Drawing broad conclusions was for the intelligence staff at SHAEF, who had information from all sources," including aerial reconnaissance. Stills from it are in all the histories of the battle. At 09:15, the Luftwaffe launched Unternehmen Bodenplatte (Operation Baseplate), a major campaign against Allied airfields in the Low Countries. [86] Peiper ordered Knittel to retake Stavelot. The town of St. Vith, a vital road junction, was close to the boundary between the 5th and Sepp . Delayed by roads not suitable for tanks and the stout defense of locations such as Lanzerath, Ligneuville, and Stavelot, Peiper and his Kampfgruppe nevertheless achieved many of their objectives by December 18, 1944. The assault, despite initial success by its tanks in penetrating the American line, was defeated and all the tanks destroyed. 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December 16, 1944, the German Army launched the largest offensive operation ever conducted against United States ground forces. Seeing his opportunity to finish off the defenders, Peiper himself ran to his men who were sheltering in a ditch catching their breath, and urged them on. [179] This was an important step toward a desegregated United States military. This view was opposed by the British Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Alan Brooke, as well as Field Marshal Montgomery, who promoted a rapid advance on a narrow front under his command, with the other allied armies in reserve. The research process of over twenty years culminated in five volumes: Birth of a Regiment (May 1942-September 1943), Spearhead of the Fifth Army (September 1943-April 1944), The Battle of the Bridges (April 1944-November 1944), Blocking Kampfgruppe Peiper (November 1944-February 1945), End of an Odyssey (February 1945-January 1946). [119] Total casualties included at least 9,000 wounded. One of the few advantages held by the German forces in November 1944 was that they were no longer defending all of Western Europe. . In Bastogne the defenders were badly in need of relief, they were attacked nightly by German aircraft, supplies were critically low in spite of the airdrops, and the wounded could not be given proper attention because of the shortage of medical supplies. In the south, Patton's Third Army was battling to relieve Bastogne. War II. SS Kampfgruppe Hansen participated in the "battle of the Bulge" or "Ardennes Offensive" In a quiet sector of the Ardennes in the bitter Winter of December 1944. Fierce American resistance on the northern shoulder of the offensive, around Elsenborn Ridge, and in the south, around Bastogne, blocked German access to key roads to the northwest and west that they counted on for success. With the castle acting as overflow accommodation, the main party was settled into the Adlerhorst's Haus 2 command bunker, including Gen. Alfred Jodl, Gen. Wilhelm Keitel, Gen. Blumentritt, von Manteuffel and Dietrich. After the war ended, this assessment was generally viewed as unrealistic, given Allied air superiority throughout Europe and their ability to continually disrupt German offensive operations. Poised on the opposite bank of the Amblve River, Peiper forced his . Below are the top five veteran research questions, where to go for further resources, and how to begin your search. After an advance which had been slow, U.S. relief troops entered Bastogne at 1645 on 26 December 1944.". 945 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 The Germans now had two separate tank columns moving into Stoumont. The Allies pressed their advantage following the battle. Remarkably, the U.S. Third Army intelligence chief, Colonel Oscar Koch, the U.S. First Army intelligence chief and the SHAEF intelligence officer Brigadier General Kenneth Strong all correctly predicted the German offensive capability and intention to strike the U.S. VIII Corps area. Aware that American infantry was in Stoumont, but unaware of their strength, Peiper wisely chose to wait until morning to conduct his assault on the town. The battle lasted for five weeks from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war in Europe. Since the German plan called for the capture of St. Vith by 18:00 on 17 December, the prolonged action in and around it dealt a major setback to their timetable. Further south on Manteuffel's front, the main thrust was delivered by all attacking divisions crossing the River Our, then increasing the pressure on the key road centers of St. Vith and Bastogne. By late November another ambitious special operation was added: Col. Friedrich August von der Heydte was to lead a Fallschirmjger-Kampfgruppe (paratrooper combat group) in Operation Stsser, a night-time paratroop drop behind the Allied lines aimed at capturing a vital road junction near Malmedy.[56][57]. Kampfgruppe Knaust. "[54] Historian Patrick K. O'Donnell writes that on 8 December 1944 U.S. Rangers at great cost took Hill 400 during the Battle of the Hrtgen Forest. [64][65] SS-Obersturmbannfhrer Joachim Peiper led Kampfgruppe Peiper, consisting of 4,800 men and 600 vehicles, which was charged with leading the main effort. German paratrooperstend to one of Prahm's wounded crewmen as Prahm's Panther burns in the background. It was thought that Hitlers elite SS units would be the ones to carry the Germans to victory and force the western allies to the negotiating table. 5 Kampfgruppe (4) 5 Kavallerie (12) 5 Kavallerie-Division 1 (2) 5 Korps-Abteilung D (1) . The Americans' initial impression was that this was the anticipated, localized counterattack resulting from the Allies' recent attack in the Wahlerscheid sector to the north, where the 2nd Division had knocked a sizable dent in the Siegfried Line. Units of the British XXX Corps were holding the bridges at Dinant, Givet, and Namur and U.S. units were about to take over. [73] Following the end of the war, soldiers and officers of Kampfgruppe Peiper, including Joachim Peiper and SS general Sepp Dietrich, were tried for the incident at the Malmedy massacre trial. The 29th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Italian) also Legione SS Italiana ( German: 29. Here is the composition on 24 September 1944. Poised on the opposite bank of the Amblve River, Peiper forced his way across the river and rolled past Stavelot, never fully securing the town, determined to make his way out of the Amblve Valley and across the Meuse. Eleven black American soldiers were tortured after surrendering and then shot by men of the 1st SS Panzer Division belonging to Schnellgruppe Knittel. The panzer columns swung past on either side, cutting off Bastogne on 20 December but failing to secure the vital crossroads. The Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler barracks in Berlin, 1938. Headquarters now freed up the 9th Panzer Division for Fifth Panzer Army, which was deployed at Marche. Up to this point the German losses had been light, notably in armor, with the exception of Peiper's losses. As the Ardennes crisis developed, the U.S. First Army (Hodges) and U.S. Ninth Army (Simpson) on the northern shoulder of the German penetration lost communications with adjacent armies, as well as with Bradley's headquarters in Luxembourg City to the south of the "bulge". Peipers attack had stalled. info@nationalww2museum.org As soon as the firing began, the prisoners panicked. The Wehrmacht kept some of the old nomenclatura, e.g. The other Kampgruppen tried to free the supply route which had also been cut by the Americans (by taking Stavelot) but this also failed. These 30 newly rebuilt divisions used some of the last reserves of the German Army. No longer were American units fleeing the field of battle in front of their enemy. Peiper was shocked at the amount of fire coming at his advance units. [95] They had little time to establish any unit cohesion or train together. Their job was to go behind American lines and change signposts, misdirect traffic, generally cause disruption and seize bridges across the Meuse River. [102], Unlike the German forces on the northern and southern shoulders who were experiencing great difficulties, the German advance in the center gained considerable ground. The amount lost in arms and equipment, of course, was very substantial. These units, which operated under the command of Generals Robert W. Hasbrouck (7th Armored) and Alan W. Jones (106th Infantry), successfully resisted the German attacks, significantly slowing the German advance. It overlapped with the Alsace Offensive, subsequently the Colmar Pocket, another series of battles launched by the Germans in support of the Ardennes thrust. [69][70] Afterwards, Peiper advanced to the west, towards the River Meuse and captured Ligneuville, bypassing the towns of Mdersheid, Schoppen, Ondenval, and Thirimont. On 26 December the lead element of Patton's U.S. Third Army reached Bastogne from the south, ending the siege. On 24 December, German forces made their furthest penetration west. At 4:30 a.m. on 17 December 1944, the 1st SS Panzer Division was approximately 16 hours behind schedule when the convoys departed the village of Lanzerath enroute west to the town of Honsfeld. It contained all the tanks from the division along with an attached battalion of King Tiger tanks. They thus developed alternative, less ambitious plans that did not aim to cross the Meuse River (in German and Dutch: Maas); Model's being Unternehmen Herbstnebel ('Operation Autumn Mist') and von Rundstedt's Fall Martin ('Plan Martin'). Unknown to the other officers present, before he left Patton had ordered his staff to prepare three contingency plans for a northward turn in at least corps strength. Ambush at Poteau : . Here, a patrol from the 45th Infantry Divisions 180th Regiment fights house to house in Bobenthal, Germany under sniper fire on December 16, 1944. A preliminary Army report restricted to the First and Third U.S. [186], At Bletchley Park, F. L. Lucas and Peter Calvocoressi of Hut 3 were tasked by General Nye (as part of the enquiry set up by the Chiefs of Staff) with writing a report on the lessons to be learned from the handling of pre-battle Ultra. Copy No. Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}50015N 54312E / 50.00417N 5.72000E / 50.00417; 5.72000, This article is about the 1944 German offensive in World War II. This is an apolitical forum for discussions on the Axis nations and related topics hosted by the Axis History Factbook in cooperation with Christian Ankerstjernes Panzerworld and Christoph Awender's WW2 day by day. Brigadefhrer Hugo Kraas (from 13 November 1944 - 8 May 1945) 25th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment Hitlerjugend, Standartenfhrer Kurt Meyer (until 14 June 1944), Obersturmbannfhrer Karl-Heinz Milius (from 14 June 1944) II. Their ideas shared the same fate as Dietrich's objections.[91]. A trucking system nicknamed the Red Ball Express brought supplies to front-line troops, but used up five times as much fuel to reach the front line near the Belgian border. Kampfgruppe Peiper attacked Stavelot on 18 December but was unable to capture the town before the Americans evacuated a large fuel depot. Peiper ordered his men to form a defensive ring around the Stoumont/La Gleize area, and await a breakthrough that would restore his supply lines. The following is some intense research on the names and assignments I have found so far. He believed a critical fault line existed between the British and American military commands, and that a heavy blow on the Western Front would shatter this alliance. It was lead by SS-Standartenfueher Max Hansen. They believed he had belittled themand they were not slow to voice reciprocal scorn and contempt. The photo was taken on December 17, 1944. 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