Orscholzriegel
The Orscholzriegel - Orscholz switch in English - was a military lock and part of the western wall in the triangle between the Saar and the Moselle . It was built in 1939 and 1940 and comprised 75 bunkers and 10.2 km of tank obstacles in the form of hump lines . The position ran from Trier to Nennig along the Moselle and from Nennig in an easterly direction to Orscholz on the Saar loop of Mettlach .
“Although the West Wall in this sector lay behind the Saar, the Germans in 1939 and 1940 had constructed a supplementary fortified line across the base of the triangle from Nennig in the west to Orscholz, at a great northwestward loop of the Saar. The Germans called the position the Orscholz Switch; the Americans knew it as the Siegfried Switch. Assuming the neutrality of Luxembourg, the switch position was designed to protect Trier and the Moselle corridor and to prevent outflanking of the strongest portion of the West Wall, that lying to the southeast across the face of the Saar industrial area. "
“Although the Siegfried Line was actually on the other side of the Saar in this section, the Germans had built a supplementary fortified line in 1939/40, at the base of the triangle from Nennig in the west to Orscholz, on a large northwest-facing loop of the Saar. The Germans called the position Orscholzriegel , the Americans Siegfried-Riegel . In view of the neutrality of Luxembourg , the location of the bar was designed to protect Trier and the Moselle corridor and to prevent bypassing the strongest part of the western wall: the industrial area in the southeast on the opposite bank of the Saar. "
From November 1944, the fighting over the Orscholzriegel turned into a great material battle. After the end of the last German offensive on the Western Front , a US infantry division and a US tank division arrived on the Saar-Mosel front. The bunker crews did not want to surrender; the US troops began to fire continuously with grenades on a 15 km front width ("Hell am Orscholzriegel") and broke through on 19-20. February 1945 the Siegfried Line at this point. Many dead, destroyed villages and a crater landscape remained.
During Operation Undertone (March 15–24, 1945) the Orscholzriegel was on the left flank of the advancing US units.
The term Orscholzriegel was used in Nazi propaganda at the latest since November 1944.
tourism
Since November 2016, designed as a 3.1 km long trail leads dragon's teeth path right through the former tank barrier between Orscholz and Oberleuken. A particularly well-preserved section of the 1.5-kilometer hump line can be hiked over a kilometer in length. The cusp line path should not only serve as a hiking trail, but also as a memorial.
See also
literature
- US Army in World War II - The Last Offensive . Chapter VII: The Saar-Moselle Triangle
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Charles B. MacDonald: European Theater of Operations . The Last Offensive. In: US Army in World War II . OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF MILITARY HISTORY, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY, Washington, DC 1973, p. 116 (English, online ).
- ↑ Gerhild Krebs: The fortifications of the western wall in Saarland ( online ). From: Rainer Hudemann et al. (Ed.), Places of cross-border memory - traces of the networking of the Saar-Lor-Lux area in the 19th and 20th centuries . Saarbrücken 2002.
- ↑ The Saar line under extreme pressure! In: Oberdonau newspaper . November 28, 1944, p. 1 ( ANNO - AustriaN Newspapers Online [accessed May 5, 2020]).
Coordinates: 49 ° 30 ′ 1.3 ″ N , 6 ° 30 ′ 39 ″ E