Friesenwall (Second World War)

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The term Friesenwall denotes a planned but only partially completed weir system on the German North Sea coast , which was to be built towards the end of the Second World War . The plan of the facility arose from the fear of the German leadership of an invasion on the North Sea coast. About 25,000 workers were used in the construction, several hundred of whom were killed.

The name of the attachment should both associations to as "invincible" propagated Siegfried awaken and on Nazi myths of the most "primitive" and fight strong Friesen point.

On August 28, 1944, Adolf Hitler gave the order to fortify the German North Sea coast from the Dutch border to Denmark . For the Friesenwall, anti-tank trenches five meters wide and four meters deep and some bunkered positions were built.

16,000 prisoners of war were used for the construction, as well as 6,000 prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp to newly built satellite camps in the Engerhafe concentration camp (2,000 prisoners) in East Friesland, Meppen-Versen and Dalum in Emsland and Schwesing and Ladelund (a total of 4,000 prisoners) in North Friesland were. The prisoners came from all over Europe and were sent to Neuengamme concentration camp for various reasons. Over half of the forced laborers were Dutch; other large groups came from France, Denmark and Poland. There was also an array of ethnic Germans : Hitler Youth, older men, members of the Wehrmacht and the Todt Organization . In some cases, the German leadership shipped entire school classes to the coast to do the work.

The inmates worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week. In the continuous rain of autumn 1944 they had to use primitive equipment to move the heavy and wet clay soil. 300 to 500 people died in the Schwesing camp from September to December, and another 300 in the Ladelund camp from November 1 to December 16.

The Friesenwall should consist of trenches and shelters directly on the sea dike and be supplemented by two armored trenches further inland and by so-called bolt positions parallel to the German-Danish border.

The work, which was only half-heartedly planned and carried out, was soon sucked into the impending unstoppable collapse and was in part given up at the end of 1944, but no later than February 1945. The Friesenwall was only more or less completed between Husum and Bredstedt and remained a patchwork in the north of North Friesland . In total, the workers built 237 kilometers of anti-tank trenches, 250 kilometers of trenches and 4,633 ring stands on the North Frisian coast.

The Wedel camp was set up for a separate “fastening ring” within the Friesenwall around Hamburg .

The facility was militarily pointless and was never needed. Most of it was filled in after the war ended. Some of the bunker ruins and anti-tank traps of the Friesenwall are still preserved on the coast today.

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