Front straightening

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Front straightening is both a military and military-historical term and an example of a euphemism in the propaganda language of the Third Reich. In the literal sense, straightening the front (or synonymously shortening the front ) means removing bulges and zigzags of the war front between two states at war.

Such military measures were mainly in the First World War , by trench warfare stuck, often for long periods stiffened fronts and in the enemy defense system offensives was marked, often performed. A straightening of the front could be achieved both by a new offensive, which established the connection of the neighboring positions hanging back to the advanced section of the front, and by a tactical retreat . A straightening of the front shortened the length of the front and thus freed troops for other tasks, but also with the enemy. The most extensive front straightening in the context of the First World War took place on the western front in 1917 on the instructions of the German Supreme Army Command (OHL). A few months after the Allied offensive on the Somme , which had left a zigzag and confusing front line, the German troops withdrew - without opposing pressure - in the Alberich company to the so-called Siegfriedstellung . This expanded front line was much shorter and could be better defended. This straightening of the front was not only tactical but also strategic. The troops saved were used by the OHL for offensives in Russia and Italy.

During the Second World War , "front straightening" got a slightly different meaning. The term became - especially in the second half of the war - a euphemism for a withdrawal of German troops forced by the enemy. On the part of the Wehrmacht leadership , the Nazi propaganda, the German newsreel and the other media, the catastrophic situation of the German Wehrmacht and the associated withdrawal or collapse on all fronts with terms such as "planned disengagement", "front shortening" or even "front straightening" played down or veiled. As with increasing duration of the war, the population, the actual situation could not be concealed, the term "front straightening" was the vernacular mostly mocking or ironic needed way and the official propaganda so wrong in its intention to the contrary.