Hitler's Fortresses: German Fortifications and Defences 1939-45 (General Military) by Chris Mcnab

Author:Chris Mcnab [Mcnab, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Hitler’s Fortresses: German Fortifications and Defences 1939–45
ISBN: 9781782008286
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
Published: 2014-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

The Netherlands

Coastal defences in the Netherlands constituted about a tenth of total Atlantic Wall fortification activity in 1942–44. The Netherlands was never especially high on the list of probable Allied invasion points, since the low-lying land behind the coastal dykes could be readily flooded and made impassable. The Dutch ports at Rotterdam and Amsterdam and their access to key waterways leading into the German industrial heartland ensured a significant fortification effort on the Dutch coast. A secondary reason for heavy defence of the Dutch ports was their role in basing S-boat torpedo boats, which were very active in the naval campaigns in the North Sea.

A number of substantial S-boat shelters were built in Dutch harbours to defend this force against RAF bomber raids. The majority of the Dutch coastal defences were subordinate to the Wehrmachtsbefehl in den Niederlanden (WBN; Armed Forces Command in the Netherlands). The exception was the Scheldt estuary region around Breskens and Vlissingen; it was subordinate to the neighbouring AOK 15 which controlled German Army units in the Pas-de-Calais and Belgian coast.

There were four primary defence zones in the Netherlands, two designated at the highest level as Festung and the other two as Verteidigungsbereich (defence zone). The single most heavily fortified area was the Hoek van Holland (Hook of Holland) due to its strategic importance. Aside from including the cities of The Hague and Rotterdam, this estuary and port area offered access to the two most important rivers in this area of northern Europe, the Maas (Meuse) and the Rhine. Nearly a quarter of the major fortifications built in the Netherlands during the war were located in this sector. The defence was based around the New Waterway, the late 19th-century canal connecting Rotterdam to the North Sea. The centre of the defences was its Kernwerk on the south bank of the canal near the site of today’s Europort.

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