Battle of the Bulge

:For other meanings of Wacht Am Rhein, see Watch on the Rhine (disambiguation)

Background

Lead-up

The breakout from Normandy in August 1944 saw the Allies dash across France at unprecedented speeds. Doing so presented enormous logistical problems, as their only deep-water port was at Cherbourg near the original invasion beaches. Although additional port towns had been captured since the invasion, the Germans were careful to wreck them thoroughly to deny their use. Adding to the problem was the near-complete destruction of the French railroad system prior to D-Day, intended to deny movement to the Germans, but now proved equally damaging to the Allies. Instead, a massive trucking system known as the Red Ball Express had been set up, but by the time it reached the Belgian border it had burned five gallons of fuel for every one it delivered. Although the German forces continued to stream rearward, by early October the supply situation was so poor that the Allied armies were unable to make much headway.

Related Topics:
Normandy - 1944 - France - Logistical - Cherbourg - Railroad - Red Ball Express

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Each of the Allied generals pressed for all of the supplies to be given to his own army, in order to bring at least a single army to full supply for an offensive. Eisenhower, however, maintained the position of a broad-front strategy though with priority for Northern forces, since their short-term goal included opening the urgently needed port of Antwerp, and their long-term goal was the capture of the Ruhr area, the industrial heart of Germany. With the Allies regrouping for supplies the front quieted down, allowing Gerd von Rundstedt to reorganize the remaining German units into a small but somewhat effective defensive force.

Related Topics:
Eisenhower - Antwerp - Ruhr area - Gerd von Rundstedt

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Bernard Montgomery's Operation Market Garden, an October offensive designed to open Antwerp, cross the Rhine and bypass the Siegfried Line, was unsuccessful and left the Allies in little better position than before. In November the Canadian First Army fought the Battle of the Scheldt, clearing the Westerschelde by taking Walcheren and opening the huge ports of Antwerp to shipping. By the end of the month the supply situation was easing, although allied forces were still spread all over France, Belgium and Luxembourg. It is not in doubt that the Battle of the Scheldt was at least as important as Market Garden, but in the popular press of the time and in popular English language books on the campaign written since the end of the war, mopping up German pockets of resistance was not as glamorous or as well publicised as the advance of the main Western Front towards Germany.

Related Topics:
Bernard Montgomery - Operation Market Garden - Rhine - Canadian First Army - Battle of the Scheldt - Westerschelde - Walcheren

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The German situation was dire. Earlier in the summer Operation Bagration—a massive Soviet offensive on the Eastern Front—burnt itself out in eastern Poland in what the Germans referred to as The Destruction of Army Group Center. Soviet progress was so fast that the offensive only ended due to supply issues and fatigue. Now, several months later, it was clear the Soviet forces were preparing for a winter offensive, likely in December.

Related Topics:
Operation Bagration - Soviet - Eastern Front - Poland - Army Group Center

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Meanwhile, the Allied air offensive of early 1944 had effectively grounded the Luftwaffe, leaving them with little battlefield intelligence and no way to interdict Allied supplies. The converse was equally damaging: daytime movement of forces was almost instantly noticed, and interdiction of supplies combined with the bombing of the Romanian oilfields starved Germany of oil and gasoline.

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The only "upside" for the German forces at the time was that they were no longer defending all of western Europe. The front lines in the west were considerably shorter and closer to the German heartland, dramatically improving their supply problems regardless of the Allied air control. Additionally, their extensive telephone and telegraph network meant that radios no longer had to be used for communications, which deprived the Allies of their most powerful weapon, Ultra intercepts.

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With the end of Bagration and the Canadian advance, fighting eased as autumn encroached on Europe, with only limited operations during the Lorraine Campaign and the Battle of Aachen.

Related Topics:
Lorraine Campaign - Battle of Aachen

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Drafting the offensive

Hitler had no illusions as to the overall situation, but felt that they could mount a successful defense of Germany if they were fighting on only one front. When Market Garden burned out at about the same time as the Operation Bagration, control of the tempo of operations swung briefly to the German side. It was clear that if there was ever going to be a time to attack, this was it.

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Given the state of German forces at the time there was little chance of a successful offensive against the massive Soviet armies. Several plans along these lines were offered, but they seemed to have little strategic effect. Even pinching off and destroying entire armies would leave the Soviets with a force larger than the German one, and there was little in terms of "natural" defensive lines that would be useful to control that weren't already in German hands.

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In the west the possibilities were more interesting. The supply problems were clearly having a huge effect on Allied operations, although with the opening of Antwerp things were moving in their favour once again. The forces were strung out along a front running from southern France to the middle of the Netherlands, with several areas that were poorly defended. A successful strike could upset their forces for some time.

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Several plans were put forward, but the German High Command quickly started concentrating on two. One called for a two-prong attack along the borders of the U.S. armies, hoping to encircle the 9th and 3rd armies and leave the German forces back in control of the excellent defensive grounds where they had fought the U.S. to a standstill earlier in the year. The other called for a classic blitzkrieg offensive through the thinly defended Ardennes, splitting the armies along the U.S.-British lines and capturing Antwerp. Called "Wacht Am Rhein," or "Watch on the Rhine," the name was deceptive in nature, implying a watch and wait strategy on the Western Front (A popular German song also shared this name for the offensive).

Related Topics:
Blitzkrieg - Ardennes - Antwerp - A popular German song

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Both plans concentrated on attacks against the American forces, due largely to Hitler's view of Americans as incapable of fighting effectively, and of the American home front as likely to crack under a heavy blow. There is no evidence that Hitler realized, or that any of his military staff pointed out, that, of all the major combatants, the United States was the one which up to this point in the war had been damaged the least, and had the greatest restorative powers.

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Hitler concentrated on the latter plan from the start. Pinching off a U.S. army might cause them to be battered, but with the British forces still in the field and several other U.S. armies nearby, a successful battle would do little to the overall situation. Splitting the U.S.-British armies, on the other hand, was considerably more interesting. The battles between Montgomery and Patton were well known, and Hitler believed that the two would quickly start fighting if things started going poorly. If the attack was successful and Antwerp were to fall, their newly won supply lines would be cut off and four complete armies would be trapped to the north behind German lines. Hitler believed that if the operation were successful the Western Allies would sue for peace, leaving them to deal with the Soviets in a one-front battle.

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Planning

The German high command decided by mid-September, on Hitler's insistence, that the German army would strike through the Ardennes, as they had four years earlier in the Battle of France. The main forces were to advance westward until reaching the Meuse River, then turn northwest for Antwerp and Brussels. The hardest part would be the opening where the terrain made rapid movement difficult, but once past the Meuse things improved dramatically, allowing for a dash to the coast. The new plan was codenamed Wacht am Rhein ("Watch on the Rhine") in order to fool Allied intelligence into believing the upcoming German operations were strictly preparations for the defense of Germany's vital Rheinland.

Related Topics:
Battle of France - Meuse River - Brussels - Rheinland

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Four armies were selected for the operation:

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• The 6th SS Panzer Army, led by Sepp Dietrich. Newly created on October 26, 1944, it incorporated some of the Waffen-SS's elite units, including the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend—the only divisions to bear Hitler's name. It was assigned as the main attacking force, leading the northernmost attack with the objective of capturing Antwerp.
• The 5th Panzer Army led by Hasso von Manteuffel, was assigned to the middle attack route with the objective of capturing Brussels.
• The 7th Army, led by Erich Brandenberger, was assigned to the southernmost attack, with the task of protecting the flank.
• Also participating, but not in the main spearhead, was the 15th Army, led by Gustav-Adolf von Zangen, recently rebuilt after heavy fighting during the Operation Market Garden, it was located on the far north of the Ardennes battlefield and tasked with tying down U.S. forces in the area, with the possibility of launching its own attack given favourable conditions.

Overseeing the operation were Field Marshals Walther Model, the commander of the German Army Group B, and Gerd von Rundstedt, the overall commander of German troops in the West.

Related Topics:
Walther Model - Army Group B - Gerd von Rundstedt

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For the offensive to be successful, three things were deemed critical by the planners.

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• The attack had to be a complete surprise.
• The weather conditions had to be poor in order to neutralize Allied air superiority and the damage it could inflict on the German offensive and its supply lines.
• The progress had to be rapid and not delayed. Field Marshal Walther Model had declared that the Meuse River had to be reached by day 4, if the offensive was to have any chance of success.

The plan originally called for just under 45 divisions, including a dozen panzer and panzergrenadier divisions forming the armored spearhead and various infantry units to form a defensive line as the battle unfolded. The German army suffered from an acute manpower shortage by this time, however, and the force had been reduced to around 30 divisions. Although it retained most of its armor there were not enough infantry units due to the defensive needs in the east. These thirty newly rebuilt divisions used some of the German army's last reserves. Among them were Volksgrenadier units formed from a mix of battle-hardened veterans and recruits formerly regarded as too young or too old to fight. Training time, equipment, and supplies were inadequate during the preparations. German fuel supplies were precarious—those materials and supplies that could not be directly transported by rail had to be horse drawn in order to conserve fuel—the mechanized and panzer divisions would depend heavily on captured fuel. The start of the offensive was delayed from mid-November to December 16 as a result.

Related Topics:
Panzer - Panzergrenadier - Armored spearhead - Division - Volksgrenadier - December 16

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Before the offensive the Allies were virtually blind to German troop movement. During the reconquest of France the extensive network of the French resistance had provided valuable intelligence about German dispositions. Now that they had reached the German border this source dried up. In France orders had been relayed within the German army using radio messages ciphered by the Enigma machine, and these could be picked up and decrypted by Ultra. In Germany such orders were typically transmitted using telephone and teleprinter, and a special radio silence order was imposed on all matters concerning the upcoming offensive. The major crackdown in the Wehrmacht after the July 20 Plot resulted in much tighter security and fewer leaks. The foggy autumn weather also prevented Allied reconnaissance planes from correctly assessing the ground situation.

Related Topics:
French resistance - Radio - Enigma machine - Ultra - Telephone - Teleprinter - Wehrmacht - July 20 Plot

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Thus Allied High Command considered the Ardennes a quiet sector, relying on assessments from their intelligence services that the Germans were unable to launch any major offensive operations this late in the war. What little intelligence they had led the Allies to believe precisely what the Germans wanted them to believe—that preparations were being carried out only for defensive, not offensive operations. All of this meant that the attack, when it came, completely surprised the Allied forces. Allied units deployed in the Ardennes were a mixture of green troops (such as the rookie U.S. 99th and 106th Divisions), and battle-hardened troops sent to that sector to recuperate (the U.S. 2nd Division).

Related Topics:
99th - 106th - 2nd Division

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Two major special operations were planned for the offensive. By October it was decided that Otto Skorzeny, the German commando who had rescued Benito Mussolini, was to lead a task force of English-speaking German soldiers in Operation Greif. These soldiers were to be dressed in American and British uniforms and wear dog tags taken from corpses and POWs. Their job was to go behind American lines and change signposts, misdirect traffic, generally cause disruption and to seize bridges across the Meuse River between Liège and Namur. By late November another ambitious special operation was added: Colonel Friedrich August von der Heydte was to lead a Fallschirmjäger (paratrooper) Kampfgruppe in Operation Stösser, a nighttime paratroop drop behind the Allied lines aimed at capturing a vital road junction near Malmedy.

Related Topics:
Special operations - Otto Skorzeny - Benito Mussolini - English - Operation Greif - Uniforms - Dog tag - POWs - Meuse River - Liège - Namur - Colonel - Friedrich August von der Heydte - Kampfgruppe - Operation Stösser - Malmedy

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German intelligence had set December 20 as the expected date for the start of the upcoming Soviet offensive, aimed at crushing what was left of German resistance on the Eastern Front and thereby opening the way to Berlin. It was hoped that Stalin would delay the start of the operation once the German assault in the Ardennes had begun and wait for the outcome before continuing.

Related Topics:
December 20 - Berlin - Stalin

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In the final stage of preparations Hitler and his staff left their Wolf's Lair headquarters in East Prussia, in which they had co-ordinated much of the fighting on the Eastern Front. After a brief visit to Berlin, on December 11, they came to the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's headquarters in southern Germany, the site from which he had overseen the successful 1940 campaign against France and the low countries.

Related Topics:
Wolf's Lair - East Prussia - December 11 - Eagle's Nest

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