In 1943, Hitler ordered his forces to occupy the Italian mainland to protect the Third Reich's 'soft underbelly'. Although the Allied landings in Salerno in 1943 were successful, the Germans fought a series of hard, rearguard actions as the Allies slowly pushed north up the Apennines towards the Alp[...]
During World War II, the Germans occupied the undefended Channel Islands from the end of June 1940 until the end of the war, creating a series of defensive positions that was considered the strongest stretch of the Atlantic Wall. The Channel Islands fortifications can be seen as the pinnacle of Germ[...]