page_title: Fortress Europe
section_title: World War II defenses
hierarchical_section_title: Fortress Europe / World War II defenses
caption_attribution_description: English: Allied invasion plans and German positions in Normandy. Deutsch: Alliierte Invasionspläne und deutsche Positionen zur Invasion in der Normandie.
context_page_description: Fortress Europe was a military propaganda term used by both sides of the Second World War which referred to the areas of Continental Europe occupied by Nazi Germany, as opposed to the United Kingdom across the Channel.
context_section_description: In British phraseology, Fortress Europe meant the battle honour accorded to Royal Air Force and Allied squadrons during the war, but to qualify, operations had to be made by aircraft based in Britain against targets in Germany, Italy and other parts of German-occupied Europe, in the period from the fall of France to the Normandy invasion.
  Simultaneously, the term Festung Europa was being used by Nazi propaganda, namely to refer to Hitler's and the Wehrmacht's plans to fortify the whole of occupied Europe, in order to prevent invasion from the British Isle's troops. These measures included the construction of the Atlantic wall, along with reorganization of the Luftwaffe for air defense. This use of the term Fortress Europe was subsequently adopted by correspondents and historians in the English language to describe the military efforts of the Axis powers at defending the continent from the Allies.
caption: D-day assault map of Normandy and northwest coastal France
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