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Show German Rivers Form Network Of Natural Barriers to Allies sPumb.ri. D$ti&,ARKb .BALTIC SEA . NORTH ,.,1:4 ' ftv.'. 7"o "VVa 3 -Crev-A .-!" 'Dr.id.rrv v t . o : rifV' (vr Fffir K Bc.ifor.t.;.. . v&B.;htd,nVV,': :- .BA4P?tM Oy the National Geographic Society. BETWEEN the Allied forces on the western and eastern fronts, Germany's large and small rivers spread a formidable network of natural fortresses. Germany is one of the best-watered best-watered ol the world's big countries. coun-tries. In peacetime its long rivers, together with innumerable branches and extensive canal systems, carried car-ried one-fifth of the country's traffic. traf-fic. When the war came, the Nazi government ordered still more water-borne transport to relieve railways, rail-ways, especially in the shipping of quantities of army materials. Today, the Reich's Intricate waterways, resembling re-sembling on the map a giant cobweb, cob-web, serve to hold up and entangle, at least temporarily, the Allied advancing ad-vancing forces. In the rewinning of Europe, an important part has already been played by even minor rivers, whose names are found only on large-scale maps. Deeper penetration of the Ithineland, for example, which had been slowed up under the threat of Nazi-controlled waters of the Roer, was finally made possible when the Yanks captured the Roer river dam southeast of Aachen. It was not achieved, however, before the Germans Ger-mans had loosed a flood downstream by blowing up the dam gates. On the eastern front, such sub-defense lines as the Bober and Neisse rivers riv-ers were prominent In the news a few weeks ago. In yet uninvaded territory, the Allies Al-lies have sometimes turned Germany's Ger-many's own rivers against her. This happened dramatically in 1943 and 1944, when RAF fliers bombed the Eder, Mohne and Sorpe dams, the latter two on Ruhr river tributaries, causing floods that devastated vital industrial and farming areas. Nine Big Streams. The major rivers of Germany are tha Rhine, Elbe, Oder, Weser and Ems, flowing northward to the North and Baltic seas; and the Main, Danube, Dan-ube, Isar and Inn rivers crossing inland central and southern regions. The Rhine extends for more than 800 miles from Switzerland to Rotterdam Rot-terdam in the Netherlands. The Elbe is more than 720 miles long from its source inside Bohemia. The Oder is about 550 miles; the Weser 280 and the Ems 200. In southern Germany, the German part of the Danube is about 790 miles long; its tributaries, the Isar and Inn, about 220 and 320 miles respectively. The Main is 305 miles. Many more rivers now separate Berlin from the western than from the eastern front. Reading the map from west to east, the Rhine, Ems, Weser and Elbe are roughly parallel paral-lel obstacles facing American, Brit- ish and Canadian forces. In the east, the Oder was the only major river inside Germany proper that barred movement toward the Nazi capital. It is only a little more than 30 miles northeast of Berlin, at its nearest point. The rivers of central and southern south-ern Germany present the strategist with entirely different geographic problems. Instead of parallel barriers bar-riers against east-west advances, they offer possible cross-country corridors. cor-ridors. The broad valley of the Danube, for instance, is an old invasion in-vasion route from the southeast. The Isar and Inn valleys are side roads leading from the Danube to important impor-tant centers of Nazi life. Munich, birthplace of the Nazi movement, is situated on the Isar. The Inn river valley is a natural path southward south-ward through the mountains to the Brenner pass and Italy. In central Germany, the Main winds generally westward to meet the middle Rhine at Mainz. Industries in North. So far, Allied drives inside Germany Ger-many have been directed against the rivers of the north, where the German Ger-man capital and chief productive centers are found. Germany's leading lead-ing industrial areas lie along or near the Rhine and Oder rivers. The Ruhr concentration of mines and factories, turning out iron and steel, chemicals and synthetic oil, covers a broad region straddling the Ruhr river, a tributary of the lower Rhine. The Saar district is west of central sections of the big river, but connected with it by several streams. The Silesian area, in the southeast corner of Germany, lies on both sides of the upper Oder. During Dur-ing the war, it was developed as an arsenal ranking after the Ruhr in essential production. With their convenient location and length, the Rhine and Oder were especially valuable as traffic lanes for Nazi shipping. Set along the Rhine are such important river ports and industrial centers as Karlsruhe, Mainz, Cologne and Duis-burg. Duis-burg. In the adjacent Ruhr valley, Dortmund, Bochum and Essen are among leading heavy industry names. Along the Oder, similarly important impor-tant cities Oppeln, Breslau, Frankfurt Frank-furt and Kustrin were aids to Nazi power before the recent Russian offensive of-fensive in this region. Open-Country Rivers. The fiat and rolling north German plain, largely open country, affords little in the way of natural defense, except the Ems, Weser and Elbe rivers, all flowing into the North sea, west of the Danish peninsula. Only the Oder has Baltic sea outlet, at Stettin. i On the North sea coast of Germany Ger-many are the nation's leading seaports, sea-ports, Hamburg on the Elbe, and Bremen on the Weser. Less-significant Emden lies near the estuary of the Ems, with the big naval base of Wilhelmshaven not far away. The Kiel canal cuts across the Danish-German Danish-German peninsula to the northeast, with the Kiel base at its terminus. All of these seaports, like the chief river ports of Germany, long have been under heavy bombing attacks. Berlin itself is both an overland and water - transport center. One hundred miles from the Baltic, It is on the Spree river, near that stream's junction with the Havel, which in turn flows into the Elbe. Reaching Berlin, as well as many other leading industrial cities, the Midland canal, opened in 1938, unites a vast network of German rivers by a cross-country channel. This and other canals link the Rhine and the Oder. |