What do you think?
Rate this book
Hitler's Fortresses: German Fortifications and Defences 1939-45
From the Siegfried Line to the Atlantic Wall to central Italy, this detailed guide to every level of defensive project in the Third Reich won't disappoint.
It takes you inside Channel Islands' pillboxes, Normandy coastal gun positions, and emplaced tank turrets on the Gothic Line in Italy. The secretive world of Hitler's command bunkers is revealed in detail, and the principles and engineering of basic frontline defences are explained, showing how the average German soldier prepared to stand his ground. There is also a dedicated chapter on special-purpose fortifications, including U-boat pens, V-weapon sites, and flak towers.
This complete journey into German wartime fortifications reveals much about the strategic and tactical thinking of Hitler and his Wehrmacht, and combat accounts explore how effective the defences were in practice. The book is illustrated throughout with more than 200 drawings, maps, and photographs; the drawings include 3D views and detailed cutaway diagrams, showing exactly how key types of defensive positions looked and functioned. As a guide for both the general historian and for the modern battlefield tourist, Hitler's Fortresses is an authoritative record of the Third Reich's defensive mindset.
Hitler's use of manoeuvre warfare should not distract us from his more defensive projects. From the moment Hitler took power in 1933, massive investment went into building fortified defences in Germany's vulnerable regions, particularly along the Franco-German border. The "West Wall", for example, eventually stretched for more than 390 miles and contained some 14,000 pillboxes, being one of the great engineering projects of the 1930s. War expanded Germany's defensive requirements, not least along the Atlantic coastline, where from 1942 to 1944 engineers built a chain of batteries, bunkers, and minefields from Norway to the Franco-Spanish border, which together constituted the "Atlantic Wall". Similarly, chains of defensive works were sunk into the mountainous terrain of Italy between 1943 and 1945, in an attempt to stop the grinding Allied advance.
It takes you inside Channel Islands' pillboxes, Normandy coastal gun positions, and emplaced tank turrets on the Gothic Line in Italy. The secretive world of Hitler's command bunkers is revealed in detail, and the principles and engineering of basic frontline defences are explained, showing how the average German soldier prepared to stand his ground. There is also a dedicated chapter on special-purpose fortifications, including U-boat pens, V-weapon sites, and flak towers.
This complete journey into German wartime fortifications reveals much about the strategic and tactical thinking of Hitler and his Wehrmacht, and combat accounts explore how effective the defences were in practice. The book is illustrated throughout with more than 200 drawings, maps, and photographs; the drawings include 3D views and detailed cutaway diagrams, showing exactly how key types of defensive positions looked and functioned. As a guide for both the general historian and for the modern battlefield tourist, Hitler's Fortresses is an authoritative record of the Third Reich's defensive mindset.
Hitler's use of manoeuvre warfare should not distract us from his more defensive projects. From the moment Hitler took power in 1933, massive investment went into building fortified defences in Germany's vulnerable regions, particularly along the Franco-German border. The "West Wall", for example, eventually stretched for more than 390 miles and contained some 14,000 pillboxes, being one of the great engineering projects of the 1930s. War expanded Germany's defensive requirements, not least along the Atlantic coastline, where from 1942 to 1944 engineers built a chain of batteries, bunkers, and minefields from Norway to the Franco-Spanish border, which together constituted the "Atlantic Wall". Similarly, chains of defensive works were sunk into the mountainous terrain of Italy between 1943 and 1945, in an attempt to stop the grinding Allied advance.
- GenresMilitary Fiction
400 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
4 people are currently reading
39 people want to read
About the author
Chris McNab
374 books56 followersDr Chris McNab has written over a hundred books in a career spanning over two decades. He is a historian with a specialisation in military history.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 15, 2016
The book covers Hitler's führerbunkers, the Atlantic Wall, the West Wall, U-boat pens, V-Weapon sites and battlefield defences.
Found interesting the chapter regarding battlefield defences where the tactical logic behind these works is explained. The least interesting was the chapter regarding the u-boat bunkers, where the text is mostly filled with dimension details of the pens, when it could be complemented with other more interesting information. Careful, this is not a reference book!
Found interesting the chapter regarding battlefield defences where the tactical logic behind these works is explained. The least interesting was the chapter regarding the u-boat bunkers, where the text is mostly filled with dimension details of the pens, when it could be complemented with other more interesting information. Careful, this is not a reference book!
Displaying 1 of 1 review