THE WITCHES' C A U L D R O N

had forbidden the use of heavyweapons because he was afraid hisown men would be hit. The idiotpreferred to let hundreds of themdie."

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Colonel Schramm was relieved of his com-mand at Fullriede's insistence three dayslater.The remainder of the attacks mounted bythe Kampfgruppe von Tettau made littleprogress that day. SS-Colonel Lippertreported by mid-morning that he was'making only very slow progress againstheavy enemy resistance', and soon afterthat only 'some 800 metres of ground hasbeen gained against strong enemy resist-ance'. Lippert also revealed that 'especiallyheavy losses are reported for the battalionHermann Goering'.' Herbert Kesslerchronicled the further disintegration of hiscompany after the Westerbouwing debacle:

9

feeding in untrained troops, determined tosalvage the situation cost what it may.'Despite OKW's intervention, I returnedabout 1600 recruits back to Germany. Tosend them into battle would simply havebeen infanticide.'Fullriede's assessment was probably cor-rect. On the other side of the perimeter,Harzer's furiously attacking veterans in the9SS were making even less progress. VonTettau was informed by the High Com-mand Netherlands:

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'The 9SS Panzer Division has onlygained 200 metres of ground againststrong enemy resistance.'

22

From north-east andeast: the 9SS .. .

Following the collapse of 1 PARA Brigade'sattempt to reach Frost at the bridge, the SSKampfgruppe Spindler had gone on to theoffensive. But by the afternoon of 20 Sep-tember, despite tenacious fighting, it hadonly been able to move forward towardsOosterbeek by a few blocks. Some of thedelay was caused by the assimilation offresh, but largely untrained replacements.SS-Captain Moeller was still spearheadingthe advance along the Utrechtseweg whenhis reinforcements arrived:

'On 20 September, the engineerbattalion received the promisedreplacements from the Reichsarbeitsdienst [pioneers], theNavy and Luftwaffe. Thereplacements had no combatexperience whatsoever and weretotally inexperienced in street fighting.Nevertheless we were glad to havethem. These men were rather scepticaland reluctant at the beginning, whichwas hardly surprising. But when theywere put in the right place they helped

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'After a brief reorganisation thecompany continued the attacktowards the town of Oosterbeek. Itwas difficult to spot the enemy in theforest fighting. Tree-top sniperscaused considerable losses, enemyautomatic weapons which frequentlymoved could only be silenced withdifficulty and sometimes withnumerous casualties. At noon, thecompany was completely scatteredand pulled back while a neighbouringunit continued the attack onOosterbeek. The remnants of thecompany were only a small group,with their missing comrades dead,wounded, or scattered as stragglers.'

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There was simply a limit to what could beexpected of untrained soldiers; and thecomplications and exigencies of the attackoften surpassed their limited skills andexperience. Fullriede commented again thesame day about an Army High Command