Fortified Sector of the Lower Rhine

Follow-up incursions from the north and at Strasbourg left much of the SF Lower Rhine in German hands by the armistice of 25 June.

The defense of the area surrounding Strasbourg benefited from the width of the Rhine and its numerous oxbows and dead arms that complicate movement on the French side of the river.

No interconnected ouvrages of the type found in sections of the main Maginot Line just to the west were built in the Lower Rhine sector.

[1] Strasbourg was effectively considered an open city, as it could otherwise be easily destroyed by German artillery on the other side of the Rhine.

[3] The riverbank fortifications were of a basic nature, with protection only up to 155mm caliber, machine gun armament and no electrical system.

The 6th Corps in turn comprised the 62nd Infantry Division under General Sarrebourse de la Guillonère.

The casemate lines along the Rhine were not supported by significant mobile forces or field artillery, which had been diverted to more urgent tasks.

German forces, under General Dollmann, amounted to seven divisions of the Seventh Army, supported by about three hundred artillery pieces, chiefly concentrated opposite the SF Colmar, just to the south.

The artillery bombardment and infantry attack destroyed most French positions, with only Casemate Rhinau Sud holding out through the day.

Most positions suffered a fate similar to Rhinau Nord, which was quickly overcome by the attackers with one French death.

[11] Meanwhile, the German 165th ID, having penetrated the main Maginot Line at the weakly defended Sarre sector, moved south into the SF Lower Rhine.

The regiment's interval units received orders to fall back to the Bruche valley in the Vosges on 13 June.

[13] As Allied forces approached the Rhine in November 1944, the Germans destroyed many of the bankside fortifications that had escaped damage in 1940.