German World War II fortresses

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "German World War II fortresses" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

German fortresses (‹See Tfd›German: "Festungen"; called pockets by the Allies) during World War II were bridgeheads, cities, islands and towns designated by Adolf Hitler as areas that were to be fortified and stocked with food and ammunition in order to hold out against Allied offensives.

The fortress doctrine evolved towards the end of World War II, when the German leadership had not yet accepted defeat, but had begun to realize that drastic measures were required to forestall inevitable offensives on the Reich. The first such stronghold was Stalingrad.^[1]