Hitler's War Directive No 16,16th July 1940, commands that rail-borne
artillery emplacements are to be constructed to support "Operation
Seelowe, the invasion of England.The railway network on the coast,connecting
these sites, stretched from Calais to Boulogne.These were also
supplemented by coastal batteries, the main 5 where: "Oldenburg" to the
east of Calais,"Lindemann", the biggest batterie with 3, 406mm guns,
near Sangatte;"Grosser Kurfurst"(Great Elector) at Cap Gris Nez, "Todt"
at Haringzelles, 3km SE of Cap Gris Nez, and lastly, "Friedrich August",
near Wimereux. tion.The man given the responsibility of this enormous
task was Dr Fritz Todt who,in 1933 constructed 7000km of 'Autobahn'
covering the whole of Germany.After completing this task,with a
workforce of a quarter of a million men at his disposal, he began work
on the 'Westwall'.
From his headquarters in Wiesbaden which marked the launch of the 'Todt
Organisation',on a round the clock basis,he organised supplies,men and
material working on the 14,000 sites over an area of 630km, involving
over 340,000 men.
On 11th, January,1942, this batterie at it's impressive inauguration was
named 'Siegfried" but,less than a month later,on 8th February Dr Todt
was killed in an air crash which, its cause remains a mystery to this
day. The batterie changed it's name to 'Todt" in honour of his work. |