Festung
Festung is a generic German word for a fortress. Although it is not in common usage in English, it is used in a number of historical contexts involving German speakers:
- For historical fortresses in Austria, Germany or Switzerland
- As part of the reasoning given by the German Army (Heer) for the slow progress of the Siege of Warsaw
- For German WWII strongholds which were to be held at all costs, especially towards the end of the war:
- Alpine Fortress or Alpenfestung
- Atlantic wall or Festung Europa — a military propaganda term from the Second World War which referred to the areas of Continental Europe occupied by Nazi Germany.
- Stalingrad (see Battle of Stalingrad)
- Warsaw (Festung Warschau) see also the Warsaw Uprising
- Poznań (Battle of Posen)
- Kolobrzeg (Battle of Kolberg)
- Piła (Festung Schneidemühl)
- Wrocław (Festung Breslau)
- Budapest (Battle of Budapest)
- Kaliningrad (Festung Königsberg)
- For entire countries such as Norway which were heavily fortified in World War II. See Festung Norwegen.
- For proposed post war German enclaves (festungen, literally "strongholds") in places such as Brest and Trondheim (see Nordstern (city) § Atlantic Wall)
- For planned national redoubts such as Switzerland's National Redoubt (Schweizer Alpenfestung).
See also
- Die Festung, novel by Lothar-Günther Buchheim
Look up festung in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
References
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