While the German army had seen its strength and morale heavily depleted by campaigns in Russia, North Africa and Italy, it remained a powerful fighting force. Despite this, most of the German divisions along the French coast in late 1943 were composed of either new recruits or veteran units resting and rebuilding from the Eastern Front; altogether some 856,000 soldiers were stationed in France, predominantly on the coast. An additional 60,000 (voluntary helpers), USSR and Polish members of the German army, served on the French coast. Under the command of Field Marshals Erwin Rommel and Gerd von Rundstedt, the defences of the Atlantic Wall—a line of coastal gun emplacements, machine-gun nests, minefields and beach obstacles along the French coast—were increased; in the first six months of 1944, the Germans laid of steel and of concrete. Rommel also surrounded the coast with four million anti-tank and anti-personnel mines and 500,000 beach obstacles.