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User / The Molotov Line photographer / Molotov Line, Zambrów Fortified Region, Podbiele strongpoint, Poland
Piotr Tymiński / 250 items
This single-chamber pillbox for two Maxim heavy machineguns is part of Podbiele strongpoint which compactly packs 20 bunkers on a small area. Still 3 more were supposed to be built there but the construction had never progressed beyond the initial earthmoving stage.
Further 27 pillboxes are located just nearby, sitting tightly on both sides of the vital Warsaw-Białystok-Grodno road, and they form another strongpoint (Prosienica).
The old German-Soviet border was just 5 km away and these strongpoints, along with anti-tank ditches, were supposed to protect that vital communication line. In June 1941 there were a lot of Soviet troops in the area but most of them were infantry batallions detached from their regiments and used as an emergency workforce for construction of field defences. They had no geat willingness - and no real possibility - to stem the German advance. It is difficult, and sensless, to fight when armed only with a shovel.
There are very few original German photographs of these pillboxes. Two or three were indeed snapped by some adventurous souls but they are the ones located just near the Warsaw-Grodno road. But at this initial stage the advancing Germans had probably never even seen most of those pillboxes scattered on the fields and hidden in the clusters of trees.
Later, when the frontline moved hundreds of kilometers further to the east, some pillboxes were used as testing sites for various explosives and many were seriously damaged when armored housings were blown off in order to recover precious metal.

This photo is Best on black at Fluidr
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Dates
  • Taken: Aug 6, 2011
  • Uploaded: Dec 4, 2014
  • Updated: Nov 7, 2017