Maas-Rur position
The Maas-Rur-position (full name Maas-Rur-Steilhang-Elmpter-Wald- position , camouflage name Steuben-Volker-Schenkendorf-position ) was a field-like ditch position between the Maas at autumn / winter 1944/1945 to strengthen the west wall Venlo and the Rur near Wassenberg . The position was characterized above all by the added small concrete bunkers (so-called MG ring stands ), many of which are still preserved today.
planning
After the Allies landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944 and the forced withdrawal of the German armed forces through France , Belgium and the Netherlands towards the German Reich borders in the west, Hitler ordered the "expansion of the western positions" on August 24, 1944. Hitler ordered the Allied troops to be thrown back west of the Rhine at all costs and forbade the Commander-in-Chief West to build defensive lines east of the Rhine. From September 1944 onwards, in addition to the remodeling of the west wall built between 1938 and 1940 , the planning and execution of countless field-like lines between the Lower Rhine and Eifel , mainly known as ditches, began. In the vernacular, these defensive structures and their evidence that can still be found are referred to in their entirety as the Siegfried Line.
course
Parallel to the expansion of the Meuse position on the eastern bank of the Meuse, the Maas-Rur position was developed as the second line along the German border west of the bunker positions of the Siegfried Line. The Maas-Rur position began in the north at a point north of Venlo, approximately at the level of the north channel near Herongen. From there it ran east of Venlo following the Maas slope over Herongerberg, the Jammerdaalsche Heide, Heide southeast of Tegelen , along the German-Dutch border: Prinsendijk, Brachter Wald , Diergardtscher Wald east of Swalmen , Elmpter Wald and to the east of Herkenbosch met the heavily developed positions on the Rur . In addition, a position through the Meinweg forest in the direction of Rosenthal, as well as a locking position coming from Dalheim via Rosenthal and Effeld to the Rur was expanded in this area.
Geographical conditions
The position largely follows the course of the steep slope in an east-west direction, which drops by about 5–10 meters, which delimits the extensive Meuse valley that was formed during the Ice Age in a north-south direction (this slope still largely represents the course of the border today ). It is broken in its course by the valleys of the Schwalm and the Rur. There the position leads through open, ground-level terrain. The line can largely be described as a forest position. As a defense geographic advantage, the fact that the poorly visible, confusing, elevated forests exist exclusively on the German side, while the easily visible, agriculturally used plains of the Maastal (“Maasterrassen”) or Rur valley extends on the supposed “enemy side” in the west . In the projected part of the position to the southeast of Herkenbosch , the position ran on the approximately 2-3 meter elevated step that forms the Rur valley there.
In view of the absolute air superiority or air supremacy of the Allies towards the end of the Second World War , the forest was an important privacy screen for the defenders.
Field expansion
The expansion of the Maas-Rur position took place in October and November 1944 under the supervision of the Feldt corps and the fortress pioneers (Fest. Pi.) Of the Wehrmacht . The corps had a festival for this purpose. Pi. Subordinates to Commander XXI. This in turn had two fortress pioneer staffs (Fest.Pi.Stab 12 and 27) on the Lower Rhine. Fest.Pi.Stab 27 was ultimately responsible for the type and route as well as monitoring the expansion of the Maas-Rur position between Venlo and Vlodrop . The actual entrenchment work was mainly carried out by the so-called people's contingent but also by units of troops and OT units deployed there . The popular contingent consisted primarily of Eastern European forced laborers, but also from the population of the surrounding German and Dutch villages and communities. In the Meuse Rur-position were next to a staggered run grave system rifle / with MG-nests underground bunkers and a continuous tank ditch concrete small systems of the type 58c Ringstand built. So far, over 50 locations have been located along the position on both the German and the Dutch side.
Fighting
The staging area 1944/1945 passed exactly through the section boundary of the army groups H and B . The southern section on the Rur near Wassenberg was occupied by the 176th Inf. Division , while the northern positions were alternately occupied by the 7th and 8th Parachute Division and the 190th Inf. Division . After the start of US Operation Grenade on February 23, 1945 (Rur crossing), however, the Rur-Meuse triangle was cleared by German troops in order to avoid being encircled : US troops advanced from the southwest; from Northwest British and Canadian.
The troops coming from the southwest had captured the Rur triangle between Heinsberg , Roermond and Sittard from January 14th to 26th, 1945 in Operation Blackcock .
In fact, the positions were no longer filled when the "Task Force Byrne" of the XVI. US Corps von Arsbeck advanced in the rear of the position to Venlo . Roermond and Venlo were liberated without a shot being fired from the bunkers of the Maas-Rur position.
conservation
Some parts of the Maas-Rur position are still in good condition today. While similar positions were almost completely eliminated after the war, many of the bunkers , field positions and anti-tank trenches along the border have been preserved. This is probably due to the fact that the border area on the German side consists mainly of protected natural areas ( Maas-Schwalm-Nette Nature Park , De Meinweg National Park ) or state forests, so infrastructural developments or land consolidations did not take place after the end of the war. In this environment, parts of the Maas-Rur position today represent vivid remnants of the last phase of the German position construction in World War II. For this reason, some sections and structures have been placed under soil monument protection in the last few decades . In the Netherlands, some of the ring stands that have been preserved are dedicated to nature conservation as bat roosts or are also designated as monuments. In July 2007, for example, a concrete plant was laboriously recovered in the course of the expansion of the federal motorway 52 near Niederkrüchten- Elmpt and set up again as a memorial elsewhere.
See also
Footnotes
swell
- Manfred Groß u. a .: The West Wall, On the Monument Value of the Unpleasant , Rheinlandverlag Cologne, 1997.
- Manfred Gross:
- The Siegfried Line between the Lower Rhine and Schnee-Eifel , Rheinlandverlag Cologne, 1982.
- Bunker at the Prinsendijk in the Brachter Forest , home book of the district of Viersen 1985.
- Ludwig Hügen: The war is coming to an end, Lower Rhine reports on Operation Grenade 1945 , publication series of the Kempen-Krefeld district , 1974.
- Ludwig Hügen: Between Schwalm and Grenzwald: History of the old communities Elmpt and Niederkrüchten , no publisher, Willich 1993.
- Hans Kramp: Rurfront 1944/45 , Verlag Fred Gatzen Geilenkirchen, 1981, map on page 581.
- Heribert Heinrichs: Wassenberg , Kühlen Verlag, 1987.
- Rainer Mennel: The Final Phase of the Second World War in the West (1944/45) , Biblio-Verlag, Osnabrück, 1981.
- Leaflet 57/5 "Picture booklet of modern position construction from June 1, 1944", Berlin 1944. (PDF, 196 p., 28 MB)
see also: Wolfgang Fleischer: Feldbefestigung des Deutschen Heeres 1939–1945 , Podzun-Pallas 2004 (or Dörfler 2004, ISBN 978-3-89555-212-0 )