Existing comment:
Fortifying the Coast:
By the spring of 1944, over 10,000 fortified positions were in operation along the Atlantic Wall. It stretched along the 3,000 mile coastline of France, Belgium, Holland, and Denmark, and the entire coast of Norway. But the most heavily defended area was along the Channel, where Hitler expected the Allied invasion.
Hitler envisioned the Atlantic Wall as an unbreakable barrier, fortified with enough artillery and manpower to foil even a massive invasion attempt. Plans called for 15,000 concrete bunkers, ranging in size from small pillboxes to great fortresses. Three hundred thousand troops would man these defenses. The fortifications would be built by Organization Todt, the elite construction group of the Nazi Party. The workforce consisted of over 500,000 men, many of them prisoners or civilians from German-occupied nations, who were used as slave labor. But in January 1944, the Atlantic Wall fortifications were still incomplete, and Rommel had doubts as to whether these defenses would be sufficient. |