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BATTLE OF THE BULGE—GERMAN MISTAKES
By Bill Fawcett
Unrealistic expectations doomed this offensive from the start.
The Battle of the Bulge lasted two weeks, from December 16, 1944, until the end of the month. The war against Russia was going badly for the Nazis. A diminishing number of defenders were being pushed back across Poland toward Germany. The Allied forces were literally across the river from western Germany and her industrial heart, and the Germans lacked the men, weapons, and fuel to defend the Reich in a two-front war. If things continued this way, it was only a matter of time until total defeat. Hitler realized that a masterstroke was needed, something that might enable him to reach a favorable agreement with one side or the other. The Russians were implacable and could never forgive the virtual destruction of half their nation and twenty million dead. The democracies, whom Hitler always saw as morally deficient, seemed a possible weak link. So it was against the Allies, poised to enter Germany on a broad front, that he ordered a surprise attack through the Ardennes. After all, an attack there had worked very well against France, but the situation in 1944 was very different from that of 1940. This was Operation Watch on the Rhine, which was later known as the Battle of the Bulge.
The problem was that the entire Nazi operation was based on inaccurate assumptions. The Führer had always underestimated the will and the leadership of the Western Allies. He believed, accurately, that the strain of the war was testing those nations’ resolve. What he did not realize was that they became more, not less determined the longer the war lasted. Based on his selective reading of British and American newspapers, Hitler also thought that the leaders of England and the United States were often in conflict. This, again, was simply not true. So his goal to put enough stress on the British and American armies that their alliance would fail, or they would seek a separate peace, was unrealistic, at best. To accomplish this, he felt he needed to do two things: greatly disrupt the military situation of the Allied forces, preferably by isolating the British from the bulk of their allies, as had happened in 1914 and 1940, and then offer a separate peace, when the cost to England or America for continuing the war seemed too high.
Thus Hitler called in reserves and reinforcements from all of Germany. This not only weakened those units not planned to be part of the attack, but also limited how much support could be given to those who were trying to resist the Red Army on the Eastern Front. This was a desperate bid, using the very last dregs of manpower that were capable of fighting at all. Many of the infantry divisions used in the Battle of the Bulge were composed almost entirely of clerks, the slightly disabled, navy and Luftwaffe personnel, such as mechanics who no longer had any airplanes to work on, and whoever else could be found. Anyone not in uniform already, and capable of firing a weapon, was enlisted. Children as young as sixteen were given a few weeks’ training—and armed.
The spearhead of the Watch on the Rhine attack was veteran panzer divisions. Many were SS divisions that were well equipped and highly trained. Once the attack started, the panzers surged forward against the thin American line. The inexperience of the German infantry divisions that were supposed to be supporting these tanks was so great that they often clogged, and even blocked, key roads. Divisions meant to follow up and push through the gaps created by the panzers were more often stranded miles behind them, in gigantic traffic jams of their own making. They lurched, not surged in to occupy their objectives, after the SS and other armored divisions initially pushed the Americans back. This lack of infantry support allowed the American forces to maintain a continual line even as they were driven back toward the Meuse and the Bulge was formed.
The near-term objective of the Nazi attack was to cross the Meuse River and retake the port of Antwerp. This was the only still-functioning port near the fighting that the Allies controlled. Most of the larger ports farther south in France had been destroyed before being retaken, and were still unusable. Antwerp was the source of the majority of supplies for both the British and American armies that were beginning to push into Germany. If the Nazi armored divisions could capture and hold, or even just destroy, Antwerp, the Allied logistics would collapse. That, Hitler expected, would cause a split between the Brits and the Americans, and the war-weary British would accept a separate peace. America, he believed, would have no choice but to follow. The plan also required that the Allies react to the attack as Hitler expected, which, of course, they did not.
Based on incorrect assumptions, Hitler’s attack plan had stripped the nation of its last reserves of manpower and fuel. As the battle unfolded, other mistaken assumptions were revealed. To succeed, the German formations had to move quickly and punch through the Allied line. Then the Allies had to react slowly, allowing the Germany infantry to keep up with the advance. This would permit the panzers to continue to push forward. The key assumption was that the Americans would panic and pull back, without forming a solid line or retaining any strong positions behind the advancing panzers. This did not happen. In fact, it never could have happened—if for no other reason than that the panzer divisions did not have enough fuel to reach Antwerp, much less fight multiple battles and then move on to the port. Nor was there enough fuel for the trucks carrying the infantry to follow them. This flaw was painted over by a belief that the panzers would be able to complete their advance by capturing American supply dumps and using the fuel they found there.
Hitler and his staff’s objective was for the first panzers to reach the Meuse River by the end of the first day. This was beyond unrealistic, even if they had enough fuel. The Americans were pushed back, but not broken. The American 82nd and 101st Airborne occupied two key towns that controlled most of the roadways and, even when surrounded, refused to be driven out or surrender. They bogged down the German advance, as did stiffening resistance. Artillery and tanks that were intended for the breakout over the Meuse River were instead expended in unsuccessfully attacking Bastogne.
Another basic assumption was that the attack would happen in stormy, overcast weather. The Luftwaffe could no longer contest the air, even over a limited battlefield. So the battle was to be fought in weather so foul that airpower was not a factor. As things turned out, the iced-over roads and snow-blocked fields only further hampered the already hesitant infantry advance.
The farthest forward any panzer reached was when Kampfgruppe von Böhm got to within a few miles of the Meuse River. This was the 2nd Panzer Division and elements of Panzer Lehr. There they ran into General Lawton Collins’s VII Corps, were stopped, and then driven back. Then General Patton’s 3rd Army, which had been attacking south when the Bulge began, smashed through the 9th Panzer on the Bulge’s southern flank. On December 22, the sky cleared and the Allied air forces returned with a vengeance. The Germans were attacked relentlessly from the air. Tanks and artillery were bombed—any movement during the day inevitably drew a strafing or bombing. By Christmas, Patton had relieved Bastogne. Outnumbered, out of fuel, and with failing morale, those who could tried to retreat. By New Year’s Day, all the ground lost by the Americans had been recaptured.
The force that attacked and created the Bulge was, in reality, Germany’s last reserve. For months before the attack, most of the production of tanks, automatic weapons, and artillery was diverted to the Ardennes. The Wacht am Rhine offensive was made with 640 tanks, over a thousand pieces of artillery, and nearly 150,000 soldiers. This is as many men and nearly as many tanks as took part in the attack on the Kursk salient in 1942. Gathering these resources was done at the expense of the existing fronts. Virtually all of the panzers and much of the artillery involved were lost. Before the battle began, its commander, Gerd von Rundstedt, issued a message that correctly reflected the importance of the attack:
“Soldiers of the Western Front! Your great hour has arrived. Large attacking armies have started against the Anglo-Americans. I do not have to tell you more than that. You feel it yourself. WE GAMBLE EVERYTHING!”
Von Rundstedt was correct. Hitler gambled everything on his attack through the Ardennes. It appears he hoped to repeat the success he’d had there in 1940. But this time the odds were very different, the Allied response firmer, and the German resources simply not there. Due to surprise and the Allies’ overconfidence, the Germans wreaked terrible havoc in the first days, but never had a chance to reach their objectives. And even if they had reached Antwerp, they would have been an inconvenience and no more. There was no real chance that they could bring about the desired Anglo-American split.
What if Hitler had listened to his field commanders and used his last reserves to support them rather than in a doomed offensive? Germany had no chance to win WWII, or even survive, at this point. So the question is, how would the war have progressed if Hitler had not wasted this last reserve? Had the soldiers remained on the Western Front, the battle for the Saar and then the heart of Germany would have become a slow grind, at best. Eight additional panzer divisions in the field and another 150,000 (even poorly trained) infantry fighting from defensive positions would have slowed the Allies, if not stopped them. This would have allowed the Russians to advance farther into Germany and the Balkans than they did. Munich, not Berlin, might have been a divided city, and nearly all of Germany and Austria might have ended up under Communist control. The Cold War would have been different, and the wealth and power of Soviet Russia greater.
If instead of wasting the men in the Bulge, Hitler had sent them to the Eastern Front, it might have made a dramatic difference. Russian tactics, such as mass charges, were costly. The Red Army had suffered literally millions of dead and disabled. Even their pool of recruits was drastically reduced. Older and younger Russian soldiers had begun appearing in the front lines. If Germany’s last reserve had been sent east, the commanders there might have made great use of such a force. The front might well have stabilized somewhere in Poland or at the German border. With his army halted and punished, Stalin might have been unable to grab so much of Eastern Europe and certainly the Anglo-American forces would have occupied most of Germany. Undoubtedly, the millions oppressed by the Communists in East Germany and Eastern Europe would have preferred that Hitler not waste his last reserves on a futile attack. The Cold War would have been very different, and a poorer and weaker Russia would have been likely.