West Wall

Adolf Hitler intended to be the ultimate defender of his much vaunted 1,000-year Reich. Constructed in the utmost secrecy and at enormous cost, and dismissed by many as a "white elephant", the "Great Wall of Germany" very nearly lived up to the Führer's expectations, and is judged to have prolonged the war in Europe by six months. The Battle for the Siefgried Line was not only the most important of the 1944-45 campaign against Germany, it was to prove the key battle in the entire war in the west. It raged for six ling, bloody months along a front of 350 miles, and cost over a quarter of a million British, American, Canadian and French casualties. The disdain with which the "Tommy" was going to "hang ou his washing on the Siegfried Line" was mingled with awe at the sheer difficulty and dangers of the campaign.