By the late autumn of 1944, Allied forces in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) consisted of three army groups: Montgomery’s British and Canadian 21st Army Group in the Netherlands, Bradley’s US 12th Army Group from Belgium to Lorraine, and Devers’ Franco-American 6th Army Group in Alsace. Of the three army groups, Eisenhower afforded priority to the two northernmost, Montgomery’s and Bradley’s. The inclusion of Devers’ 6th Army Group to the force structure had come later than the other two, and was a source of considerable friction between Washington and London. General George C. Marshall, the US chief of staff, had insisted that the Mediterranean theater be de-emphasized after the capture of Rome in June 1944, and that the resources be freed for use in France. Churchill continued to push for further Allied operations in the Mediterranean, but Washington had the final word. As a result, the Seventh US Army and the French 1ère Armée staged an invasion of southern France on August 15, 1944 to clear the Wehrmacht out of southern, western, and central France. Operation Dragoon succeeded beyond the wildest expectations of its planners, liberating two-thirds of France in a lightning one-month campaign that destroyed half of the Wehrmacht’s Heeresgruppe G in the process. By mid-September, the Seventh US Army had met up with Patton’s Third Army near Dijon, creating a solid Allied front from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.
Men from the 398th Infantry, 100th Division move through the woods near Raon l’Etape during the fighting for the High Vosges mountains on November 17, 1944. This newly arrived unit has the later-style battledress based on the M1943 field jacket. (NARA)
The Allied supply crisis in late September 1944 halted Devers’ 6th Army Group and gave Heeresgruppe G a short lull to rebuild its defenses in Alsace. By mid-October 1944, Heeresgruppe G included three field armies, with 17 divisions, 500,000 troops, and 40,000 horses. The conduct of the fighting in Alsace was shaped by its geography, especially its mountainous terrain. The Vosges Mountains ran north–south alongside the Rhine River, creating a formidable natural barrier that had never been successfully overcome by an army in modern times. The High Vosges stretched from the Swiss frontier near Belfort northwards along the Rhine to elevations of over 5,000ft (1,524m) before gradually moderating near Strasbourg and the Saverne Gap. At this point they transitioned to the Low Vosges. The French and American components of Devers’ 6th Army Group each had their own assignments. De Lattre’s 1ère Armée was assigned the task of penetrating the Alsatian plains via the lowlands of the Belfort Gap, an approach so obvious that the Wehrmacht stoutly defended it. Major-General Patch’s Seventh US Army was given the forbidding task of overcoming the High Vosges from the west, either over the mountains or through several key passes. In order to block the Allied advance, the Wehrmacht began an extensive fortification program in September 1944 beginning with the Vor-Vogesenstellung in the foothills of the Vosges, and the main Vogesenstellung in the Vosges mountains themselves.
Once 6th Army Group was reinforced with the remainder of its forces from the southern French ports, the offensive resumed in early October. The French 2e Corps d’Armée attempted to skirt the main German defenses in the Belfort Gap with a penetration of the mountain passes on its northern shoulder, but the attack was not entirely successful due to a vigorous German counterattack and difficulties with both the terrain and the rainy autumn weather. The US VI Corps initiated Operation Dogface, an attempt to push through the German defenses in the foothills of the Vosges approaching Bruyères before they could solidify. A punishing battle of attrition ensued in the forested mountains. Even if the October battles did not result in a breakthrough, the Sixth Army Group had positioned itself for a renewed offensive. In neighboring Lorraine, Patton’s Third Army resumed its attacks towards Metz on November 8, which was the trigger for the 6th Army Group offensive which started on November 13. The poor weather provided little opportunity for Allied air support, and the 6th Army Group did not enjoy a significant force advantage in infantry over the Wehrmacht.
Wehrmacht engineer formations began creating the Vor-Vogesenstellung defensive belt in September 1944 to block the main Vosges mountain passes. In the haste to create these defenses, 88mm guns intended for the Jagdpanther tank destroyer were fitted to improvised field mounts and emplaced as static defenses to cover key areas such as this gun positioned near Phalsbourg in the Saverne Gap. (NARA)
The 1ère Armée was the first Allied army with a firm foothold on the Rhine. Here, a .50-cal. heavy machine-gun team is seen in action in Huningue along the Rhine at the junction of the French, German, and Swiss borders north of Basel on November 30, 1944. (NARA)
In the south, the French 1ère Corps d’Armée attacked over the lowlands of the Belfort Gap towards Mulhouse, and into the face of some of the stiffest German defenses of 85. AK (LXXXV Armee Korps). The French 2e Corps d’Armée went over the Vosges against 4. LK (IV Luftwaffe Korps) towards Colmar. Heeresgruppe G was uncertain about French plans, with AOK 19 (Armeeoberkommando 19) commander General der Infanterie Wiese arguing that the French would make the main drive directly into the fortified Belfort Gap while the army group commander, General Balck, argued that the French would attack over the Vosges towards Colmar. French deception efforts suggested the Vosges approach and when the attack came a day after a snowstorm on November 14 the German defenses in the Belfort Gap were surprised by the ferocity of the French attack. After securing a modest penetration, the tanks of the 1ère Division Blindée (1st Armored Division) began racing for the Rhine near the Swiss border with the French colonial infantry widening the breach. Lead tank patrols reached the river on November 19, the first Allied troops to do so. German counterattacks on November 22/23 failed to halt the French advance. The French attack continued until November 28, somewhat short of their goals but with the Belfort Gap in their hands and the cities of Mulhouse and Belfort liberated.
In the center, the US VI Corps penetrated the High Vosges via the Salles Pass opposite Selestat and achieved a second penetration towards Strasbourg through the Hantz Pass. In less than two weeks of fighting, the infantry succeeded in overwhelming the German mountain defenses, debouching on the eastern side of the mountain range. In the north, Haislip’s XV Corps penetrated into the Saverne Gap and ground through substantial German defenses. On reaching Saverne on November 22, Haislip unleashed his exploitation force, the French 2e Division Blindée, which aggressively raced for Strasbourg. The boldness of the French tank attack found the Strasbourg defenses unprepared and the Alsatian capital fell on November 23. The Wehrmacht attempted to counterattack by striking XV Corps in the flank using the Panzer-Lehr-Division, but this effort was stymied by a prompt intervention by Patton’s neighboring Third Army, sending a combat command of the 4th Armored Division into the fray which stopped the Panzer attack.
Following the loss of Strasbourg on November 23, the focal point of German actions in late November and early December was the defense of the Colmar Pocket, which was the last major German foothold on the west bank of the Rhine in Alsace. The November campaign separated AOK 1 from AOK 19, which had become confined in the Colmar Pocket. On November 24, General Rundstedt and General Balck recommended that AOK 19 be withdrawn over the Rhine to a new defense line in the Black Forest; Hitler was infuriated by the idea that a major portion of Alsace would be handed back to the French without a fight and grimly instructed that the forces trapped around Colmar would fight or die on the Alsatian plains. Hitler placed the defense of this sector under SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, and under a new Oberrhein (Upper Rhine) command as a rebuke to the defeatism of the army.
The advance of Leclerc’s 2e Division Blindée was so sudden and unexpected that when the French tanks burst into Strasbourg on November 23, its citizens were going about their business with no expectation of the drama that was unfolding. This photo was taken a few days after the liberation with the damaged Notre Dame cathedral in the background. (NARA)
An M4A2 tank of the French 5e Division Blindée with infantry support moves into the outskirts of Belfort on November 20, 1944 during the efforts to penetrate the Belfort Gap onto the Alsatian plains along the Rhine. (NARA)
With the High Vosges barrier penetrated, Devers began preparations to cross the Rhine, even though he had not yet received formal permission from Eisenhower to do so. The spectacular progress of the 6th Army Group in November 1944 raised the issue of the role it would play in the forthcoming operations in Germany. Eisenhower had generally accepted the British view that the emphasis should be on the northern wing, and especially Montgomery’s 21st Army Group mission to seize Germany’s vital Ruhr industrial region, with Bradley’s 12th Army Group providing a supporting role against the Saar industrial basin. Under such a scheme, Devers’ 6th Army Group did not have a significant role besides a vague part in Eisenhower’s “Broad Front” strategy. Part of the issue was the geographic details of Alsace and the corresponding terrain on the German side of the Rhine. Beyond the Rhine plain, Alsace faced Germany’s Black Forest, a mountainous and wooded expanse that did not appear to be especially suited to mobile offensive operations. The 6th Army Group, with its long experience in mountain operations, was not intimidated by such prospects, having just overcome the most substantial mountain obstacle in the ETO in a stunning two-week campaign. However, Eisenhower was still enmeshed in the disastrous Hürtgen forest campaign in the First US Army sector, a bloody attritional battle with few signs of progress. As a result, the thought of a potential repeat of this campaign in the Black Forest gave Eisenhower considerable pause.
Panzer support for AOK 19 in the Belfort Gap was scant. The badly depleted Panzer-Brigade 106 Feldherrnhalle served as its fire brigade, rushing from spot to spot in hope of averting catastrophe. One of their PzKpfw IV tanks is seen on fire after being hit by bazooka fire during a skirmish with the French 4e Division Marocaine de Montagne in the Hardt woods near Pont-du-Bouc, north of Mulhouse, during the fighting for the Belfort Gap in the first days of December 1944. (NARA)
The 1ère Armée attempted to break into the Belfort Gap in November and December both on the Alsatian plains as well as through the High Vosges as seen here. This is a patrol of the 3e Division d’Infanterie Algérienne, an Algerian division that had previously seen combat in Italy. (NARA)
Besides the issue of the suitability of the Black Forest as an operating theater in the early winter of 1944, Eisenhower was also tentatively committed to supporting a projected operation by Patton’s Third Army into the Saar, aimed towards Frankfurt. Operation Tink, scheduled to begin on December 19, would not be possible unless German defenses in the Palatinate on the west bank of the Rhine were loosened. As a result of these considerations, Eisenhower vetoed Devers’ plan to strike across the Rhine in late November or early December. Instead, the 6th Army Group was given a supporting role. The northern wing of Patch’s Seventh US Army was assigned to push north into the Low Vosges to help Patton’s Third Army in its assault to the Rhine. In the south, the French 1ère Armée was directed to eliminate the Colmar Pocket.
On November 23, 1944, Panzer-Lehr-Division staged a counterattack from Saar-Union against the Seventh Army, hitting two regiments of the 44th Division. This Panther Ausf. G was knocked out during the fighting with the 114th Infantry near Schalbach on November 25; a bazooka hit is evident on the hull side immediately below the turret. The Panzer-Lehr Division was forced to abandon the attack when Combat Command B, 4th Armored Division launched a flank attack from Fénétrange. (NARA)
Eisenhower’s new directives led to a series of brutal mountain offensives in early December. The US XV Corps’ attack north towards the Saar faced a heavy concentration of Maginot Line defenses around the old fortress city of Bitche while VI Corps to the east faced the Hagenau forest followed by the Westwall (Siegfried Line). The penetration of the Hagenau forest was successful enough that VI Corps committed its mechanized exploitation force, the 14th Armored Division. In contrast, XV Corps had a hard time on the approaches to Bitche and had not captured the city by the third week of December when operations were halted by the Ardennes offensive. Farther south, the Colmar Pocket was assaulted on three sides but the Wehrmacht retained firm control through the end of December.
During December, the Seventh Army’s main task was penetrating the Low Vosges and gaining access to the Alsatian plain. This is the entrance to the Saverne Gap looking west, one of the main access routes out of the mountains towards the Rhine. (NARA)
By mid-December, the Seventh Army was bumping into the trace of the Maginot Line around Bitche. Here, GIs of the 71st Infantry, 44th Division inspect the Ouvrage du Simsershof on the outskirts of Bitche after the garrison there from the 25. Panzergrenadier-Division had finally withdrawn on the night of December 18/19 after days of intense artillery bombardment. (NARA)
Devers and Patch planned to jump the Rhine near Rastatt in early December to roll up behind the Westwall. Although Seventh Army units began training for river crossings in late November, Eisenhower vetoed the plan. The Seventh Army got their next chance three months later and this photograph shows a training exercise by the 157th Infantry of the 45th Division moving a 57mm anti-tank gun in a DUKW amphibious truck on March 11, 1945. (NARA)
The most influential event in the Alsace fighting transpired farther north in the Belgian Ardennes where Heeresgruppe B launched its surprise offensive on December 16. The ferocity of this attack stunned Eisenhower and Bradley and led to a scramble to mount a counterattack. Patton’s Third Army, already on the verge of launching Operation Tink towards Frankfurt, instead sent two of its corps northwards to help relieve Bastogne. This had immediate implications for the neighboring US Seventh Army, which was now expected to cover the 27-mile (43km) gap created by Patton’s shift without any additional reinforcements. As a result, the Seventh US Army had to cover 126 miles (203km) of front with six infantry divisions, much too thin a defensive line by usual US Army standards. By way of comparison, the VIII Corps sector in the Ardennes which the Germans had found so attractive for their offensive had four infantry divisions on a front 60 miles (96km) long, a concentration about a third denser than the Seventh Army’s front in Alsace. By December 19, all Allied offensive operations in Alsace were brought to a halt and a defensive reorientation began.
Having been ruthlessly engaged by the 6th Army Group for five months of continual fighting, Heeresgruppe G was looking for revenge. The senior German commanders in Alsace had been kept in the dark about the Ardennes offensive. When news of the initial German successes arrived, there was some optimism that the tide might be turned in Alsace with a bold attack. These plans eventually crystallized into Operation Nordwind at the end of December 1944.
A scene repeated in many Alsatian towns in the autumn and early winter of 1944/45. A series of road obstructions have been erected to block major thoroughfares, consisting of two vertical log walls with the center filled with earth and rocks. These obstructions were usually built by impressing local civilians. Here, an M10 3in. GMC of the 645th Tank Destroyer Battalion is supporting 45th Division actions near Lembach on December 14 during the attempts to penetrate the Low Vosges. (NARA)