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The Siegfried Line, known in German as the Westwall (= western bulwark), was a German defensive line built during the late 1930s. Started in 1936, opposite the French Maginot Line, it stretched more than 630 km (390 mi) from Kleve on the border with the Netherlands, along the western border of Nazi Germany, to the town of Weil am Rhein on the border with Switzerland.
The West Wall Medal (German: Deutsches Schutzwall-Ehrenzeichen) was a decoration of Nazi Germany.It was instituted on 2 August 1939 and was given to those who designed and built the fortifications on Germany's western borders, known as the Westwall or, in English, the Siegfried Line, between 15 June 1938 to 31 March 1939. [1]
The "Westwall" museum lies underground in the former fortification of Gerstfeldhöhe. The village of Niedersimten, two kilometres south of Pirmasens, is reached via Bitscher Straße, which continues to Bitche over the French border. Two decommissioned tanks guard the entrance to the fortress and museum.
This article lists those elements of the Siegfried Line (German: Westwall) that have survived or whose function is still clearly recognisable.The structures are listed roughly from north to south and grouped by the individual construction programmes involved in building the Siegfried Line.
The Siegfried Line Museum (German: Westwallmuseum Irrel) lies near the German-Luxembourg border in the Eifel mountains. It is housed in a bunker that was part of the former Siegfried Line (Westwall), the Katzenkopf Strongpoint (Panzerwerk Katzenkopf), which was built from 1937 to 1939.
The 7th Army was activated in Stuttgart on August 25, 1939 with General Friedrich Dollmann in command. At the outbreak of the war, the 7th Army defended the French border and manned the Westwall in the Upper Rhine region.
The Siegfried Line campaign was a phase in the Western European campaign of World War II, which involved engagments near the German defensive Siegfried Line.. This campaign spanned from the end of Operation Overlord and the push across northern France, which ended on 15 September 1944, and concluded with the opening of the German Ardennes counteroffensive, better known as the Battle of the Bulge.
The salient was a German position on the Siegfried Line (Westwall) at the boundary between the British Second Army and the American 9th Army. It restricted the movement of Allied forces and was a potential threat.