German World War II fortresses

German fortresses during World War II (German: Festungen or Fester Platz, lit. 'fixed place'; called pockets by the Allies) were bridgeheads, cities, islands and towns designated by Adolf Hitler as areas that were to be fortified and stocked with food and ammunition in order to hold out against Allied offensives.

The fortress doctrine evolved towards the end of World War II, when the German leadership had not yet accepted defeat, but had begun to realize that drastic measures were required to forestall inevitable Allied offensives. The first such stronghold was Stalingrad.

On the Eastern Front, Warsaw, Budapest, Vilnius, Kolberg, Königsberg, Küstrin, Danzig and Breslau were some of the large cities selected as strongholds.

On the Western Front, Hitler declared eleven major ports as fortresses on 19 January 1944: IJmuiden, the Hook of Holland, Dunkirk, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Le Havre, Cherbourg, Saint-Malo, Brest, Lorient, Saint-Nazaire and the Gironde estuary. In February and March 1944 three more coastal areas were declared to be fortresses: the Channel Islands, Calais and La Rochelle.