| Original caption: “France; bombing damage.” Looking south towards what is now Route D49 and Église Saint-Martin de Saint-Dié-des-Vosges. Commonly called “Saint Dié,” Nazi German forces retreated from Paris, 240 miles (387 kilometers) away, in August 1944 and set up defensive lines in the Vosges Mountains. Note the World War I Memorial. German forces in the Vosges mountains were ordered to establish a defensive position west of the ridge line of the mountains, titled the Schutzwall West (“Protective Wall West”). Up to 30,000 Hitler Youth members from Germany were brought in to help with the construction of the fortified line. Planned as a massive fortification stretching from southern Belgium to the Swiss border, in practice little of it was completed because of a lack of resources, but also because of harassment of the work groups by the Maquis. 31 Special Air Service (SAS) operatives, parachuted into the Vosges, were captured and executed under the Commando Order of October 18, 1942. They did not expect thousands of Nazi German soldiers in the area. The Nazis rounded up any Frenchmen suspected of resistance activity supporting the SAS and deported them to Germany for forced labor. Out of 210 French men and boys sent to Germany, only 70 returned after the war. Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, and the region east of the ridge line of the Vosges mountains had become part of Germany after 1940, as it had been from 1870 to 1918, and was, at the time, predominantly German-speaking. Virtually no active resistance existed in the eastern part while, in the western part, it greatly increased in mid-1944. Operation Waldfest was a scorched-earth operation as Patton’s 3rd Army approached the Vosges. Almost 1,500 French civilians were killed in the fighting or executed, and close to 14,000 French civilians deported to concentration camps or as forced labor, in September. A 2nd phase burned civilian homes. Saint-Dié-des-Vosges was then bombed during the 3rd Army’s advance. 2,000 houses were destroyed in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges; the town burned for 5 days after having been set alight on November 14 and was liberated by the United States Army 100th Division on November 23. It was the most-destroyed city of eastern France during the war. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0409.jpg |
| Image Size | 862.98 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2936 x 2044 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | January 1, 1945 |
| Location | |
| City | |
| State or Province | |
| Country | France |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NLR-PHOCO-A-5230(3) |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
Author of the World War II Multimedia Database