Word: lossberg
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...tactical principle of the Siegfried Position was that of defense in depth; the idea being that an offensive force may crack a narrow wall but will be stopped or bounced back by a series of cushions and springs backing up each other. Colonel Lossberg's new type of front was some two miles deep, divided into forward zone, battle zone, rearward battle zone and two more rearward zones for mobile reserves...
...April 1917, Colonel Lossberg was rewarded with the job of Ludendorff's Chief of Staff, and even though 18 months later his fortifications had fallen and his cause was lost, he had earned his brassard. When on September 29, 1918 the men of the U. S. II Corps went up against the final defenses of his Siegfried Position at Bellicourt, they had hell's own time. Between Bellicourt and Bony the St. Quentin Canal passed through a tunnel. In complete safety from shellfire the Germans massed reserve troops who lived in there on barges, ate in kitchens carved...
...million laborers worked on it 20 hours a day. "The world's cannon and artillery cannot break through it," boasted the German high command as it was being rushed toward completion this summer. But in principle the new Siegfried Stellung is just a three-ring version of Colonel Lossberg's old zonal defense system...
Unlike the solid, continuous Maginot Line, the Siegfried Position carries on the old Lossberg concept of defense in depth and swift counterattack from a protected rear. A break-through would be the signal for the great rear fortifications to open up with heavy artillery fire (spare gun-barrels as well as a large supply of munitions are cached in deep caverns connected by tunnel railways). Mobile troops, hitherto protected, would thrust out at the invading flanks. The cushion-&-spring force would be terrific...
...Aged 71, Major General Fritz von Lossberg retired from the Army...