WH093 “Hitler, His Generals & The Atlantic Wall”

This original display set portrays just one of the many meetings where Hitler, the amateur architect, and three of his top generals, including Rommel review some of the latest design models for additional Atlantic Wall fortifications.

The set includes an arms-folded Fuhrer, Field Marshal Rommel, Field Marshal Walter Model on leave from the Eastern Front and SS Oberst-Gruppenfuhrer ‘Sepp’ Dietrich who would go on to command the 1^st SS Panzer Corps during the Battle of Normandy following the invasion.

In front of all four figures is a large table on which are displayed a number of different bunker and pill-box design models for Hitler to comment on and, hopefully, approve.

A great little set that helps tells part of a very big and dramatic story!

The Atlantic Wall was an extensive line of coastal defences and fortifications built by the Germans between 1942 and 1944 along the coast of Western Europe and Scandinavia.  Its purpose was to defend Nazi-occupied Europe from an attack expected to come from Great Britain.

Although construction began in 1942 by late 1943 it was far from complete and its actual strength and size was greatly exaggerated by German propaganda.

Early in 1944. as an Allied invasion of the Continent became ever more likely, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was put in charge of improving and building up the wall’s defences. Rommel’s main concern however was Allied air power.  He had seen in North Africa how the might of the British and American air forces could inflict huge damage on his ground forces and it had left a deep impression.

In Western Europe he also knew that any German counter attacks would be broken up by Allied aircraft long before they reached any invading beachhead. Rommel intended to stop the enemy invaders on the beach itself and to accomplish that many more bunkers, pill boxes and beach obstacles had to be constructed and installed as quickly as possible.

In order to do that plans, designs and models for all of these defences had to be approved by the Fuhrer himself.