Siegfried Line: Encyclopedia II - Siegfried Line - Typical basic construction types

Siegfried Line - Typical basic construction types

At the start of each construction programme, basic construction prototypes were laid out on the drawing board and then built, sometimes by the thousands. This standardisation of the bunkers ("pillboxes") and tank traps was necessary because of the lack of raw materials, transport and workers.

Siegfried Line - Pioneering programme

For the main part of the pioneering programme, small bunkers were set up with three embrasures towards the front. The walls were only 50cm thick and provided no protection against poison gas. Soldiers stationed there did not have their own beds but had to make do with hammocks. In exposed positions, similar small bunkers were erected with small armoured round "lookout" sections on the roofs. All these constructions were already considered outdated when they were built and at best offered protection against shrapnel from bombs and grenades. The programme was carried out by the Border Watch (Grenzwacht), a small military troop which took up activity in the Rhineland immediately after it was remilitarized. The bunkers were set up near the foreign border.

Siegfried Line - Limes programme

The Limes Programme began as a result of an order by Hitler to strengthen fortifications on the western German border. Bunkers built in this phase starting in 1938 were more strongly constructed. The framework for each of this programme's Type 10 bunkers probably took around 20 man years to build and required around 287 m³ of concrete, very close to the amount needed for a small block of flats.

The bunkers had a ceiling and walls 1.5m (5 feet) thick, but this was proved completely insufficient even before construction was finished. A total of 3,471 Type 10 bunkers were built along the entire length of the Siegfried Line. The bunkers had a central room or shelter for 10 to 12 men with an entrance, stepped embrasures facing backwards and a combat section 50cm (19 inches) higher. This section had embrasures at the front and sides for machine guns, and a separate entrance. More embrasures were provided for carbines and the entire structure was constructed so as to be safe against poison gas, based on experiences in the First World War.

The bunker was heated with a safety oven, and the chimney, which led to the outside, was covered with a thick grating. Every soldier was given a sleeping-place and a stool; the commanding officer had a chair. There was very little space: each soldier had about 1 m² of space, which meant that the rooms were packed full.

Inside the bunkers of this type still remaining today are the signs hung up to prepare the men for their task: "The walls have ears" or "Lights out when embrasures are open!"

Siegfried Line - Aachen-Saar Programme

The bunkers built under this programme were similar to those of the Limes programme: Type 107 double MG casemates with concrete walls up to 3.5m thick. One difference was that in this case there were no embrasures at the front, only at the sides of the bunkers. Embrasures were only built at the front in special cases and were then protected with heavy metal doors. The programme included the towns of Aachen and Saarbrücken which were initially west of the Limes Programme defence line.

Siegfried Line - Western Air Defence Zone

The Western Air Defence Zone (Luftverteidigungszone West or LVZ West) continued parallel to the two other lines toward the east, and consisted mainly of concrete flak towers. These weapons were designed to force enemy planes to fly higher, thus using more fuel and lowering the distance they could fly. These towers were protected at close range by bunkers from the Limes and Aachen-Saar programmes.

Siegfried Line - Geldern Emplacement

The Geldern Emplacement lengthened the Siegfried Line northwards as far as Kleve on the Rhine, and was only built after the start of World War II. The Siegfried Line originally ended in the north near Brüggen in the Viersen district. The primary constructions were unarmed dugouts which were, however, extremely strongly built out of concrete. For camouflage they were often built near farms.

Siegfried Line - Tank traps

Tank traps were also built for miles along the Siegfried Line and were known as "dragon’s teeth" or "pimples" (in German Höcker, "humps") because of their shape. These blocks of reinforced concrete stand in several rows on a single foundation. There are two typical sorts of barrier: Type 1938 with four teeth getting higher toward the back, and Type 1939 with five such teeth. Many other irregular lines of teeth were also built, however. If the lie of the land allowed it, water-filled ditches were dug instead of tank traps. An example of this kind of defence is those north of Aachen near Geilenkirchen.

Siegfried Line - Working conditions during construction

The bunkers constructed during the pioneering programme were mostly built by private firms, but the private sector was not able to provide the number of workers needed for the programmes that followed. This gap was filled by the Todt Organisation named after its founder, Fritz Todt. With this organisation’s help, huge numbers of workers - up to half a million at a time - were found to work on the Siegfried Line. Transport of materials and workers from all across Germany was managed by the Deutsche Reichsbahn railway company, which took advantage of the well-developed strategic railway lines built on Germany’s western border in World War I.

Working conditions on the building sites were highly dangerous; for example, the most primitive means had to be used to handle and assemble extremely heavy armour plating weighing up to 60 tonnes. Life on the building site and after work was monotonous and many people gave up and left.

Siegfried Line - Armour plates and arms

German industry could not deliver as many steel armour plates as were needed for the mounting of weapons in the bunkers, meaning that the bunkers were not of great military value. The armour-plated sections included the embrasures and their shutters as well as armoured cupolas for 360-degree defence. Germany depended on other countries to provide the alloys required in producing armoured plates (mostly nickel and molybdenum), so either the armour plates were left out or they were produced with low-quality replacement materials. This deficiency was visible even on official photographs.

The bunkers were still fitted with guns, which proved inadequate in the first war years and were therefore dismantled, but the high-calibre weapons necessary for efficient defence could not be built into the existing bunkers.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Typical basic construction types", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki