The Atlantic Wall (1): France

INTRODUCTION

The Atlantic Wall was the largest fortification effort in recent European history, rivaled only by France’s Maginot Line. The portions in France consumed over 17,000,000m³ of concrete, 1,200,000 tonnes of steel and cost some 3.7 billion Deutschmarks. To put this in some perspective, the steel consumption was about five percent of German annual production and roughly equivalent to the amount used in annual German tank production.

If the Atlantic Wall had been carefully designed and skillfully integrated into Germany’s strategic planning, it might have been worth its considerable cost. But it was created on Hitler’s whim, built in haste with little coordinated planning, and fitted uncomfortably with the Wehrmacht’s tactical doctrine. Hitler ordered its construction in response to British raiding along the English Channel and as a barrier to an anticipated Allied invasion. Wehrmacht commanders had little influence on this scheme, and a debate raged until D-Day over the best way to resist the inevitable Allied amphibious assault. The overstretched German war economy was unable to match Hitler’s dream of “Fortress Europe,” and the Atlantic Wall was never fully completed. The Wehrmacht commander in France, Generalfeld-marschall Gerd von Rundstedt, later derided the Atlantic Wall as an enormous propaganda bluff.

On D-Day, the Atlantic Wall was strongest where the Germans expected the Allied invasion, the “Iron Coast” of the Pas-de-Calais opposite Britain. The Allies wisely chose to avoid this heavily defended area and struck instead where the Atlantic Wall was weaker in lower Normandy. The D-Day assault overcame the Atlantic Wall in less than a day. Other stretches of the Atlantic Wall, especially near the Channel ports, were involved in later fighting but proved no more effective.

^{The ultimate role of the Atlantic Wall was to stop the Allied amphibious invasion: a mission that failed. This is a view from the H677 88mm PaK 43/41 gun casemate of strongpoint WN29 on Juno Beach near Courselles-sur-Mer on D-Day looking out on landing craft of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division. (NAC PA-128792 Donald Grant)}