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The Atlantic Wall (German: Atlantikwall) was an extensive system of coastal defences and fortifications built by Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1944 along the coast of continental Europe and Scandinavia as a defence against an anticipated Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe from the United Kingdom, during World War II.
The following is a list of the Führer directives and Führer Orders issued by Adolf Hitler over the course of World ... Atlantic Wall ; [9] [10] 41 April 5, 1942 ...
Beside, on March 9, 1939, Hitler commissioned the head of the NSDAP's Office for Colonial Policy, Franz Ritter von Epp, to re-stablish a Reich Colonial Office to the management of the colonies in Africa, which would later become a Reich Colonial Ministry that would be located in the Neuer Marstall under Hitler's order in March 1941.
On 20 October 1941 Hitler signed a directive, against the advice of Commander-in-Chief von Witzleben, to turn the Channel Islands into an "impregnable fortress". In the course of 1942, one twelfth of the resources funnelled into the whole Atlantic Wall was dedicated to the fortification of the Channel Islands. [48]
In World War II, the Atlantic pockets were locations along the coasts of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France chosen as strongholds by the occupying German forces, to be defended as long as possible against land attack by the Allies. The locations are known in German as Atlantikfestungen (lit. "Atlantic strongholds") but are known in English as ...
There were as many as 400,000 German troops in Norway during the occupation, a large proportion of whom were dedicated to the defense of this northern flank of the Atlantic Wall. The scope of Festung Norwegen originally included the entire coastal perimeter of Norway, from the Oslofjord around the southern coast to the border with the Soviet ...
Similarly, Hitler had issued orders to enact a scorched earth policy upon the Netherlands in late 1944, when it became obvious that the Allies were about to retake the country, but Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the Reichskommissar in charge of the Netherlands during its occupation, was able to greatly limit the scope to which the order was executed.
[47] [48] Hitler was also apprehensive, and on a visit to Army Group A headquarters on 24 May, he endorsed the order. [ 47 ] [ 46 ] Air Marshal Hermann Göring urged Hitler to let the Luftwaffe (aided by Army Group B [ 49 ] ) finish off the British, to the consternation of General Franz Halder , who noted in his diary that the Luftwaffe was ...