German hydrogeological maps prepared for Operation ‘Sealion’: the proposed invasion of England in 1940

Specialist Maps Prepared by German Military Geologists for Operation Sealion: the Invasion of England Scheduled for September 1940

“…It illustrates the range, means and purpose of specialist mapping by German geologists at an early stage of the war, noting that a wider range of expertise was used to generate specialist maps for the German armed forces by three years later. It amplifies a recent account which focused upon hydrogeological aspects alone (Rose, Mather and Willig, 2002) by describing the mapping of coastal geomorphology, quarry sites for construction materials and off-road trafficability; also a brief conference paper (Rose and Willig, 2004), prepared for a military audience, by greatly increased cartographic and historical detail. Only two of the eleven maps illustrated here have been reproduced previously (Rose and Willig, 2004), neither of them in colour or by component detail; three can be complemented by simple explanatory diagrams with English rather than the original German text (Figures 4, 5 and 6 of Rose et al, 2002).…”

“…By mid-September, the plan was to land ten divisions (seven infantry, two mountain and one airborne) in the first wave of the attack, in total about 138 000 men in two days, followed by more divisions in the second and third waves to build up a total of some 248 000 to 300 000 troops within two weeks. Yet it is largely unknown that to guide planning, military geological units were deployed in support of the two armies (Rose et al, 2002;Willig, 2002a, b, 2004) to generate specialist maps which analysed the terrain in terms of different aspects of potential military land use.…”

“…Wehrgeologengruppe Lille was led in the summer of 1940 by Professor Otto Burre (Häusler, 1995a, b;Rose and Willig, 2002b), a veteran of the First World War who achieved distinction between the wars as a senior member of the Prussian Geological Survey (Nöring, 1975). His signature appears on most of the explanatory leaflets which accompanied the 16th Army's coastal geomorphology and water-supply maps prepared for Operation Sealion (Rose et al, 2002). The only other signature is that of Dr Ferdinand Trusheim, pre-war on the geological teaching staff of the University of Würzburg (Plein, 1997) but posted for military service in 1939, and during the Battle of France (from May to June 1940) the 'Corps geologist' with the German 7th Corps, part of the 16th Army (Häusler, 1995b;Rose and Willig, 2002b).…”

“…The Corps headquarters was near Rouen, the capital of Upper Normandy and a major French port (Wheatley, 1958). By October 1940 Rouen was also the base for a military geology out-station of Wehrgeologengruppe Brussels (Häusler, 1995a), with links to Wehrgeologengruppe Paris Wheatley (1958), Maier (1995, by permission of Oxford University Press; from Rose et al (2002), courtesy of the Geologists' Association (Häusler, 2000, Figure 7.2), so it seems likely that the 9th Army's specialist maps were generated by German military geologists working at or near Rouen -possibly led by Carl Hahne, pre-war a specialist in coal-field geology on the professorial staff of the 'polytechnic' at Aachen (Rose and Willig, 2002b).…”

“…Two were produced by geologists supporting the German 16th Army, two by those of the 9th Army. Rose et al, 2002).…”