In 1942 Germany began construction on the Atlantic Wall, a 2,400-mile network of bunkers, pillboxes, mines and landing obstacles up and down the French coastline. But thanks in large part to a brilliant Allied deception campaign and Hitler’s fanatical grip on Nazi military decisions, the D-Day invasion of Jbecame precisely the turning point that the Germans most feared.
Adolf Hitler arriving at the Berlin Sportpalast, being greeted by Nazi salutes, circa 1940.Īs early as 1942, Adolf Hitler knew that a large-scale Allied invasion of France could turn the tide of the war in Europe.
