tell me =).. ignorance is bliss :roll: http://przytulaczek.republika.pl/ this is the sire i was thinking of.
ya... that takes some skill.. I spent 9 years at the Archives in D.C.... I was very upset when I arrived there after a 17 day pilgrimage from LA an realised the bastards had only captured GERMAN documents... silly germans hadnt taken the time to translate em when they heard we were comin I guess =)... maybe Roel can look it over an answer questions =)
Is easy. Krieg means war. Tot means death. Schützen means soldiers. Yes Gothard, I would be happy to help you and others with anything you present, if you don't mind me taking the honour of course.
Try this http://www.fortress.hg.pl/home.htm http://boyen.prv.pl/ http://fortyfikacje_pw.webpark.pl/ It's in polish but lots of maps and foto. You should start with this map http://www.fortress.hg.pl/pliki_htm/mapa/mapa_zbior.htm
