Panther-Wotan line

The Panther–Wotan line (also known as the East Wall or Ostwall) was a defensive line partially built by the German Wehrmacht in 1943 on the Eastern Front. The first part of the name refers to the short northern section between Lake Peipus and the Baltic Sea at Narva. It stretched all the way south towards the Black Sea along Dnieper.

After reverses on the eastern front in 1942, there were calls in early 1943 for the construction of fortifications and defenses in depth along the Dnieper river. After the Battle of Kursk and the invasion of Italy, there was a need to both conserve forces in the east and shift to defensive operations. Adolf Hitler ordered the construction of the defensive lines in August 1943; with this, he accepted the abandonment of any further offensive strategy in the east.

A large portion of the line ran along the Dnieper River, from just west of Smolensk to the Black Sea. The line left the banks of the Dnieper only where another major tributary offered similar defensive capabilities. In the south, where the Dnieper curved (western Dnipropetrovsk Oblast) to the west, it was decided to construct the line east of the Dnieper in order to avoid the evacuation or isolation of the Crimea. The Dniper line offered no protection to the Crimea's Isthmus of Perekop link with the mainland. In the north, the line was to have been constructed roughly from Vitebsk to Pskov, where it then followed the west bank of Lake Peipus, and its river delta to the Baltic Sea at Narva.

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