re: April 30, 1945 - The Death of Adolf Hitler

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BS. France left the Low Countries out to dry with the Maginot Line.

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You have to look at the French strategy to understand why the Maginot Line stopped at the border with the Low Countries. For starters, the French wanted to avoid having another war fought on their territory after the devastation WWI wrought upon Northern France. The plan France came up with was commonly known as the “Dyle Plan” or “Plan D”. France anticipated the Germans to once again use Belgium as its main invasion route as they had done in 1914. The Dyle Plan envisioned the Maginot Line holding in the south along the Franco-German border while the French 1st Army Group in the north rushed to the Dyle River in Belgium to stop the Germans there.

What the French failed to realize though is the Wehrmacht would use the Ardennes Forest in Southern Belgium as a major avenue of attack. The French considered it impossible to move a large force though the Ardennes (a mistake the Allies would inextricably repeat four years later) and only put light forces to hold this sector. But the Germans, as part of their war plan “Case Yellow” did in fact push an entire Panzergruppe of five Panzer Divisions right through the Ardennes in relatively quick fashion. This move meant that the Allied forces pushing into Belgium further to the north were effectively putting their head into a noose. Once von Kliest’s Panzergruppe broke though the thin French screen holding the Ardennes sector, there was little to nothing to stop them from reaching the channel ports, thus encircling the entire BEF and the French 1st Army Group. It also meant there was little standing between the Wehrmacht and Paris. This is why the French Campaign lasted only six weeks.