After sending this preliminary message we drew up, for General Marshall’s information, a complete digest of our plan and dispatched it by following radio:
From Eisenhower to Marshall, dated March 30:
This is in reply to your radio.
The same protests except as to “procedure” contained in that telegram were communicated to me by the Prime Minister over telephone last night.
I am completely in the dark as to what the protests concerning “procedure” involve. I have been instructed to deal directly with the Russians concerning military co-ordination. There is no change in basic strategy. The British Chiefs of Staff last summer protested against my determination to open up the Frankfurt route because they said it would be futile and would draw strength away from a northern attack. I have always insisted that the northern attack would be the principal effort in that phase of our operations that involved the isolation of the Ruhr, but from the very beginning, extending back before D-day, my plan, explained to my staff and senior officers, has been to link up the primary and secondary efforts in the Kassel area and then make one great thrust to the eastward.
Even cursory examination of the decisive direction for this thrust, after the link-up in the Kassel area is complete, shows that the principal effort should under existing circumstances be toward the Leipzig region, where is concentrated the greater part of the remaining German industrial capacity, and to which area the German ministries are believed to be moving. My plan does not draw Montgomery’s British and Canadian forces to the southward. You will note that his right flank will push forward along the general line Hanover–Wittenberge. Merely following the principle that Field Marshal Brooke has always emphasized, I am determined to concentrate on one major thrust and all that my plan does is to place the U. S. Ninth Army back under Bradley for that phase of operations involving the advance of the center from Kassel to the Leipzig region, unless, of course, the Russian forces should be met on this side of that area. Thereafter, that position will be consolidated while the plan clearly shows that Ninth Army may again have to move up to assist the British and Canadian armies in clearing the whole coast line to the westward of Lübeck.
After strength for this operation has been provided, it is considered that we can launch a movement to the southeastward to prevent Nazi occupation of a mountain citadel.
I have thoroughly considered the naval aspects of this situation and clearly recognize the advantages of gaining the northern coast line at an early date. It is for this reason that I have made that objective the next one to be achieved after the primary thrust has placed us in a decisive position. The opening of Bremen, Hamburg, and Kiel involves operations against the Frisian Islands and Heligoland and extensive mine sweeping. All this and operations into Denmark and Norway form part of a later phase.
May I point out that Berlin itself is no longer a particularly important objective. Its usefulness to the German has been largely destroyed and even his government is preparing to move to another area. What is now important is to gather up our forces for a single drive and this will more quickly bring about the fall of Berlin, the relief of Norway, and the acquisition of the shipping and the Swedish ports than will the scattering around of our effort.
As another point I should like to point out that the so-called “good ground” in northern Germany is not really good at this time of year. That region is not only badly cut up with waterways, but in it the ground during this part of the year is very wet and not so favorable for rapid movement as is the higher plateau over which I am preparing to launch the main effort.
To sum up:
I propose, at the earliest possible moment, in conjunction with the Soviets to divide and destroy the German forces by launching my main attack from the Kassel area straight eastward toward the heart of what remains of the German industrial power until that thrust has attained the general area of Leipzig and including that city, unless the Russian advance meets us west of that point. The second main feature of the battle is to bring Montgomery’s forces along on the left and as quickly as the above has been accomplished to turn Ninth Army to the left to assist him in cleaning out the whole area from Kiel and Lübeck westward.
After the requirements of these two moves have been met, I will thrust columns southeastward in an attempt to join up with the Russians in the Danube Valley and prevent the establishment of a Nazi fortress in southern Germany.
Naturally, my plans are flexible and I must retain freedom of action to meet changing situations. Maximum flexibility will result from a concentration of maximum force in the center.26
An interesting sidelight on the foregoing telegram is that it was originally drafted, in my headquarters, by one of my British assistants.
From Marshall to Eisenhower, dated March 31:
British Chiefs of Staff sent from London to Combined Chiefs today their views on your plan.
They deny any desire to fetter the hand of the Supreme Commander in the field but mention wider issues outside the purvue of SCAEF (U-boat war, Swedish shipping, political importance of saving thousands of Dutchmen from starvation, importance of move into Denmark and liberating Norway) and request delay in the submission of further details to Deane [head of the Military Mission in Moscow] until you hear from the CCS.
The U. S. Chiefs replied today in substance as follows: SCAEF’s procedure in communicating with the Russians appears to have been an operational necessity. Any modification of this communication should be made by Eisenhower and not by the CCS. The course of action outlined in SCAEF plan appears to be in accord with agreed strategy and SCAEF’s directive, particularly in light of present developments. Eisenhower is deploying across the Rhine in the north the maximum number of forces which can be employed. The secondary effort in the south is achieving an outstanding success and is being exploited to the extent of logistic capabilities. The U. S. Chiefs are confident that SCAEF’s course of action will secure the ports and everything else mentioned by the British more quickly and more decisively than the course of action urged by them.
The battle of Germany is now at a point where it is up to the Field Commander to judge the measures which should be taken. To deliberately turn away from the exploitation of the enemy’s weakness does not appear sound. The single objective should be quick and complete victory. While recognizing there are factors not of direct concern to SCAEF, the U. S. Chiefs consider his strategic concept is sound and should receive full support. He should continue to communicate freely with the Commander in Chief of the Soviet Army.27
Later, on April 7, I included the following in my final radio on the subject to General Marshall:
The message I sent to Stalin was a purely military move taken in accordance with ample authorizations and instructions previously issued by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Frankly, it did not cross my mind to confer in advance with the Combined Chiefs of Staff because I have assumed that I am held responsible for the effectiveness of military operations in this theater and it was a natural question to the head of the Russian forces to inquire as to the direction and timing of their next major thrust, and to outline my own intentions.
We are now holding up a message to the mission in Russia, the purpose of which is to establish some concrete arrangement for mutual identification of air and ground troops and to suggest a procedure to be followed in the event our forces should meet the Russians in any part of Germany, each with an offensive mission. It is critically important that this question be settled quickly on a practical basis.28
The outcome of all this was that we went ahead with our own plan. So earnestly did I believe in the military soundness of what we were doing that my intimates on the staff knew I was prepared to make an issue of it.
The only other result of this particular argument was that we thereafter felt somewhat restricted in communicating with the Generalissimo and were careful to confine all our communications to matters of solely tactical importance. This situation I did not regard as too serious, parti
cularly because the United States Chiefs of Staff had staunchly reaffirmed my freedom of action in the execution of plans that in my judgment would bring about the earliest possible cessation of hostilities.
Chapter 21
OVERRUNNING
GERMANY
THE INDUSTRIAL IMPORTANCE OF THE RUHR TO Germany had been greatly diminished even before we surrounded it. Not only had the factories of the region been the targets of many heavy bombing raids but in February 1945 the Allied air force had initiated an interdiction program designed to cut the communication lines leading from the Ruhr into the heart of Germany. That operation had been markedly successful and we knew that the Germans were having great difficulty in transporting munitions from the Ruhr to the armies still remaining in the fields. As a consequence of the threats now developing on both sides of that area and because of its greatly diminished usefulness, it would have seemed logical for the Germans to withdraw their military forces for use in opposing our forward advances. Certainly it should have been clear to the German General Staff that when once the Ruhr was surrounded there would be lost not only its industries but whatever military forces might be jammed into its defenses. Nevertheless, the Germans once again stood in place.
Bradley’s forces on the south and Montgomery’s in the north fought steadily toward their appointed meeting place near Kassel. The resistance to Simpson’s Ninth Army, which was on the right of Montgomery’s army group, was more stubborn than that encountered by the First and Third Armies advancing out of the Frankfurt area. As a result, the southern arm of our pincers swung well around the eastern and northeastern flanks of the Ruhr to meet Simpson’s advancing columns in the vicinity of Lippstadt, near Paderborn.
By April 1, just one week after the Twenty-first Army Group had crossed the Rhine in the Wesel sector, the junction was complete, the Ruhr was surrounded, and its garrison was trapped.
The Germans had now suffered an unbroken series of major defeats. Beginning with the bloody repulse in the enemy’s abortive Ardennes assault, the Allied avalanche had continued to inflict upon him a series of losses and defeats of staggering proportions. There was no atom of reason or logic in prolonging the struggle. In both the east and the west strong forces were now operating in the homeland of Germany. The Ruhr, the Saar, and Silesia were all lost to the enemy. His remaining industries, dispersed over the central area of the country, could not possibly support his armies still attempting to fight. Communications were badly broken and no Nazi senior commander could ever be sure that his orders would reach the troops for whom they were intended. While in many areas there were troops capable of putting up fierce and stubborn local resistance, only on the northern and southern flanks of the great western front were there armies of sufficient size to do more than delay Allied advances.
On March 31, I issued a proclamation to the German troops and people, urging the former to surrender and the latter to begin planting crops. I described the hopelessness of their situation and told them that further resistance would only add to their future miseries.
My purpose was to bring the whole bloody business to an end. But the hold of Hitler on his associates was still so strong and was so effectively applied elsewhere, through the medium of the Gestapo and SS, that the nation continued to fight.
When Bradley reached the Kassel region his problem was a double-headed one. He first had to compress the Ruhr defenders into a small enough pocket so that they could be contained with a few divisions and effectively prevented from interfering with his own communications. His second job was to organize his three armies for a main advance across the central plateau of Germany in the direction of Leipzig.
His three front-line armies were, from north to south, Simpson’s Ninth, Hodges’ First, and Patton’s Third. He had a total of forty-eight divisions, the largest exclusively American force in our history.1
Field Marshal Model commanded the German forces in the Ruhr pocket. He first attempted to break out of the encirclement by an attack toward the north, and he was defeated. A similar attempt toward the south was equally abortive, and the German garrison had nothing to look forward to except eventual surrender. Bradley kept hammering back the enemy lines and on April 14 the Americans launched a local attack that split the pocket in two. Two days later the eastern half collapsed. On the eighteenth the whole remaining garrison surrendered. Originally we had estimated we would capture about 150,000 of the German Army in the Ruhr. In the final count the total reached 325,000, including 30 general officers. We destroyed twenty-one divisions and captured enormous quantities of supplies. Hitler must have hoped that the siege of the Ruhr would be as stubbornly contested as was that of Brest, but within eighteen days of the moment the Ruhr was surrounded it had surrendered with an even greater number of prisoners than we had bagged in the final Tunisian collapse almost two years earlier.2
In the meantime Bradley had rapidly organized his forces for the eastward drive. By the time the Ruhr garrison surrendered, some of his spearheads had already reached the Elbe, a hundred and fifty miles from Kassel.3 Bradley’s advance was conducted on a broad front. On the south the Third Army struck in the direction of the Czechoslovakian border and toward the city of Chemnitz just north of that country. It reached that area April 13–14.4 On Patton’s left the First Army attack began April 11 and made rapid progress against scattered resistance. On the fourteenth the 3d Armored Division of Collins’ VII Corps reached Dessau, practically on the Elbe.5 This corps, which had been in the original assault against the Normandy beaches and soon thereafter had captured Cherbourg, had fought all the way across northwest Europe from the coast of France to the river Elbe.
April 12 I spent with George Patton. Before the day ended, the scenes I saw and news I heard etched the date in my memory. In the morning we visited some of Patton’s scattered corps and divisions, which were pushing rapidly eastward in a typical Patton thrust, here and there surrounding and capturing isolated detachments of the disintegrating enemy. There was no general line of resistance, or indeed even any co-ordinated attempt at delay. However, some of the local enemy detachments stubbornly defended themselves and we saw sporadic fighting throughout the day.
General Patton’s army had overrun and discovered Nazi treasure, hidden away in the lower levels of a deep salt mine.6 A group of us descended the shaft, almost a half mile under the surface of the earth.
At the bottom were huge piles of German paper currency, apparently heaped up there in a last frantic effort to evacuate some of it before the arrival of the Americans. In one of the tunnels was an enormous number of paintings and other pieces of art. Some of these were wrapped in paper and burlap, others were merely stacked together like cordwood.
In another tunnel we saw a hoard of gold, tentatively estimated by our experts to be worth about $250,000,000, most of it in gold bars. These were in sacks, two 25-pound bars to each sack. There was also a great amount of minted gold from the different countries of Europe and even a few millions of gold coins from the United States.
Crammed into suitcases and trunks and other containers was a great amount of gold and silver plate and ornament obviously looted from private dwellings throughout Europe. All the articles had been flattened by hammer blows, obviously to save storage space, and then merely thrown into the receptacle, apparently pending an opportunity to melt them down into gold or silver bars.
Attention had been originally drawn to the particular tunnel in which all this gold was stored by the existence of a newly built brick wall in the center of which was a steel safe door of the most modern type. The safe door was so formidable that heavy explosive charges would certainly have been necessary for its demolition. However, to an American soldier who inspected it the surrounding brick wall did not look particularly strong, and he tested out his theory with a mere half stick of TNT. With this he blew an enormous hole completely through the obstruction and the hoard was exposed to view. We speculated as to why the Germans had not attempted to provide a concealed hiding
place for the treasure in the labyrinth of tunnels instead of choosing to attempt its protection by a wall that could easily have been demolished by a pickax. The elaborate steel door made no sense to us at all, but an American soldier who accompanied me remarked, “It’s just like the Germans to lock the stable door but to tear out all its sides.” Patton’s story of the incident that led to the exploration of the mine was in itself intriguing.
It is probable, of course, that sooner or later the mine would have been carefully searched by the captors. But according to Patton, except for the instincts of human decency on the part of two Americans, we might not have discovered it until much of it had been more securely hidden away. The story was this:
In the little neighboring town the advancing Americans had established a curfew law. Any civilian in the streets after dark was instantly picked up for questioning. One evening a roving patrol in a jeep saw a German woman hurrying along the street after curfew and stopped to speak to her. She protested that she was rushing off to get a midwife for her neighbor, who was about to have a child. The American soldiers decided to check on the story, being quite ready to help if it should prove to be correct. They took the German woman into their jeep, picked up the midwife, and returned to the accouchement, which was all as described by the German woman. The soldiers, still helpful, remained long enough to return the German woman and her midwife friend to their homes. As they were going along the street they passed the mouth of one of the salt mines of that region and one of the women remarked, “That’s the mine in which the gold is buried.”
This remark excited the curiosity of the soldiers and they questioned the women sufficiently to learn that some weeks earlier great loads of material had been brought from the east to be put into the mine. The soldiers reported the story to their superiors, who in turn sought out some of the German officials of the mining corporation and the whole treasure fell into our hands.
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