Never heard of the Ostwall? Here is why...
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ต.ค. 2019
- The "Ostwall" (Oder-Warthe-Bogen) is quite forgotten, there are many reasons for this. Technically, there are at least 3 construction projects of the Second World War that are referred to with "Ostwall". This video tackles the various factors why you probably never heard of the "Ostwall", although it was a major and expensive project.
Special thanks to Czeslaw and Mirko!
Visited Museum: bunkry.pl
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Lübke, Norbert: Festungsfront Oder-Warthe-Bogen. Geschichte und Gegenwart des „Ostwalls“. Orte der Geschichte e.V.: Berlin, Germany, 2019.
Jurga, Robert M.: Lisiecki, Leszek: Panzerwerk PZ.W. 717. Werkgruppe Scharnhorst. Zielona Góra, 2015.
Mawdsley, Evan: Thunder in the East. The Nazi-Soviet War 1941-1945. Second Edition. Bloomsbury: London, 2016.
TsAMO: F 500, Op. 12450, D 159: 2. Ausführungsbefehl zum Führerbefehl Nr. 10, 4. 9. 1943
Jacobsen, H.A.: 1939-1945. Der Zweite Weltkrieg in Chronik und Dokumenten. Dritte durchgesehene und ergänzte Auflage. Wehr und Wissen Verlagsgesellschaft: Darmstadt, 1960
Karl-Heinz Frieser, Klaus Schmider, Klaus Schönherr, Gerhard Schreiber, Krisztián Ungváry, Bernd Wegner: Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Band 8: Die Ostfront 1943/44 - Der Krieg im Osten und an den Nebenfronten. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt: Stuttgart, 2007.
Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg - Band 10/1: Der Zusammenbruch des Deutschen Reiches 1945 und die Folgen des Zweiten Weltkrieges. Teilband 1: Die militärische Niederwerfung der Wehrmacht. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 2008.
Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Hrsg.): Deutsche Militärgeschichte 1648-1939 in sechs Bänden. Bernard & Graefe Verlag; München, 1983.
Leibner, Günter: Festung “Oder-Warthe-Bogen“. Ingrid Haupt: Buchholz, Germany, 2000.
Kaufmann, J. E.; Jurga, Robert M.: Fortress Europe. European Fortifications of World War II. Da Capo Press: US, 2002 (1999).
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostwall
#Ostwall #Fortification #WW2
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Just as an FYI: The 'G' in Figment (1:34) sounds like the 'G' in Gemeinschaft . . .
Fröhliche Weihnachten!
Did you film this by mounting a gopro on a dog?
I just found out my fathers cousin served on this fortification in Poznań 1945 and made a hair raising escape after it had been cut off. I was not aware the Poznań fortifications were part of a greater system.
Not to be confused with the Austwall constructed by Australians to defend their crops from the Emu horde...
I... don't know what to say...
Is called the rabbit proof fence, it does work. However the soldiers did actually did not wanted to kill emus. That's why the Australian army has never been used since, to control feral animals. There are a lot of ferals in Australia
@@jantschierschky3461 A soldier not wanting to kill an animal is...well.....in my opinion that is a very....interesting attitude to what being a soldier is about...
A bit hypocritical even....actually, who let those people be soldiers in the first place, that so messed up!
"Oh yeah I wanna sign up to "Protect"(reality;Kill for my country to ensure its continued existence) but Emus? NO WAY MAN! THATS BAD! ANIMAL CRUELTY BAD.EXE LAUNCHED!"
Amazing to hear that the aussies used NPCs for soldiers....
@@Elenrai well don't forget they are conscripts at that time. All I can tell you what Australian history is stating
Shouldn't that be called the Auk Wall?
"Now you've probably never heard about the Ostwall"
Of course I did, it's what you usually build before the NAP with the Soviets ends in HOI4
I read of Ostwall.
In HOI4.
And I was educated by HOI 1.
Lol, i learned it the same thing in HOI4 TOO
Dock Likeable I’ve learned more from Hoi4 than college history so far
Everyone who's played Germany in HOI4 knows of Ostwall.
same xD
"Now you've probably never heard about the Ostwall"
Now I feel proud that I was there when I was 12 or so
I should have added, unless you are from Poland ;)
man. the system was basically semi-squatted through out most of 90s.
lots of happy memories :)
Me too! I was 16 or so. :)
0:35 - are they impact deflections from enemy artillery shells ?
Wilson probably
history not visualized? this is live and on location!
@lastone ???
@@JeanLucCaptain This is a subsidiary channel. The main channel "military history visualized" uses maps, graphics and other visualizations.
But why are you confused anyways? Taking footage of a location (showing something) is not visualizing something ;)
@@ParanoidMaster don't get technical with me! PS: love that everybody seems to have missed the C-3PO MEME.
@@ParanoidMaster Turn the gain up on your sense of humor.
@@jamestheotherone742 Haha, if that was supposed to be a joke then OP has to gain some humor ;)
I've already been to the Ostwall, I can recommand visiting it too for everyone.
@manjeet singh Its in Poland. A great place to visit!
@manjeet singh 52°22'16.3"N 15°30'09.6"E
We went years ago would totally recommend to. the tunnels all shockingly massive
@manjeet singh The nearest town is called Swiebodzin. It is in Western Poland, between Berlin and Poznan.
I had heard of these fortifications but did not know that they were so extensive. I always thought they were improvised in 1944. Thanks for the new learning.
By then, even the Germans understood what Patton had said, "Fixed fortifications...are monuments to the stupidity of man!"
@@selfdo That's a great quote I'm glad I read this
@@selfdo Fast forward 70 years: "MAGA MAGA Let's build a biggest, stupidest wall ever"
@@KuK137 Its not a wall meant to withstand enemy soldiers. Not quite a parallel.
@@KuK137 I mean
Fortifications to stop =/= barrier to slow
I love that bunker smiley face 3:25 :)
Imaginary Star Studios it’s defacing history
Corey Brant Who knows, maybe it is part of history. Could have been someone back then decided to lighten up the mood.
Corey Brandt - Judging by the fact that common thing seen among graffiti is the symbol of Polish Liberation Army, I say a bunch of people there see these bunkers as defacement of their land.
All that is missing is a 85mm shell crater right between the "eyes".
@@Corey_Brandt WW2 defaced everything natural in this world. So what? It's a cute smiley face over a bunch of ugly rubbish.
There was also Pommern-Stellung, the Pomeranian Wall, where were heavy fights between Polish 1st Army and SS Divisions, pretty interesting topic
5:10
Machine Mortarwerfer
It werfs mortars
Mortar is minenwerfer, so Maschinenminenwerfer
@@MrGreghome yeah, I know that, I was parodying an old meme about literally translating "Panzerwerfer" as "tank thrower".
And anyway he said "machine mortar launcher", so it's more like "Maschinenminenwerferwerfer".
@@Captain_Carrot more like maschienenmörserwerfer
Smitty WirbenJagerManJensen?
@@Captain_Carrot "Maschinenminenwerferwerfer".
so it's a machine that threw mortar thrower?
I grew up near the remains of the westwall dragon teeth and bunkers.
Our village was mostly in the Netherlands and a part in Germany
Never thought that on the east side there were almost the same structure
Wow! You were in my village (Staropole/Starpel) 😍
In 2017 during the cleaning of panzerwerk 780 we found the remains of german defenders. They were taken by organisation "pomost" and then buried in the german military cementary in Szczecin (autumn 2019)
crazy, thanks for the information!
@@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized it is known as Panther-Wotan line
Thanks, excellent post. You were thorough, without getting boring, great information and kept me listening. You made me want to hear and see more, not move on.
Thank you so much for adding some of the captioning. It really helps my ears to adjust to your accent and in general gives me the ability to more clearly understand you when there is no captioning on the screen.
Thank you for your very informational videos, keep them coming!
Interessante Infos, vielen Dank für die Erweiterung meines Horizonts!
10:42 there is a Kotwica with the words "Wawer" and "6 DH Wagabunda" painted next to it. Wawer is the site of a massacre of Poles by the German army in December 1939. The 6 DH Wagabunda is the name of a modern boyscout team. The connection is not accidental, as Wawer was also the name of a boyscout- based underground organization in occupied Poland. Odd place to paint stuff, but the historical connection is evident and shows that the memories of the war are still cultivated in Poland.
Thank you, for alluding to some of the grim realities of these silent remains.
@@cncshrops Actually Wawer is near Warsaw, it has nothing to do with this particular place. The most "local" big war crime of this area would probably be the expulsion and flight of Germans and what the Soviets did to them at around 1945. It's a poorly researched and very nasty thing still attracting a lot of emotions and political backlash, so nobody wants to touch it. But on a general note, yes- when you're in eastern Europe, the whole place is dotted with sites of war crimes, the further east, the worse it gets. A site of atrocities or combat is nothing unusual. Even in our capital there are tons of buildings with bullet holes and explosion marks still visible to this day. To westerners those are some abstract stories, to us those are tales of our own grandparents and things that are physically there- dug up, or found on farms and used as tools for generations- German helmets were used as pots, bayonets as knives. There are roadside crosses made of tank barrels still up today. It's all there in plain sight, if you know what to look for.
Bjorn Trollgesicht Germany and Germans got everything they deserved.
@@Toast0808 I respectfully disagree. Civilians on all sides are the real losers of each and every war and no civilian ever deserves to be subject to the horrors of industrialized war. I have no quarrel with some random Helmut living his life under the Nazi regime, even if he *did* belong to NSDAP (although I'd consider him a moron). I do however have a big quarrel with those people who made decisions to attack others unprovoked and those who killed and abused civilians and destroyed livelihoods as the main part of their combat assignment, those who raped and stole people's stuff. Such people you can grab by the hand and assign guilt. I think you cannot assign guilt to a person who did not commit the deed, nor order it to be committed.
0:35 - are they impact deflections from enemy artillery shells ?
Great footage. Good research. Thanks.
10:28 "Bravo Six, going dark."
A lot of digital cameras will have an IR filter that you can sometimes remove for better low light environments
Never heard of it till now. Good find!
The fastest way to find it in Poland (or search some info in the internet) is to look for MRU (it means Mędyrzecki Rejon Umocniony - Międzyrzecz Fortification Region). It starts in Pniewo.
Really interesting topic, awesome video, thank you
Thanks, this was very interesting 😊
@1:18 So, Obi Wan drives up and says "These aren't the Ostwalls you're looking for"?
Dont listen to him... you have the right idea and You made me laugh.
@james crowe What is this "brain" you speak of; and how does one damage it?
If you don't want to travel as far east, you can also visit the B-Werk in Besseringen. It is part of the Westwall and of the same construction as the large fortifications of the Ostwall. It has also been restored quite nicely with original articles and equipment as well as detailed descriptions of each room.
Went there a few years ago and it was very interesting. We meet the same guide that you did. Did the standard tour and later a more extensive private tour . If you look a bit on the net there are some "original video", basically propaganda from the 30ties. There are also som interesting quite large bunkers in Czech, remains from the Benesov line. If you have time you can trace the bunker line along the current Polish / Czech border. I have been to some guided tour there as well. Both of them turned out to be equally useless....
Lovely. Much as I hate admitting a gap in my SWW knowledge, this is one. Cheers Man. 🖖
O this is perfect! Completely new content of the 2nd worldwar.
I wonder however: are there any books about (underground) bunkerconstruction left? I am really interested in this topic!
Greetings,
Jeff
Fantastic stuff! I always wondered about Eastern defenses...
There was also a not well-known Neckar-Enz- Linie. In the 20s a french attack north of Schwarzwald/ Black Forrest was feared. As secret as possible a not very strong chain of few small fortifications or prepared places had been build. When you hike near Sachsenheim, you can see the remains of a rather small bunker. And, on the same side of the Enz river as the noted bunker, you can see the ,Feldschützenhütte' ( Feldschütz means field guard/ garde champetre). This ,Hut' has concrete roof and walls perhaps 40cm thick and surely protects the field guard against snow and rain;-)
I most certainly have heard of the Oder-Warthe Bogen (Ostwall), and have visited it many times, and the nearby towns of Meseritz and Tirschtiegel (which was a frontier town between the wars with its railway station in Poland. Consequently a new branch line was built from the Neu Bentschen - Landsberg-an-der-Warthe railway, so that Tirschtiegel was once more connected to the railway network). You did not mention that part of the tunnels is a large Bat reserve. I have several books about the Ostwall, and hope one day to go again. Thank you for this film.
seems like they were heavily inspired by the czechoslovak fortifications that were build pre war, some of the specifications of these look almost the same
Just reporting/admitting I had never heard of these defenses. Thanks for the data.
Wonderful and thanks.
I was there many times. To see whole underground complex you need to take bike ;) main tunnel is over 15 km long.
bike may be a problem, because some parts are flooded with water. Some completely, some about meter or half. But stuff beyond that water is in better shape - far less intruders :)
I was there and had the same guide as you had. The place never played any significant roll but its fashinating to visit
Thanks. That was interesting.
.
Ironically, many of these fortifications were eventually taken by Polish troops of the 1st Polish Army under Soviet command.
General Sun Tzu wrote "He, who seeks to be strong everywhere is strong nowhere". That is why the Maginot Line fell, why the Western Wall fell and why the Ostwall fell. The solution to this problem of limited resources is to fortify the cities to protect the people and the military capacity to project power. This fortification would include active fortification, (such as radar, communications systems and anti aircraft weapons), and passive fortifications, (such as trenches and defensive walls and bunkers for people, tanks and aircraft). Power can be projected from these fortified cities by aircraft, long range artillery and mobile army elements of tanks and armored personnel carriers). These fortified cities would be constructed with overlapping areas in which power can be projected.
Regards,
Geoff. Reeks
A map would be most helpful to those of us that are not intimately familiar with Europen locations. Very interesting post, thank you.
this is the non visualized channel though, so probably not going to be maps on this one.
@Social Dissidence What game? I'm not getting your reference.
@Social Dissidence All right, that went way over my head. Though I feel I'm fairly well read and try to keep up with more educated folks. I am an unsophisticated and heathen American what gradgemacated the 8th grade with some cipherin' and can do some of my gazintas, and write sweet love poems to my darlin' Rowena...lol Good day.
@@neurofiedyamato8763 that's fair, but even academic history papers/books often include maps.
Even if you know the general area of where the fortifications are, a map could be useful to illuminate certain points.
I do agree that there should be maps. I just mean that it is probably unlikely.
my understanding was that Hitler refused to authorize significant work on a defensive line behind the front because the generals would then want to retreat behind the wall after it was complete. To bad it is difficult to build a wall at or in front of the front.
The US person in charge of landing craft allocation had a similar problem in too many people demanding that their load be on day one. Finally, when all D-day slots were taken, he would offer D minus 1 opennings
I would bet that geography was also a factor. It's kinda tough to defend the huge Northern European plain, it might be better to have a mobile defense/ offense
Strong defensive works really demmand supporting mobile forces prepared to counterattack.
Thank you for the profound information. I really never heard of this before.
Maybe you can improve a little on your on-site camera. Sweep and move a little slower if you can, this helps me to perceive the image better.
I know the place. I was born in town 10km from the nearest fortifications. It's definitely worth checking it out.
I know of the Ostwall! Well, the one around the old town center of my home town...
The tunnels were capable of allowing the biggest tanks to pass through, some of them have not been cleared for public access. Best place to enter is near the village of Nietoperek.
I was under the impression that this was built in a hurry to defend the fatherland in the late stages of the war but this actually was built in the thirties because Hitler thought the Russians would attack them first.
I heard of this one in some documentary on tv.
"Ah, we're not going to need it. Take it apart."
Later
"Oops!"
The French did the same with Verdun in 1915
@@TayebMC
I believe it.
The Germans had been crushed by the Soviet offensives in the Vistula-Oder operation: Army Group "A" was all but shattered, and Army Group Center had been shoved back into Pomerania and Prussia. There was precious little opportunities to man and equip the forts, they'd been untouched as Hitler wanted his generals to contest every patch of ground between the Vistula river and the Oder rather than adopt Guderian's proposed strategy: keep a token screening force facing the Red Army on the Vistula, prepared to retreat once the artillery barrages began, man these forts and key road junctions like Thorn and Posen, and keep the Panzers in reserve to counter-attack the Soviet flanks. In essence, the strategy was to "duck" and pull back, letter the stronger boxer in the ring "hit air", and then counter-punch when he was off-balance.
Guderian and the other generals knew that, long-term, the war could only end as it did in utter defeat. Still, he felt that this strategy took advantage of the superiority of the Germany Army in maneuver warfare, while they still held POLISH territory to maneuver in! Once the Soviets reached Germany proper, it'd be a different story...sure, they'd find the going tough in built-up German cities, facing a motivated enemy, but likewise, with fleeing civilians and economic prizes too valuable to let fall into enemy hands, the Heer wouldn't be able to conduct war on its terms. Plus, Hitler would not allow any German soil to fall to the Soviet boot no matter what it cost to hold it.
Had Guderian gotten his way, likely most of Army Group "A" could have lived on to fight another day. As it was, the Germans, by remaining in their trenches to get pounded by Soviet artillery, suffered far higher losses in the Vistula-Oder campaign, about 80,000 dead and 140,000 wounded, with another estimated 100,000 men captured (many were summarily executed, others died later in captivity, only about one in ten saw Germany alive ever again). Only about 100,000 men of the Ninth and Fourth Panzer Armies made it across the Oder to defend Berlin. The combined losses of the Soviet forces that smashed them, the First Belorussian (Zhukov) and the First Ukrainian (Konev) Fronts, were only 15,000 killed and 60,000 wounded, making this one of the most lopsided battles in history. A more sensible strategy to defend Germany from the Soviet onslaught from the East might have at least put Stalin in a much worse bargaining position at Yalta the following month, and the DDR and the divided Berlin as we remember it (1945-1990) might not have come about. The war might have instead ended with Patton and/or Montgomery triumphantly entering Berlin from the west, with the Germans willingly laying down their arm and perhaps their "paper-hanging 'God' " fleeing to his mountain retreat at Berchtesgarden, to hold off his inevitable doom awhile longer.
At first I was like: I heard about Mosley. Then I was: oh... yeah, I heard about the Ostwall too.
The troops that from the German perspective should've been on the Ostwall had been lost to the Battle of the Bulge shortly before 2/45.
That's still rather impressive that 2000 men managed to stay the soviet advance for 4 days.
classic military strategy, funnel points
Agreed elderson
MarxWas RothschildsCousinLovsCIAfakeMSM What’s sad?
They didn't genius, the area was full of frontline troops, they just couldn't be used due to lack of training. If anything, it's impressive how Soviet forces after long march and barely supplies left managed to break it with ease, then stopped for resupply...
@@KuK137 The russians captured a map of it.Then used it to go through it with ease.
When it comes to fortification I found in my research that the capacity of the defensive capabilities is the human factor.
Ostwall in comparison to the westwall, has means to escape. The armament etc does not matter so much. Examples: number of older forts had been defended very successfully, even they had no heavy armament. Eg. Brest France (German defence) and Belarus (Russian), fort 5 Königsberg list goes on.
Forts more modern with good armament in lot of cases surrendered after short bombardment, due to low moral and bad leadership.
In case of ostwall using volkssturm was bad idea.
@ Jan Tschierschky *_"When it comes to fortification I found in my research that the capacity of the defensive capabilities is the human factor. Ostwall in comparison to the westwall, has means to escape [...]"_*
Pardon me, but that is simply wrong! Every German casemate of the _"Westwall"_ --- excluding the _Pionierprogramm's_ li'l' pillboxes of cause --- did have an emergency exit, not only those of the _"Oder-Warthe-Bogen, but *every.*
And Koenigsberg's Fort V _"Friedrich Wilhelm III.,*_ an old fashioned _"Biehlersches Einheitsfort",_ held no more than 16 hours of Russian attack. In sharp contrast to that the much modern Forts of the _Fortress Metz,_ the _Festen Haeseler, Prinz August von Württemberg, Alvensleben, Friedrich Karl, Kronprinz,_ and _Kaiserin,_ fighting against _Patton's 3rd Army,_ only surrendered when the German soldiers were beginning to starve. Even _Bloc 8_ du _gros Ouvrage Hackenberg_ held at least 4 days...
@@letoubib21 westwall had no tunnels, except artillery positions, those were limited. Also not aware of any emergency exits. So you incorrect. Yes Königsberg is an old fort, but inner circle had in total 12 forts, all same design, it lasted longest. If you think of Brest france is old and lasted long time, despite allies thrown everything against it even crocodiles. So I don't know where you got your info from, but I visited all locations. Also I spoke to lot of veterans including my grandfathers, number of them were fighting in the west. One of them did fighting retreat around Metz utilising the old German forts, they where holding those till Americans start using petrol and diesel to smoke them out. At the westwall after about 3-4 weeks Americans start to use tank destroyers to blast main door. There was no escape.
So got pretty good idea what I am talking about. Btw look at the budget for westwall versus ostwall and construction time, you notice huge difference. Ostwall was lot more elaborate and costly, however lot shorter and big use of steel. Also some of your times are off, so please do more research
“Volkssturm was a bad idea” pretty much summarizes the end of the war. When you reach that degree of desperation, you have already failed.
History is full of speculative discussion about “what if”, but that ignores the fortunes of the human race. The terrible things that tyrants do are often driven by emotions that ignore facts and defy reason. That’s why they fail.
If past tyrannical regimes had made fewer poor decisions, we might have been eradicated from the Earth already.
0:35 - are they impact deflections from enemy artillery shells ?
Heard of it because of Company of Heroes. :D
I heard about this from history channel when i was 12... i'm suprised no one else heard of it.
I guess it's Hitler related so it could have shown up on the Hitler Channel before it became the junk sorting and amcient aliens channel.
Das ist mal ein gutes Video, des non Visualized Kanals :)
Not mentioned at university in world history class. Thank you.
Even before Barbarossa petered out Von Rundstedt advised Hitler that it was time to make a strategic withdrawal (to shorten the lines) and begin building a reinforced defensive line. He was just following what made the most military sense but Hitler wouldn't hear it.
GOOD VIDEO!!!!
5:40 Maginot line not connected? "The petits ouvrages were generally made up of several infantry bunkers, *connected by a tunnel* network with attached underground facilities, such as barracks, electric generators, ....
I believe that the maginot line had interconnected sub-networks in the fortifications, whereas this whole set is connected, although I could be wrong.
Love history great video
Why no map?? Could you perhaps put a reference map on videos about physical locations??
It says "Międzyrzecz". All you have to do it just go to google maps and type that in. Also there's a website for the museum that takes care of that area in the video: bunkry.pl. It's in English, German, French, Russian, Lithuanian and of course Polish, so take your pick.
dzejrid You might help them with the translation.
“Admission
Are not permitted into the underworld to persons who are capable of indicating how alcohol and other drugs.” :)
@@peterpluim7912 I'm not going to. It amuses me too much.
@@peterpluim7912 :D
It was extensively used not only by squatters, but also by junkies etc. I assume that is the reason, why they have problems with people being on Drugs or Alcohol.
Also it can be quite dangerous if you fall down.
Ah. Sorry, the translations are very bad. I might get them to listen, but only after the damn pandemic.
The Soviet army reached the defence line in the course of the Vistula-Oder Offensive in January 1945, before the Germans could deploy troops; the line was broken in three days. Built in 1934-44, it was the most technologically advanced fortification system of Nazi Germany, and remains one of the largest and the most interesting systems of this type in the world today.
You know... "Ost" means cheese in danish. So when i read the word "ostwall" i can only imagine "Cheese-wall" . . .
The only "cheese wall" is in the U.S. it separates Wisconsin (which is famous for its dairy and cheese) with Illinois, which is famous crime.
Ost is the Scandinavian word for cheese
John W I live in Illinois 5 miles south of the Wisconsin state line. We call it the Cheddar Curtain.
@@michaelryan2520
I know it's called "the cheddar curtain", but they were talking about a wall.
So I used the term wall.
Have you been to the cheese castle? Get the cheese fudge.
@@alexanderthompson7164 Ost = Cheese Öst = East.
I came here after being intrigued by an account from Wehrmacht soldier Armin Scheiderbauer, who stayed briefly in such a well-constructed defensive emplacement while in continuous westward retreat.
I notice you mentioned something about positive air pressure to keep out chemical warfare agents, but that makes me think: why was chemical warfare so much less common in WW2, especially late in the war when virtually all treaties had been violated.
I'm going to guess that all WW2 leaders knew WW1 was a shitshow with the gas attacks, the first who unleashes a gas attack on the other gets a gas attack and so on.
Plus it's not a 100% reliable weapon. If the wind changes direction you're fucked.
The Italians used it on Ethiopia though, shame on the Fascist cowards.
wow some of the bunkers look like they were built couple of years ago..
Would have been nice to see more footage of the fortifications without text over them
2000 out of 60.000 requested troops. Not able to rearm due to lack of skilled enough workers. Overcome in 4 days after the first soviet scouts arrived. Not circumvented, overcome. This illustrates in what a terminal stage of collapse the 3rd Reich and the Wehrmach was in January 1945.
Looks like a ground version of Krasnaya Gorka fort.
Never heard of the Ostwall? You play HOI4 you should know.
The ostwall in that game is the Dnieper one tho
Yeah it should be called the “Panther-Wotan line”
I only know it from it being the name as a national focus in Hoi4 lol
Well my claustrophobia activated just watching this
I only heard about the westwall
Warto zobaczyć. Wcześniej godny uwagi zamek w Międzyrzeczu❤.
Never heard of it - thank you. So this is in Poland, in former German territory but did the Germans seriously consider Poland to be a capable threat, worthy od such efforts or was it actually built as a protection against possible Soviet incursion through Poland?
At least history lecturers tend to tell that Germans just bluffed with that fear over Polish threat, but now it seems that Germans were in fact acctually wary of Polish attack
Predominantly was defensive against Russia. That's why after the deal with the Soviets construction stopped.
@@ninaakari5181 not really
@@jantschierschky3461 Not really. Pilsudski suggested a joint Polish-French attack on Germany in 1933, many influential Nazis had fought in the post-war "Grenzschutz Ost" in Silesia and the German100,000 men Reichswehr was clearly inferior. At the same time the Reichswehr and the Soviets had cooperated in tank-, gas- and air-warfare. Poland was the enemy.
@@thomaswolf2896 well yes, some of the fortification were build than. I am talking about the large construction project around 1935
Lots of battles and wars are completely ignored. Two that come to mind are the trawler battles of Iceland and the China -Vietnam war.
TY🙏🙏
You: Military History not Visualized made a video about the Ostwall so he put it in the thumbnail
Me: Happy Bunkee Boy!
Modern fortifications of this type are “economy of force“’ and channeling of attacking forces systems vs an imperturbable system of defense
That's what majority of today's AD/A2 systems are for. To just push the enemy towards the path you want them to be on, so they can be attacked and flanked and destroyed.
@@jannegrey593 I agree. I do think such modern systems have their weak spots against a sophisticated enemy just as the 20th century systems failed to really deliver on their promises
Pretty ridiculous to think that permanent defensive structures were taken so seriously throughout the war. It goes to show how misunderstood changing battle tactics were received. In the end, such structures are only as strong as the commanders and troops willingness to fight to the last man and last bullet (like the Japanese emplacements).
hehehe 3:22 it's happy! :)
Funny enough i was there several times already!
Great video; thank you. Would like to visit when COVID allows but the website bunkry.pl doesn’t seem to work now? Anyone know if there is a new one?
So forgotten that there are signs and people taking care of them and the area. I guess the then forget as they leave.
It’s sad when you can’t even stop to use your expensive Ostwall because you are running too fast.
Ya, vat's interesting! :)
I am converting British pillboxes (bunkers) into experimental bat habitats. Do you know how I could contact the managers of the Ostwall to ask questions about the gate that allows bats to enter? Many thanks.
still of military value even today actually.
George Doolittle eh, not really. It would stop a army for 15 minutes. 14 of those they would be laughing and 1 for them to go right through
Thermobaric munitions, napalm and othe incindiary applications, bunker busters etc.
Junkers in Tutus you forget the simplest solution. Vertical envelopment. Made popular with the invention of the helicopter in the 1950s
Nobody:
Not a single soul:
MHnV: Dnep-nya
3:00 Move along - this is not the Ostwall you are looking for
I think you should invest in a gimbal for these b-roll shoots. It would really help bring up the production values.
Those don't work with camcorders, reason why I got a camcorder with a built in gimbal.
Ostwall is one of four streets bordering Krefeld. But these streets are so called before the World War II. It is only the historic fortification of the city of Krefeld which were converted at the beginning of the 20th century in four well-developed boulevards. Furthermore, there are in Krefeld the South Wall, the West Wall and the North Wall. Immediately visit the historic city of the silk weavers Krefeld on the Lower Rhine, in North Rhine-Westphalia in beautiful Germany. I hope I have now aroused her interest in a trip to Krefeld. One of the professional firefighters of the city of Krefeld. PS: If you feel like it, visit one of the most modern fire stations in Europe.
it was also known as Panther-Wotan line , it was never completed in time , as the Russians had advanced so fast they didn't have time. Defenses started in August 1943
Now is probably a good moment to rebuild it...
considering now 112.046 people know of ostwall from this video it doesn't seem like it's forgotten at all
1:15 : This is not the Ostwall you are looking for... :-)
Your Führer is hiding in another Ostwall, Ivan..
Well i think the reason people havent heard of ost wall is because usually people dont go into late game germany