Deutsch: Ringstände.
English: A Tobruk or Ringstand is a type of small concrete bunker, with a machine gun position, which was built by the Germans in late 1944, around the Meuse (River Maas) area, and elsewhere on the Atlantic Wall.
Italiano: Il Tobruk, piccola struttura difensiva, un piccolo bunker.
The term “Tobruk” was the Allied slang for a type of German fortification called a Ringstände. These were generally light machine gun bunkers with a 360 degree field of fire and no overhead protection.
Although holding only a single person, they would normally be linked together by trenches into a larger defensive position called a Widerstandnest or resistance nest.
Ringstände could be found in many locations other than the Siegfried Line, most famously perhaps on the Normandy beachhead.
It is likely that the term “Tobruk” derived from allied encounters with positions created by the Italians in the defensive perimeter around the port of Tobruk in North Africa. These positions were first formed of concrete drainage pipe inserted into the ground vertically, with the opening level with the ground and without any protection over-head.