The last German counterattack on the Western Front, they managed to get the Americans to surrender, but in the end they won and lost. Today, let's take a look at the nazis' final dying struggle, and interested friends can like and pay attention.
Germany in 1944 was already in jeopardy, Hitler knew in his heart that there was no way to save the defeat on the Eastern Front, germany was even in crisis on its own, and the successful Allied landing in Normandy made the Nazis have to shrink their forces and strengthen their defenses.
Hitler planned to attack from the Western Front in light of the war situation, in order to inflict heavy losses on the Allies so that they could negotiate with themselves. Although the U.S. military is still well supplied and well-armed, Hitler still has a fluke mentality.
Overview of the Battle of ardennes
He felt that the US military with good living conditions should not fight with them, so it was still possible to attack them, but the question was where to start. Hitler, after some thought, suddenly thought of a place – the Ardennes Forest.
The Germans had previously won victories here. When the Germans attacked France in 1940, they quietly passed through the Ardennes Forest and pushed directly into France, leaving the Maginot Line useless, and could the Germans regain the prestige of the Ardennes this time?
As soon as Hitler thought about it, he met with his subordinates to formulate a clear plan for the raid. And before the Nazis attacked, they had another idea, they hid a force of two thousand people into the American troops, let these people disturb the military, and interfered with or cut off the Communications Equipment of the United States.
German forces in the Ardennes
The force was led by Otto, who had rescued Mussolini and successfully kidnapped Horti, a Hungarian who wanted to negotiate with the Soviet Union, to avoid the rapid collapse of the Eastern Front.
Otto is ruthless and arrogant, but he is flexible, and he is certainly capable of such a confidential task. In addition to wreaking havoc, the team had another mission, assassinating Allied commander Eisenhower. Although the Nazis knew that this task was particularly difficult, whether it was successful or not, it could cause panic in the Us military.
As the Nazis had predicted, when these German troops mixed into the American troops in fluent English, Eisenhower also sensed that something was wrong, and after some investigation, he knew that the Germans were going to assassinate him, so he stepped up American patrols near him, but this also seriously affected his life.
Hitler in his speech
Since the Allies had no idea of the Germans' next actions, when the Germans assembled at the Ardennes, there were only 80,000 American soldiers defending here, giving the Germans an advantage in numbers.
On December 16, 1944, the German troops from Belgium, Luxembourg and the Ardennes began to sneak attack in three ways, and the particularly quiet American defensive ground suddenly heard the sound of artillery bombardment that resounded throughout the sky, and countless shells fell on the American defensive ground.
In fact, in the middle of December, the Nazis quietly gathered a large number of elite troops in the Ardennes, including more than 20 divisions such as the SS tank army group and the field army group, and there were seven tank divisions, with a total of 250,000 soldiers, more than 2,600 artillery and mortars, 900 tanks and self-propelled guns, and 800 fighters.
German tanks destroyed in the Battle of the Ardennes
Coupled with the same unit that had previously penetrated the U.S. army, the German soldiers succeeded in attacking the Maas River area with the cooperation of these two places. On December 17, 1944, the German Sixth Tank Unit launched a charge against Stavolo, just eight miles from Subay.
At this time, the German Fifth Tank Unit trapped Schnee Eiffel, where there were several regiments of American troops, a total of more than 7,000 people, and they had no reinforcements but were forced to surrender to the Germans.
On the 18th, the Germans surrounded Bastoni again, while the German armored division advanced from the south to the city of Lisz, and quickly laid a flank siege here, and the German soldiers successfully captured the ferry of the Maas River at the place of Hewi.
Germans captured at the Battle of the Ardennes
On December 20, the Germans released a war report showing that in just five days, German soldiers had captured 25,000 American soldiers and destroyed hundreds of tanks of American troops.
On December 27, the German and American armies engaged in another tank battle, and after a fierce battle, the German army used its advantages to successfully destroy more than sixty tanks of the American troops, and even collected eight tanks, achieving a great harvest.
The German all-out assault has formed a triangular protrusion about a hundred kilometers wide and tens of kilometers deep here, so it can also be called a "battle of the protrusion".
The fierce German offensive made the Ardennes counterattack begin, and because the German secrecy was so good that the Americans did not know what the Nazi motives were at the moment of their surprise attack.
The U.S. Army Field Hospital in Baston
Unprepared American soldiers had to retreat urgently in the face of the sophisticated German offensive, while the German troops pressed forward.
However, the fierce attack of the German soldiers did not continue. The U.S. Airborne Division, under the rapid dispatch of the Allied command, rushed to the Ardennes to support the American soldiers.
General Patton also obeyed the orders of his superiors and led the US Third Army all the way north to reinforce Baston, and the American soldiers in the Ardennes also received orders to fight for their lives to resist the attack of the German soldiers.
Destroyed German tanks
In fact, the Nazi counterattack in the Ardennes was a perfect plan, but Germany had no strength at this time, and they did not have the strength to carry out large-scale assaults at all, so after the American troops reacted, they quickly blocked the offensive of German soldiers.
Moreover, the US military forces have also greatly strengthened the defense forces in the Ardennes region, and the supply of military supplies to the German troops has also been effectively contained by the US Air Force, and although the German air force has done its best, it has not changed the situation.
Their fuel and so on had been interrupted by the Allied attack, and their fuel resources had become a situation that would not be used today and tomorrow, so the German troops had to stop the pace of the attack, and the American army was able to block the fierce advance of the German soldiers.
General Patton
The battle reversed in 1945, and on January 1, the Luftwaffe suddenly sent more than a thousand fighter jets to attack Allied airfields in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
Dramatically, however, the Germans were so tightly guarded with secrecy before launching the raid that they did not even inform the ground artillery unit defending their positions, nor did they tell the unit about the anti-aircraft artillery unit that was about to raid.
So when the Luftwaffe shot down hundreds of Allied fighters and returned home, it was destroyed by the Germans' own anti-aircraft guns. After the attack was hindered, the German forces sent a large number of troops to attack Bastogne and Strasbourg, which was the most intense bombardment since the outbreak of the Ardennes counterattack.
But the German Air Force also suffered heavy losses, with more than two hundred and sixty fighters destroyed by the Allies. On 3 January 1945, the Allies ceased to defend but launched a counterattack against German soldiers.
Captured German reconnaissance pilot
On 12 January, Stalin acceded to Churchill's request, and in order to cooperate with the Allied operations on the Western Front, he arranged for Soviet soldiers to launch a fierce attack on the German forces on the Eastern Front.
At this moment, Hitler could only order the German soldiers on the Western Front to be sent to the Eastern Front, and then the Allied forces on the Western Front found the right time to quickly advance to the territory occupied by the Germans.
On January 16, 1945, the U.S. First and Third Forces successfully met. By the end of January, the German forces had all been repulsed by the Allies to the positions they had taken before the German offensive, and by this point The German counterattack at the Ardennes had been completely defeated.
In this counterattack, the German troops suffered more than 80,000 casualties, lost more than 700 tanks and artillery, and destroyed 1,600 fighters.
Hitler
The Allies suffered more than 80,000 casualties, of whom there were 77,000 American soldiers, who lost 733 tanks and 592 warplanes.
After this counterattack, the Nazis had no reserve army to replenish, and the Allies quickly replenished their own ranks. The Germans were simply not capable of resisting the Allied attack.
American troops were the main force of the Allied forces in this war, and a few months after the defeat of the Ardennes counterattack, Hitler committed suicide in Berlin, and Germany chose to surrender after that.
In fact, the terrain of the Ardennes is more complicated, the roads are relatively rough, and it is not suitable for combat at all, especially the mobile units have no advantage at all. Therefore, the troops stationed here could easily defeat the German attack with numerical superiority if they were prepared.
But it was under such rugged terrain conditions that in less than eighty years, three relatively large battles were fought here, and all of them were the first attacks launched by German troops.
The corpse of a German soldier
As can be seen from the Battle of the Ardennes, the Nazis were indeed effective in terms of troop deployment, and before the outbreak of this battle, the German army carried out a three-way attack on the American army, although the northern front was an ordinary force force, but the central and southern fronts were German armored mobile units.
And the armored division on the southern front is very strong, and the combat effectiveness is outstanding. After the battle was officially launched, the assembled German armored forces quickly broke through the American defense line, and the two divisions of the American army were unable to resist the rapid surrender, and the American soldiers suffered heavy losses.
By 25 December, the Germans had rapidly advanced hundreds of kilometers from the American positions, and thanks to the support of the U.S. 101st Division, the German charge was contained, and the main Allied forces quickly rushed to counterattack the Germans.
Coupled with the heavy bombardment of the Allied air forces, the Americans turned the tide of the Ardennes Campaign, but it was only a matter of time before the Germans lost. What do you think about this? You can leave a message in the comment area, if you like it, you can pay attention to it a little, forward it, and the next issue of the content will be more exciting.