Twenty One German Divisions example essay topic

... 's immediate staff who secretly developed the plan, and turned down all requests for changes or revisions. In one of von Rundsted's request for revisions Hitler responded that the plan was good and needed no change. The plan was a good one if Germany had the fuel, men and supplies that Hitler's plan required, it could have succeeded giving Germany a major victory in the west. Fortunately for the Allies, Hitler's idea of the amount of fuel and number of men at his disposal was greatly exaggerated, and his plan did not take into account that three of his Panzer tank divisions were down to roughly 100 tanks per division. Less than half the amount in the American armored divisions. At 5: 30 in the morning of December 16, 1944 with the benefit of fog and clouds keeping Allied planes on the ground, Hitler attacked a 90 mile American front between Mons chau and Echternach using twenty one German divisions "high on morale but low on fuel".

The first wave of the attack was by the 150th Panzer Brigade, a unit of about 2,000 English speaking Germans who knew American slang and customs. Under command of Colonel Otto Skorzeny, and using captured Jeeps and wearing American combat jackets, the Germans moved through the American lines cutting telephone wires, turning signpost, and setting up false mind field indicators. The 150th was under orders that if captured tell the Americans that thousands of Germans in Jeeps were behind the American lines. This operation was a huge success Thirty-two of the forty Jeeps that went in came back, and the ones who did not make it kept their orders and spread rumors of large numbers of undercover Germans.

The Americans took the bait and set up checkpoints causing massive traffic jams and hundreds of American soldiers were sent to jail if they could not answer check questions such as the height of the Empire State Building. Later the Americans commended these under cover operations as 'Military Genius'. This was against the Geneva Convention. Later another war crime, were the acts committed by the 1st SS Panzer Brigade known as Battle Group Peiper. This unit captured the city of Stavelot and discovered a group of civilians huddled in a basement, The Germans took them out and shot them in cold blood in cold blood. Later that same day the US 99th Infantry Division retook Stavelot and held their positions until reinforcements arrived.

Ironically while Peiper was held up in Stavelot he was with in a mile of a lightly guarded American fuel dump containing 2.5 million gallons of gasoline. But he did not know that it was there and therefore made no attempt to capture the fuel that could have changed the entire offensive. While Peiper was held up in the north, von Manteuffel's 5th army broke through the US 106th Division. By the following day the 5th Panzerarmee had forced the surrender of 7,000 men. Further south the 58th and 47th Panzer Corps had made strong progress and each was close to their goals of Hoff alize and Bastonage. Only now two days after the offensive started did the Allies realize that it had a chance of succeeding.

The fact that the US First Army HQ at Spa had to be quickly relocated after the 6th Panzerarmee advanced only miles from the town. On December 19, the German 47th Panzer Corps reached the town of Bastogne about the same time as the reinforcements, the 101st Airborne Division. That same day the US 30th Division was sent to reinforce the 99th division at Stavelot. With the help of air attacks, these two divisions cut off Peiper Battle Group from the rest of his army, and began pushing him back. By the 24th he had no gasoline at all, he and his troops abandoned their tanks and walked back through the Ardennes Forest. Further south on that same day von Manteuffel's 5th Panzerarmee had taken the city of St. With and forced the US 7th armored division to retreat".

The base of the Bulge these Held To only About 35 miles the Germans could not get enough room to maneuver their armored divisions in there favorite Blitzkrieg fashion" (Dupuy, trevor 59). The Allied line was now broken wide open, Eisenhower acted quickly, putting Montgomery in charge of all the forces north of the breach and Bradley in command of those south of it. On December 21st, General Bradley gave General Patton the task of counter attacking von Manteuffel in order to relieve Brigadier-General McAuliffe and the 101st at Bastogne. The 101st had been at Bastogne for three days, completely cut off from All-American reinforcement when German General Luttwiz offered them terms of surrender.

McAuliffe's response to the German white flag party... ' Nuts!', confused the Germans. When asked the meaning of this answer, McAuliffe then responded 'Go to Hell!' By December 24, Christmas Eve, the bad weather had cleared and the allied air forces mad up for lost time flying 17,000 sorties in the next three days. von Rundstedt once again requested that the whole offensive be called off, Hitler refused. By now the defenders at Bastogne were almost defeated but knew that reinforcements would arrive soon. On December 25th, Christmas Day, German tanks made a last ditch effort to break into the town, but remarkably, the 101st held out.

At 4: 46 PM on the 26th, the US 4th Armored division broke through and made contact with the exhausted troops at Bastogne. By the 24th, Patton's counter from the south was pushing the German 7th army back. The 7th army and von Manteuffel's 5th Panzerarmee combined but were still not strong enough to stop Patton. Hitler released the 9th & 15th Panzer divisions from reserves, but even they were not enough to stop the counter attack by General Collins.

On December 26th, he retook Celles, just five miles from Hitler's goal, the Meuse. This was the turning point of the battle. On December 27 von Manteuffel received the reinforcements he had been waiting for, but they were too few too late. Even if they would have arrived on time he lacked the fuel to put them to good use. The Battle of The Bulge was over Hitler's last offensive had failed, but there were significant losses on both sides.

"The resultant Battle of the Bulge led to heavy casualties on both sides and soberly reminded the Germany where not yet a beaten people" (Gary Hess 68). The Americans could replace the weapons and tanks lost, Germany could not. All said, The Americans lost 76,890 men, the Germans 81,834. Over 700 US tanks were lost as opposed to Germany's 324, and 590 American planes were downed compared to 320 Germans.

If Germany would have had the men and the supplies to win this battle, the outcome might have been different for Germany.