question of Siegfried line in 1944-45

[teg]

Was Siegfried line a relatively effective toll in slowering allied offensive or it was useless for germans and merely a waste of german resources?

[Mori]

Depends whether you ask German generals (who will say it was useless, as an excuse to their defeats) or American troops (who will count their dead trying to pierce it).

Most seriously: it also depends, and a lot, of which section of the line one has in mind. The Netherlands border was a very different matter from the French.

[Natter]

Was Siegfried line a relatively effective toll in slowering allied offensive or it was useless for germans and merely a waste of german resources?

Here is an example: The conclusion from the report of the allied breech of the Westwall/Siegfried-line along the Schnee-Eifel ridge in Germany.

[Mori]

Here is an example: The conclusion from the report of the allied breech of the Westwall/Siegfried-line along the Schnee-Eifel ridge in Germany.

Thanks. What's the exact source of this document?

Does it relate to the first advance inside the line around Sep 12th (US V Corps sector) or to the final conquest of the zone in January 1945 (US XVIII Corps, I assume)? Germans did a lot to improve the fortifications between these dates.

[Richard Sands]

The Siegfried defences took a lot of hard fighting to clear in the Goch/Kleve area through the Reichswald Forest. My Father always said that it was the bloodiest fighting he was involved in, sometimes killing his opponents with trenching tools. It must have been severe as he fought from Alamein to Bremen in Germany at the end of the war. It is probably fair to say that, as with all fighting, there are strong points and not so strong points.