NEW GERMAN FORTS WILL BE COMPLETED SOON

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 138, 8 December 1938, Page 9

NEW GERMAN FORTS

WILL BE COMPLETED SOON

Germany's fortifications on the Western frontier will be "wholly completed before the beginning of winter," according to Major yon Wedel, chief of the Press Section of the Army High Command, in the command's magazine, "Die Wehrmacht," says a Berlin message to the "New York Times."

The Western fortifications were begun in 1936, and by the end of the year 118 concrete entrenchments and obstacles had been constructed, says Major yon Wedel, and by the end of 1937 more than 500 of these concrete defences were ready.

Last May, when Chancellor Adolf Hitler recognised that the Czechoslovak crisis had to be solved quickly and that its solution might not be possible without "an attack by Western Powers against Germany," continues Major yon Wedel, he ordered completion of the fortifications with the greatest speed as a "guarantee of absolute security against the invasion of Germany by any enemy."

Therefore, concludes the writer, 100,000 Labour Service youths and 85,000 labourers were put to work and now the job is almost done.

In an article in the same publication, titled "Invincible —the Most Gigantic Fortification Work of All Time," Major-General Speich, the inspector of these Western defences, declares the fortifications, together with the Army and Air Force, make German territory invincible against the strongest attacks along the entire Western frontier. The experiences of the last war changed the ideas of defence, says General Speich. NORTH SEA TO SWITZERLAND. He traces the line of fortifications from the North Sea, where Germany borders The Netherlands to.Switzerland. From the Lower Rhine plain, which is partly wooded and partly cut by streams, the line runs over hilly land to Aachen. Thence southward the terrain is dotted by many peaks and hill ranges and the fortifications take advantage of the heavilywooded Schnee-Eifel district. Further south the defences range along the steep valleys of the Our and Saver Rivers, beginning close to the Luxembourg border. Thence they cross the Moselle lowlands and embrace both sides of the steep Saar peaks and the mountain land of Osburg and the Black Forest.

East of Saarbrucken and as far as the Pfalz Forest the fortifications utilise many high peaks and many deeply cut valleys. The line continues through the Pfalz Forest and goes on into the Upper Rhine section and to the Swiss border.

The French and German defence systems are separated along the Rhine by only a few hundred yards.

"An enemy who thought he could cross the Reich's border in a surprise attack with very mobile forces and battle vehicle? would very quickly be unpleasantly surprised," asserts General Speich.

He says obstacles of all kinds have been set up to prevent an advance and that the innumerable weapons at the disposal of various branches of the German land and air forces would inflict heavy casualties. If the enemy reached the line of fortifications it would be met by the armour and concrete protecting the defenders from gas and armoured vehicles and be caught in direct and flanking fire from guns of all calibres while "wasting its prowess against many concrete pillboxes, all of which are joined together by bombproof communications."