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    Siegfried Line 1944–45: Battles on the German frontier
    Siegfried Line 1944–45: Battles on the German frontier
    Siegfried Line 1944–45: Battles on the German frontier
    Ebook206 pages1 hour

    Siegfried Line 1944–45: Battles on the German frontier

    By Steven J. Zaloga and Steve Noon

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    An in-depth examination of one of the most frustrating and costly efforts by the US Army in the European Theater of Operations.

    The Allies first encountered the Siegfried Line (Westwall) fortifications in September 1944, having pursued the retreating Wehrmacht through Belgium and the Netherlands. The border area around Aachen had been fortified with a double line of bunkers, and both the terrain and the weather made things difficult for the Allies.

    With illustrations throughout, this book focuses on the involvement of the US First and Ninth armies in the six-month fighting, including the hellish fighting for the Hürtgen forest.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJan 20, 2013
    ISBN9781472800183
    Siegfried Line 1944–45: Battles on the German frontier
    Author

    Steven J. Zaloga

    Steven J. Zaloga received his BA in History from Union College and his MA from Columbia University. He has worked as an analyst in the aerospace industry for three decades, covering missile systems and the international arms trade, and has served with the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federal think tank. He is the author of numerous books on military technology and history, including NVG 294 Allied Tanks in Normandy 1944 and NVG 283 American Guided Missiles of World War II. He currently lives in Maryland, USA.

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      I liked the document, especially the detailed 3D battlefield visualizations.

    Book preview

    Siegfried Line 1944–45 - Steven J. Zaloga

    (NARA)

    INTRODUCTION

    The western frontier of the Third Reich was protected by the Westwall fortifications, better known to the Allies as the Siegfried Line. The Allies began encountering the Siegfried Line in September 1944 after pursuing the retreating Wehrmacht through Belgium and the Netherlands. Fighting along the Westwall lasted for more than six months, with the final major operations in March 1945 in the Saar. All of the major Allied formations, including Montgomery’s 21st Army Group, Bradley’s 12th Army Group, and Devers’ 6th Army Group, were involved at one time or another in fighting against the Westwall defenses. However, the focus of this book is on the most concentrated and intense fighting along the Siegfried Line by the US First and Ninth armies, the campaign that epitomizes the grim battles along the German frontier. Given its nature as a historic invasion route towards Germany’s industrial heartland in the Ruhr, the Wehrmacht fortified the border area around Aachen with a double line of bunkers. The campaign in the autumn of 1944 and the winter of 1944/45 was one of the most frustrating and costly efforts by the US Army in the European theater in World War II, reaching its crescendo in the hellish fighting for the Hürtgen forest. Although the US Army finally broke through the defenses by the middle of December 1944 and reached the River Roer, the German counter-offensive in the neighboring Ardennes put a temporary halt to the fighting. It resumed in February 1945, culminating in Operation Grenade, the crossing of the Roer.

    A pair of GIs take cover from the incessant rain under the rear of an M4 tank. They are from 2/60th Infantry, 9th Division, which teamed up with Task Force Hogan of the 3rd Armored Division to assault the village of Geich beyond the Langerwehe industrial area on December 11, 1944. (NARA)

    CHRONOLOGY

    1944

    THE STRATEGIC SITUATION

    By the middle of September 1944, the Wehrmacht in the west was in a desperate crisis. Following the Allied breakout from Normandy in late July, the German forces in northern France had become enveloped in a series of devastating encirclements starting with the Roncey pocket in late July, the Falaise pocket in mid August, the River Seine in late August, and the Mons pocket in Belgium in early September. The three weeks from August 21 to September 16 were later called the void by German commanders as the German defensive positions in northern France and Belgium disintegrated into rout and chaos in the face of onrushing Allied forces. These catastrophes destroyed much of the 7th and 15th armies along with parts of the 19th Army. On August 15, 1944, the US Army staged a second amphibious landing on the Mediterranean coast in southern France. The US Seventh Army raced northward towards Lorraine, threatening to cut off the remainder of German occupation forces in western and central France. As a result, there was a hasty withdrawal of the German 1st Army from the Atlantic coast as well as elements of the 19th Army from central France, precipitously ending the German occupation of France. German losses in the west in the late summer totaled over 300,000 troops, and another 200,000 were trapped in various ports along the Atlantic, such as Brest, Lorient, and Royan.

    GIs warily peer around a corner in Thimister, Belgium on September 11, on the way to Aachen. (NARA)

    Since their construction in 1938–40, many of the Westwall bunkers had become abandoned and overgrown like this example near Aachen. (NARA)

    The situation on the Russian Front was even worse, with Army Group Center having been destroyed at the start of the Soviet summer offensive and the Wehrmacht pushed entirely out of the Soviet Union into Poland and the Balkans. Germany’s eastern alliances collapsed as Finland and Romania switched sides, and in the process the vital Romanian oilfields were lost. The Red Army was already in East Prussia and had advanced as far as the Vistula before running out of steam in August. The Wehrmacht was on the brink of anarchy with commanders unable to halt their retreating troops, and new defense lines manned by inexperienced and untested soldiers. Casualties during the summer had totaled 1.2 million troops and a quarter million horses.

    From the perspective of Gen Dwight Eisenhower’s Supreme Headquarters-Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), the strong feeling was that the Wehrmacht was in its death throes, much like the German Army on the Western Front in November 1918. German officers had tried to kill Hitler in July, and it seemed entirely possible that the Wehrmacht would totally collapse. After the stupendous advance of the past month, bold action seemed the order of the day. The otherwise cautious Gen Bernard Montgomery proposed an audacious and imaginative plan to streak through the Netherlands by seizing a bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem. This would propel the 21st Army Group into Germany’s vital Ruhr industrial region, which would effectively cripple the German war industry. Operation Market Garden, a combined airborne-mechanized campaign from Eindhoven to Arnhem, proved to be a disappointing failure. Instead of facing a retreating rabble, the Wehrmacht seemed to grow in strength the closer the Allies approached the German frontier. By the third week of September, it was becoming clear that the Wehrmacht had already reached its nadir and was beginning to recover its ferocious defensive potential. This abrupt change was later dubbed the miracle of the west.

    The momentum of the campaign in northwest Europe began to slow abruptly in mid September as the Allies outran their supply lines. Initial planning had not anticipated that the Allied armies would advance so rapidly, and logistics were beginning to place a limit on Allied operations. On September 11, 1944, the first day US troops entered Germany, the Allies were along a phase line that the Operation Overlord plans did not expect to reach until D+330 (May 2, 1945) – some 233 days ahead of schedule. While Montgomery was attempting to reach the bridge too far at Arnhem, Patton’s Third Army had been forced to halt in Lorraine, even though the path seemed open for a rapid advance on Frankfurt and the Rhine. Allied logistics could only support one

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