Operation Kitzinger-Linie

Kitzinger Line

The 'Kitzinger-Linie' was a German unrealised defence line in north-eastern France and about 280 miles (450 km) long and named for General Karl Kitzinger, the Luftwaffe officer responsible for its creation (1944).

The line was to have extended between the Somme and Saône rivers, and the order for the creation of this fallback position in the area of Generaloberst Hans von Salmuth’s (from 25 August 1944 General Gustav-Adolf von Zangen’s) 15th Army were issued on 3 August 1944. However, the pace of the Allied advance toward Belgium and the French border with Germany was so rapid that there was no time to achieve anything but the most basic of planning, and no construction was undertaken.