Death Ride of the Panzers

by Dennis Oliver

  On October 1, while the fighting around Overloon was underway, the Germans launched a limited offensive to recapture the town of Elst, situated almost exactly halfway between Arnhem and Nijmegen. The Panzergrenadiers of 9.Panzer-Division, supported by the Tiger tanks of schwere Panzer-Abteilung 506 and the survivors of Kampfgruppe Knaust, made the initial assault and met with some success. However, the units of 10.SS-Panzer-Division, which were to support the right wing of the attack, stalled at the very outset and at around noon the main thrust ran into a fresh British infantry division supported by tanks. During the night the tanks of 116.Panzer-Division, which were supposed to have taken part in the first assault, arrived and the following morning the attack was resumed. This time the British were prepared and the second battalion of Panzergrenadier-Regiment 11 was so badly battered in a firestorm of artillery fire and aerial bombing that it was withdrawn behind the Rhine. Although Generalleutnant Elverfeldt, the commander of 9.Panzer-Division, threw the assault guns of Panzerjäger-Abteilung 50 into the battle on October 3, they were unable to dislodge the British. On the following day, the British counterattacked with such force that Elverfeldt pulled his men back behind the Rhine. By October 7, his division was withdrawn to Germany and 116.Panzer-Division was sent to support the units fighting around Aachen.

  The ancient city of Aachen had little military value and the Allies had hoped to capture it quickly and advance into the industrialized Ruhr Basin. However, as the burial place of Charlemagne, considered by Hitler to be the founder of the First Reich, the city’s symbolic importance was tremendous. Additionally, the Germans were fighting on their own soil for the first time and any ideological considerations would be forgotten in defense of the Homeland. In addition, the city was part of the Westwall defensive network, the so-called Siegfried Line, and would not be such an easy nut to crack.

  The fighting around Aachen had in fact begun in mid-September, when the city was defended by General Gerhard Graf von Schwerin’s 116.Panzer-Division. While launching a counterattack against the US forces approaching the city from the south-west, Schwerin was secretly attempting to negotiate Aachen’s surrender. A letter written by the general to the Allied commander instead found its way into the hands of Hitler and he was immediately replaced.7

  The Allied assault on the city began on October 2. It was preceded by an aerial bombardment that had almost no effect on the network of concrete pill boxes, which would have to be taken and held one at a time. However, by the afternoon the main defensive line had been breached and the American units advancing from the north reached the towns of Übach-Palenberg and Rimburg, forming a line which straddled the defenses of the Westwall. That night the assault guns of Sturmgeschütz-Brigade 902 launched a counterattack but were beaten back by intense artillery fire. On the following day, the Americans were able to bring up their tanks and what German armor there was in the area could not hope to hold on in the face of such overwhelming numerical superiority, although the Tigers of schwere Panzer-Abteilung 506 did manage to retake the town of Alsdorf, just 6 kilometers from the center of Aachen. On October 8, a counterattack made by Oberstleutnant Friedrich-Heinrich Musculus’ Panzer-Brigade 108, supported by an infantry regiment and almost forty armored vehicles scraped together from various sources, skirted Alsdorf and surprised the American armored force by suddenly appearing in their rear. On the same day the Americans launched an assault to the south of Aachen and by October 10 had captured the high ground outside the city, which came to be known as Crucifix Hill. Despite repeated German counterattacks, the Americans managed to hold the hill and also take the surrounding area. That evening the German commander, General Friedrich Köchling, received an ultimatum that unless the garrison surrendered immediately, the city would be bombed into submission. Köchling refused to capitulate and instead ordered his men to turn every cellar into a fortified pillbox. The following morning the American bombardment began and would not stop until October 21, when Aachen eventually fell. On October 11, in an attempt to relieve the pressure on Aachen, 3.Panzergrenadier-Division and 116.Panzer-Division, under the control of I.SS-Panzerkorps, began a series of counterattacks against the American units to the north and east of Aachen, which were attempting to link up and encircle the city. The heaviest fighting there took place on October 15 and 16 around the village of Würselen, where the Panzers were concealed in the houses to await the American advance units. However, by the evening of October 16 the Americans had infiltrated two infantry battalions through the German lines and the encirclement of Aachen was complete. Although the units of I.SS-Panzerkorps continued to attack from the east until October 19, and the garrison of Aachen fanatically fought to hold their positions, the American units literally blasted their way through the defenses using large caliber self-propelled guns. On October 21, the last of the German garrison, barricaded behind the walls of the Hotel Quellenhof, surrendered.

  While the Americans were occupied with the siege of Aachen and the Canadians were bogged down in the battles to clear the Scheldt Estuary, the fighting for the Nijmegen corridor in central Holland continued. On October 22, a combined British infantry and armored force advanced swiftly, capturing the outlying villages to the east and south-east of the town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, an important road and rail junction and a stepping stone to the Moerdijk bridges over the River Maas. On the following day, a counterattack planned for the early morning to be made by the assault guns of Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 1256 supported by infantry and artillery units was postponed at first due to a lack of fuel and then an enemy attack and did not begin until 4.30 pm. The attack immediately ran into trouble with two assault guns falling victim to their own artillery fire. As the grenadiers were riding on the vehicles in the open, infantry casualties were also high. Despite these losses, the Germans pressed on, advancing as far as Bruggen, where the attack was brought to a halt by intense artillery fire as night fell. This limited success was offset by a British advance at Hintham, on the eastern edge of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, which was co-incidentally the location of the German headquarters. A battalion of Grenadier-Regiment 732, which had been ordered to restore the defensive line, was completely annihilated by the enemy’s artillery fire and Hintham was abandoned during the night.

  On October 24, the British attacked along the Nijmegen rail line, captured the command post of 712.Infanterie-Division, and pushed on to the iver Dieze, which runs through the center of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. By nightfall they had established a bridgehead along the Zuid-Willemsvaart on the river’s south-western bank, where the assault guns of Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 1256 succeeded in pushing the enemy back some way and taking a number of prisoners. To the south, the British were able to advance to the village of Vught, only 3 kilometers from the city center, but could go no further and Vught remained in the hands of 59.Infanterie-Division. The defenders were reinforced by a battalion of Artillerie-Regiment 256 with two batteries of heavy guns that evening and early the next day by a company of assault guns from schwere-Panzerjäger-Abteilung 559.

  Early the next morning, the British assault was resumed. By the end of the day the Dommel canal had been reached, effectively bringing the center of the city under British control. During the night, the defenders experienced the heaviest artillery bombardment of the battle so far and all radio communications were lost; commanders were forced to rely on runners to carry their orders. On October 26, the British were able to secure the west side of the Dommel canal and the two pincers of the British attack were able to link up at the Vught bridge on the southern edge of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, all but ending the battle. The following day the Germans counterattacked with the meager forces at their disposal, including the assault guns of schwere-Panzerjäger-Abteilung 559, but could make no headway. During the evening the last defenders withdrew to the northern bank of the Maas across the bridge near Vlijmen, which they promptly destroyed.

  In answer to the British attacks in the Nijmegen Corridor, Model directed 9.Panzer-Division to open an attack from Venlo, on the M
aas River east of Eindhoven, towards Asten, which would then be exploited by 15.Panzergrendier-Division. On October 27 the attack began and went well enough, with the lead elements reaching the village of Meijel and the outskirts of Liessel, some 20 kilometers east of Eindhoven and just 5 kilometers short of their objective, despite the fact that Panzergrenadier-Regiment 11 could not be found and the Panther tanks of II.Abteilung, Panzer-Regiment 33 did not arrive until well into the afternoon. On the following morning, 15.Panzergrenadier-Division attacked to the north of 9.Panzer-Division and by the end of the day had advanced as far as the open fields to the east of Liessel. Led by the division’s reconnaissance battalion and elements of Panzergrenadier-Regiment 11, both under the command of Major Engelbert Bockhoff, 9.Panzer-Division reached the woods east of Asten but could go no further. The first of the Allied counterattacks was launched by US 7th Armored Division later that day. Although the American tanks were repulsed, it was clear that the Germans had lost the initiative and both division commanders suggested that the operation be called off. Model would not agree and another attack went forward on October 29, with 15.Panzergrenadier-Division capturing the town of Liessel. However, the resumption of the advance towards Asten by 9.Panzer-Division, the original objective of the assault, went badly and by noon Oberbefehlshaber West, overruling Model, called a halt to the operation. That evening Model asked that a final attempt be made the next day to capture Asten and Rundstedt relented. The attack went badly from the beginning, with an already-exhausted Panzergrenadier-Regiment 10 running head on into an American counterattack and suffering high losses. During the next day and into the night, the Germans went over to the defense and prepared for the counterattacks they knew would come, while 9.Panzer-Division was withdrawn from the front.

  On October 29, the Polish Armored division took Breda, the last major town in southern Holland under German occupation, and as the winter approached the intensity of the fighting decreased. The weather became increasingly cold and wet through November and the fighting was restricted to a number of small engagements around the Venlo bridgehead, where the Allies resumed their attacks. In addition to the weather, the extensive flooding intentionally engineered by the retreating Wehrmacht also hampered operations. The fighting in Holland had been extremely costly for the Allies and in just over two months, with the exception of the clearing of the Scheldt Estuary, the British and Canadians had managed little more than an expansion of the corridor that had been taken as a result of the airborne assaults of September as part of Operation Market Garden. Although the Scheldt Estuary had been secured, the first ship would not enter the harbor facilities of Antwerp until November 28 and the port’s use would be continually hampered by the stream of V2 rockets that fell on the city.

  As winter approached, the Fortress of Metz finally capitulated to the Americans. The German defensive works were actually a collection of fortifications centered on Metz and Thionville made up of infantry strong points, concrete reinforced artillery positions, and interconnecting trenches. The trench works contained machine gun and rifle positions and were protected by an extensive barbed wire belt. An outer ring of the ten forts had been built by the French in the late 19th century and an inner ring had been completed by the German between 1899 and 1916. This inner ring contained the two most powerful forts, Feste Kaiserin and Feste Kronprinz, the latter known to the Americans as Fort Driant. Between these two forts lay a number of defensive works, which came to be known during the battle as the Seven Dwarves.

  As early as mid-September units, of US 3rd Army had pushed aside the depleted 17.SS-Panzer-Division Götz von Berlichingen to advance towards the city, which was defended by General Otto von Knobelsdorff’s 1.Armee. The bulk of the German defense was made up of infantry formations; however, Knobelsdorff could call on the remnants of the Götz von Berlichingen division and the tanks of 11.Panzer-Division. On September 27, two separate assaults were repelled by the Germans; however, in a separate operation, the Americans were able to establish a small bridgehead across the Moselle to the south of Metz. During October the attackers limited themselves to small scale assaults and offensive patrols and it was November 3 before a concerted attack was launched, which resulted in the capture of the outer defenses. On November 14, Generalleutnant Heinrich Kittel was appointed as the commander of the German forces holding Metz and the system of forts while the mobile units of 1.Armee fell back to the Saar Heights, where Knobelsdorff hoped to slow the Allied advance long enough for his infantry formations to entrench themselves in front of the prepared positions of the Westwall. On the day Kittel took up his new command, the Americans managed to capture three of the Seven Dwarves. The attackers were making steady—if slow—progress and by November 17, most of the forts had been isolated and Metz itself was under attack. That evening the last civilians, who were mostly Nazi functionaries, were evacuated from the city and Kittel ordered the remaining bridges over the Moselle and Seille Rivers to be destroyed. On Saturday, November 18, US infantrymen entered the city from several different directions, struggling from street to street, and during the fighting on the following Tuesday, Generalleutnant Kittle was wounded and taken prisoner. Although the city of Metz was formally surrendered on the following day, a number of the outlying forts held out for weeks, mainly due to the Allied reluctance to expend the ammunition they would need for the advance to the Saar and the Siegfried Line.

  On November 21, the day Generalleutnant Kittel was captured, units of US 10th Armored Division began the assault on the German positions between the Saar and Moselle Rivers at a point referred to as the Siegfried Switch, more than 30 kilometers north of Metz. Despite the pounding the German defenders received from the preliminary artillery bombardment, the attackers were only able to advance to within 2 kilometers of the town of Orscholz, their major objective, at the center of the defensive belt. On either side of the main thrust, the Allied tanks made no progress all and the attempts to bridge the extensive ditches and destroy the Dragon’s Teeth anti-tank obstacles were thwarted by intense machine gun fire. On the following day, the German defenses were further bolstered by the arrival of the tanks of Generalleutnant Heinz von Randow’s 21.Panzer-Division.

  The Americans now held back their armor, trusting their infantry to create a gap in the defenses which their tanks could exploit. In three days of close fighting, the attackers managed to occupy the fortified villages of Oberleuken and Butzdorf; however, they had been forced to bypass the town of Tettingen, which remained in German hands. During the night a force of infantry and tanks from 21.Panzer-Division attacked Butzdorf and, although the American defenders were relieved the next morning by an armored column, the Germans had infiltrated reinforcements into Tettingen and the Americans fell back behind a heavy artillery barrage.

  Further to the south, on November 24, the tanks and armored infantry of US 3rd Army’s XII Corps ran into the positions occupied by 361.Volksgrenadier Division south of Sarre-Union. The Americans had little trouble in overrunning the German defenders and continued to advance towards the village of Barendorf, where that afternoon they came into contact with the Grenadiers of the Panzer-Lehr-Division. Unknown to the Americans, the Panzer-Lehr commander, Generalleutnant Bayerlein, had been ordered to prepare an attack towards the south against US XV Corps. Bayerlein was now forced to split his division to address the threat at Barendorf. In the early hours of November 25, Bayerlein’s tanks attacked the American positions and although the Panzers were shielded by a heavy fog, the Germans were almost immediately forced to take up defensive positions. In the four days of skirmishing that followed, Panzer-Lehr-Division was so depleted that General Balck, the Heeresgruppe G commander, withdrew Bayerlein’s men from the front line.

  To the north of Barendorf, Allied units had crossed into German territory and were advancing towards the Saar Heights. Balck was determined to defend the strategically important high ground or at least force the Americans pay a high price for its possession. The struggle for the Saar Heights lasted for
two days, with the fiercest fighting taking place on Wednesday, November 29, when a Kampfgruppe made up of units from 21.Panzer-Division with the remnant of Panzer-Lehr-Division launched no less than ten counterattacks against the Americans in an effort to keep them from clearing the heights and reaching the Saar River. On the following day, completely exhausted, the Germans finally gave up and withdrew to Saarlautern. To the north, other American units had encountered far less resistance, and as the Panzers pulled back from the Heights, closed up to the banks of the Saar. On the following day, despite the efforts of 25.Panzergrenadier Division, the Americans entered Saar-Union. On December 3, an attack by elements of 11.Panzer-Division was unable to force the American units from the town and Balck withdrew the divisions on his left to new positions in the Maginot Line bunkers at Rohrbach-les-Bitche. On the same day, US Army units were able to penetrate the Westwall defenses near Saarlautern and, although the fighting to secure the town would continue for some time, within forty-eight hours 3rd Army was advancing into Germany on a 50 kilometer front. By December 10, Hagenau and Saargemünd had fallen, as had the positions at Rohrbach-les-Bitche where Balck had hoped to hold the Americans. On December 13, the last of the fortifications around Metz, the Feste Kaiserin, finally surrendered. On the same day, the bloody battles in the Hürtgenwald, where a handful of German units including 3.Panzergrenadier-Division and 116. Panzer-Division had held up the Allied advance since late September, were drawing to a close. It seemed that the Germans were all but finished and the end of the war was in sight. But in less than thirty-six hours the Germans would launch a major offensive, employing units that were thought to have been destroyed (or at least decimated) in an area the Allied command considered almost impassable. The last great attack in the west would ensure, if nothing else, that the war would continue well into 1945.