N-82 "Brezinka"
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Light forts	Heavy forts - blockhouses	Museums of Czechoslovakian fortresses	Photos	Links

In 1933 Adolf Hitler won the elections in Germany. The young Czechoslovakia had to secure its borders against a surprise German attack. There were two concepts how to do it. The first one -build large mobile army, and the second oone -build border fortersses. The first one had a big disadvantage. Czechoslovakia was too small to build a mobile army powerful enough to stop the bigger German army. However the second one also had disadvantages. If the fort line was broken, there wouldn't be enough strength to stop the enemy units entering Czechoslovakia. The second one won in the end, because the fortresses were built with an idea, that they could stop the enemy as long as alied forces (France and Great Britain) entered the war with an attack against Germany from the west.

Czech engineers were influenced by the French Maginot Line (the Maginot Line was a system of French border fortresses, which was building from the early thirties to the begining of WWII), so the first types of the Czechoslovakian fortresses look much like the French types. There were two main types of the forts - light and heavy (blockhouses).

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Ladislav Růžička

Lruzicka@geocities.com

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