Constructing the Siegfried Line

Identifier
irn562216
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • RG-60.1983
Dates
1 Jan 1939 - 31 Dec 1939
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • German
Source
EHRI Partner

Creator(s)

Scope and Content

German film on the construction of the Siegfried Line. Reel 1, views of various German cities and maps the site of the fortifications. Dr. Todt studies plans, officers survey the land, and draftsmen draw plans. An animated chart depicts the Todt engineering organization. The ground is cleared, steel is made in mills, and railroads move supplies to the site. Workers arrive, march to the site, live in barracks, eat and construct and camouflage forts. Reel 2, Hitler, Todt, and staff arrive to inspect construction. Antitank obstructions and trenches, barbed wire entanglements, and the French and German fortifications facing each other across the Rhine. An animated diagram shows the interlocking fields of fire from pillboxes. A column of German soldiers marches into an entrance of the Siegfried Line. Men and supplies move by train and elevators through tunnels and levels of the line. INT views of the fortifications. Ammunition is rushed to the surface by elevator during a drill. Barrage balloons are sent up and German fighter planes take off and fly over the Siegfried Line.

Note(s)

  • The Siegfried Line was a defense system stretching more than 630 km (390 mi) with more than 18,000 bunkers, tunnels and tank traps. It went from Kleve on the border with the Netherlands, along the western border of the old German Empire as far as the town of Weil am Rhein on the border to Switzerland. Adolf Hitler planned the line from 1936 and had it built between 1938 and 1940. In English, "Siegfried line" commonly refers to this World War II defensive line opposite the French Maginot Line; the Germans called this the "Westwall."

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This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.