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The Alpine Fortress ((ドイツ語:Alpenfestung)) or Alpine Redoubt was the World War II national redoubt planned by Heinrich Himmler in November/December 1943〔"Himmler started laying the plans for underground warfare in the last two months of 1943.... The plans are threefold, embracing (1) Open warfare directed from Hitler's mountain headquarters; (2) Sabotage and guerrilla activity conducted by partisan bands organized by districts, and (3) Propaganda warfare to be carried on by some 200,000 Nazi followers in Europe and elsewhere. Strongholds Established Already picked S.S. (elite) troops have been established in underground strongholds and hospitals in the Austrian, Bavarian and Italian Alpine area and it is the plan of Nazi leaders to flee to that region when the German military collapse comes" .〕 for Germany's government and armed forces to retreat to an area from "southern Bavaria across western Austria to northern Italy".〔"But what of the top Nazis who cannot hide? With a compact army of young SS and Hitler Youth fanatics, they will retreat, behind a loyal rearguard cover of Volksgrenadiere and Volksstürmer, to the Alpine massif which reaches from southern Bavaria across western Austria to northern Italy. There immense stores of food and munitions are being laid down in prepared fortifications. If the retreat is a success, such an army might hold out for years" ()〕 The plan was never fully endorsed by Hitler and no serious attempt was made to put the plan into operation. ==History== In the six months following the D-Day landings in Normandy in June 1944, the American and British armies advanced to the Rhine and seemed poised to strike into the heart of Germany, while the Soviet Army, advancing from the east through Poland, reached the Oder. It seemed likely that Berlin would soon fall and Germany be divided. In these circumstances, it occurred both to some leading figures in the German regime and to the Allies that the logical thing for the Germans to do would be to move the government to the mountainous areas of southern Germany and Austria, where a relatively small number of determined troops could hold out for some time. A number of intelligence reports to the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) identified the area held stores of foodstuffs and military supplies built up over the preceding six months, and could even be harbouring armaments production facilities. Within this fortified terrain, they said, Hitler would be able to evade the Allies and cause tremendous difficulties for the occupying Allied forces throughout Germany. The minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, set up a special unit to invent and spread rumours about an ''Alpenfestung''. Goebbels also sent out rumours to neutral governments, thus keeping the Redoubt myth alive and its state of readiness unclear. He enlisted the assistance of the intelligence service of the SS, the SD, to produce faked blueprints and reports on construction supplies, armament production and troop transfers to the Redoubt. This utter deception of allied military intelligence is considered to be one of the greatest feats of the German ''Abwehr'' during the entire war. Although Adolf Hitler never endorsed the plan, he issued an order on 24 April 1945 for the evacuation of remaining government personnel from Berlin to the Redoubt; he made it clear that he would not leave Berlin himself, even if it fell to the Soviets, as it did on 2 May 1945 (see Battle of Berlin). Nevertheless, the National Redoubt had serious military and political consequences. Once the Anglo-American armies had crossed the Rhine and advanced into western Germany a decision had to be made whether to advance on a narrow front towards Berlin or in a simultaneous push by all Western armies spanning from the North Sea to the Alps. America's most aggressive commander, Third Army head General George S. Patton in General Omar Bradley's centrally located Twelfth Army Group, had advocated a narrow front ever since D-Day, and did so again; likewise at this point British 21st Army Group chief Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in the north, each lobbying to be the decisive spearhead. Cautious Allied commander in chief U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower, however, resisted both. Ultimately, this broad front strategy left the Seventh Army of General Jacob L. Devers' southern Sixth Army Group in a position at war's end to race south through Bavaria into Austria to prevent German entrenchment in any mountain redoubt and cut off alpine passes to Nazi escape. When the American armies penetrated Bavaria and western Austria at the end of April, they met little organized resistance, and the National Redoubt was shown to have been a myth. The Alpine Fortress was one of three reasons associated with SHAEF's movement of forces towards southern Germany rather than towards Berlin, which was planned to be in the Soviet Zone of Occupation, and the battle for which would have entailed unacceptably high Western Allied casualties. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Alpine Fortress」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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