Bastogne: Battle of the Bulge

By Michael Tolhurst

By Christmas 1944, the Allies were on the threshold of victory, having remorselessly rolled the Germans back to the very borders of "The Fatherland". The, the shock of a massive Nazi counter-attack through the Ardennes in the depth of winter threw the Allies into confusion. Bastogne was at the very centre of this dramatic and most dangerous setback.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781473812123

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

HITLER’S PLAN

In the Wolfsschanze (Wolf’s Lair), Hitlers headquarters at Rastenburg, situated in a forest in East Prussia, the daily conference was filled with an air of doom and gloom. That Saturday, 16 September 1944, it was reported that the Allies had gained a toe hold on German soil. The once all-victorious German fighting machine had been pushed back to its homeland. On the Eastern Front the Russian summer offensive had reached the borders of East Prussia. The losses in manpower and materials had been colossal.

The conference had adjourned when Hitler called his four highest military advisers into another room. First in, was Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Supreme Commander of all German Armies, closely followed by, General Alfred Jodl, chief of the German Operations Staff, Heinz Guderian, the famous tank commander now Commander of the Eastern Front, and General Kreipe, representing an absent Air Marshal Goring, head of the Luftwaffe (German airforce).

The German plan.

Alfred Jodl went on to tell Hitler about the steadily mounting Allied divisions that were now knocking on Germany’s door. Obviously none of these subjects pleased the Führer. Suddenly, Hitler interrupted Jodl, pointed to the laid out map before him and said ‘I have just made a momentous decision. I shall go over to the counter-attack, here out of the Ardennes, with the objective – Antwerp.’

The room was shocked into silence. Had the bomb attack back in July finally taken its toll? Hitler had been left both emotionally and physically injured after the assassination attempt on his life. A bomb had been planted in a room during one of his meetings, but he had escaped serious injury.

Hitler’s enthusiasm reminded his staff of the heady Blitzkrieg days of 1940. He went on to rightly surmise that the Allied supply lines were stretched to the limit, and that the steam had finally run out of the lightning pursuit to the German border. His plan was simple, he would attack out of the Ardennes, known to his intelligence services as a soft spot, and drive for the recently captured port of Antwerp, thus forming a wedge, between the forces of the United States and the British and Canadian armies fighting in the north, thus splitting the Allies in half. He knew that the two sides opposing him were prone to disagreement and that the alliance was considered to be shaky. Driving a wedge might well cause the Anglo/American team to fall out. Then Hitler could sue for peace under his own terms and turn his full attention to what he considered to be the greater threat – the Russians.

Hitler’s plan was to strike at a vulnerable section of the Allied Front. American GIs of the 28th DIV queue at the rest centre in Clervaux unaware of the pending onslaught.

To the men present, this was the old Hitler again, full of energy and new ideas. The attack was provisionally set for 1 November 1944. The officers present were then sworn to secrecy with threats to their own, and their family’s lives.

On 25 September, Jodl was ordered by Hitler to start making the necessary plans for the new counter-attack. Field Marshall Keitel was given the task of organizing the fuel and ammunition that would be needed, and to report when it could be expected to be ready. General Rudolf Gercke, Chief of Transportation, was brought into the plan. Hitler ordered the formation of a new army especially for the attack; it was to be named the Sixth Panzer Army. He entrusted his great friend, General Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich to be its commander. All its armoured divisions were to be made up of Waffen SS.

Generaloberst Alfred Jodl.

Even though the Allied airforce was bombing the industrial heart of Germany round the clock, actual wartime production was reaching an all time high. Manpower for the coming offensive was to be a problem, but was soon overcome when the enlisting age was changed to between sixteen and sixty. Originally it had been eighteen and fifty. Both civilian and military offices were combed of non-important administrative personnel, and finally redundant sailors and airmen who had neither ships nor aircraft were thrown into the army to form the new divisions so badly needed. Hitler called them Volksgrenadiers (People’s Infantry).

Badge of the 77th Regiment, 26th Volksgrenadiers, with Köln Cathedral as emblem.

These new divisions would be smaller than the usual complement for Wehrmacht divisions, but to make up for this, more men would be armed with automatic weapons and Panzerfausts, (hand held, rocket firing antitank weapon). The Panther and Tiger tanks that were rolling off the assembly lines were given straight to the new Panzer Brigades being formed.

The Allies had air superiority, which worried the generals, but Hitler’s answer was that the offensive would take place in either November or December when the usual bad weather would ground the dreaded Allied fighter-bombers.

The coming attack would be led by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, who had been out of favour with the Führer due to the failure of the German forces in repelling the Allied invasion. However, Hitler realized Rundstedt would be good for the job and would perhaps revive the flagging German Army.

Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt.

By early October General Gercke was well ahead of his schedule; Rhine bridges were reinforced to carry the new seventy-ton King Tiger; ferries were adapted to carry locomotives and tanks; rail tracks were laid across some road bridges; makeshift bridging spans were constructed and hidden along the eastern banks in case the permanent bridges were bombed.

New Tiger IIs (Königstiger) being reviewed prior to the German offensive in the West.

On 11 October Jodl went back to Hitler and submitted his plan which he code-named CHRISTROSE. Three armies totalling twelve panzer and eighteen infantry divisions would advance on a broad front, crossing the River Meuse by the second day and reaching Antwerp after one week. Hitler sent him away to do some fine