With the Allies now preoccupied in the south of France, Hitler did not need to worry about the Italian Front. In fact, Field Marshal Kesselring was directed to relinquish his 3rd and 15th Panzergrenadier Divisions to France and the Hermann Goering Panzer Division to Poland. These two panzergrenadier units would form the core of Hitler’s opposition to the push on the Upper Meuse by Patton’s US 3rd Army.
Counter-attack in Lorraine
Indeed, Hitler was hoping to counter Patton, who was spearheading the Allies’ eastwards drive into Lorraine, posing a direct threat to the German West-wall defences. However, until General Jacob L. Devers’ US 6th Army Group pushing up from the south of France could nip off the remaining bulge formed by the German 19th Army, Patton’s left flank was precariously exposed. Hitler realised that a decisive blow against Patton would stop him getting into Germany and would prevent Devers’ forces from linking up with Bradley’s 12th Army Group. To this end he gave priority to his forces in Lorraine. In contrast, the Allies were now at the end of their supply lines and Eisenhower’s attention was increasingly focusing on Operation Market-Garden, which was intended to take Montgomery’s 21st Army Group through the Netherlands and over the Rhine. Operations in the south were now just an unwanted distraction, though Patton was constantly calling for more fuel and ammunition.
Hitler’s forces in Lorraine were on the whole under-strength and of poor quality. Only the 16th Infantry Division with about 7,000 men was worthy of note; all the rest had either been mauled in the fighting during the summer or were newly raised Volksgrenadier divisions of questionable value. Frightened recruits and weary veterans were hardly an ideal combination. In contrast, Patton’s divisions were largely up to strength and eager to press on.
It was apparent that Hitler needed to act quickly. Gathering together a number of newly raised panzer brigades, he planned to surround Patton with the battered 5th Panzer Army, which had only just recently escaped from the chaos of Normandy. At the same time Blaskowitz was ordered to commit his only panzer force, the veteran 11th Panzer Division, which was defending the Belfort Gap. Hitler, as always obsessed with counter-attacking when such action was not feasible, felt that the bridgehead west of Dijon would not only provide a haven for LXIV Corps but also offer a suitable jumping-off point for an attack on Patton’s southern front. Looking at the situation reports, Blaskowitz doubted whether the counter-attack could succeed, and was even more concerned about his forces’ ability to hold on until LXIV Corps arrived. However, he knew that Hitler’s orders could not be ignored and on 4 September he instructed XLVII Panzer Corps to move into the Neufchateau region. This, though, proved impossible in the face of attacks by the US XII and XX Corps.
Now under General Hasso von Manteuffel, the 5th Panzer Army was redeployed from Belgium to Alsace-Lorraine. The counter-attack was initially to involve three panzergrenadier divisions, the 3rd, the 15th (brought up from Italy) and the 17th SS (from Normandy), together with the new Panzer Brigades 111, 112 and 113. They were to be supported by elements of the Panzer Lehr, the 11th and 21st Panzer Divisions, and the new Panzer Brigades 106, 107 and 108. On paper at least, it seemed to be a credible force.
In fact, Blaskowitz and Manteuffel were able to muster at most about 350 tanks, amounting to barely three weak panzer divisions or a panzer corps – hardly sufficient for Hitler’s optimistic plans. Against them Patton could field 1,122 M4 Sherman medium tanks and M10 and M18 tank destroyers. In addition, the 19th Army had just 165 artillery pieces; the rest lay scattered about southern France. The two German generals could see only one outcome. Colonel Hans von Luck from the 21st Panzer Division, a veteran of the brutal fighting in Normandy and around the ancient city of Caen, bumped into Manteuffel in the Vosges on 9 September. In their conversations Manteuffel did not mince his words:
The US 6th Army Group, including the French 1st Army, is approaching from southern France and is supposed to join up with Patton. The remains of our retreating armies from the Mediterranean and Atlantic coast are … still holding a wedge that extends as far as Dijon, but for how much longer?
The worst of it is Hitler is juggling with divisions that are divisions no more. And now Hitler wants to launch a panzer attack from the Dijon area to the north, in order, as he likes to put it, ‘to seize Patton in the flank, cut his lines of communication, and destroy him’. What a misjudgement of the possibilities open to us.
Certainly Manteuffel’s own army was far from reconstructed following its defeat in Normandy and the panzer forces were in a poor state. For example, the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division, after suffering losses in Normandy, had been boosted with reinforcements from units as far away as the Balkans and Denmark. It was able to field just 4 Panzer Mk IVs and 12 StuG III assault guns. The 21st Panzer Division had also been seriously mauled in Normandy and could muster only a few assault guns.
The 11th Panzer Division was regarded as the best armoured unit in the region, but it too had lost a number of its tanks during its withdrawal from the south. For the Lorraine offensive it would be able to field about 50 panzers, over half of which were Panthers. However, it would have to redeploy before it could have any bearing on the fighting. In contrast, both the 3rd and 15th Panzergrenadier Divisions were in good order and up to strength. The former had a battalion of assault guns and the latter could field 36 Panzer Mk IVs, while both also had a battalion of Panzer IV/70 tank destroyers.
While German industry soon alleviated the critical shortage of panzers on the Western Front following Falaise, there was little Hitler could do about his complete lack of experienced tank crews. In addition, his senior generals could see little point in raising new panzer brigades when the replacement panzers would have been better issued to the existing depleted panzer divisions. The bulk of these new panzer brigades were raised from units that had been destroyed when the Red Army crushed Army Group Centre in Operation Bagration in June. For example, Panzer Brigade 106 was created around the tattered remnants of Panzergrenadier Division Feldherrnhalle. Also the first batch of brigades consisted only of single tank battalions.
Nevertheless Hitler planned to stop the US 3rd and 7th Armies linking up by cutting off those forces pushing towards the Belfort Gap. This was to be achieved by a counter-attack from Pontalier towards Plateau de Langres, scheduled for 12 September. In the event, with the Americans converging on Dijon, these plans were quickly abandoned. Likewise, American military activity in the Nancy area soon thwarted Hitler’s plans for an armoured counter-attack in Lorraine, as Blaskowitz struggled to contain the US forces spilling over the Moselle. Although Hitler’s counter-attack was intended to cut off the US 3rd Army, Blaskowitz was more concerned that it should prevent an American wedge forming between his 1st and 19th Armies.
Hitler’s lost panzer brigades
Nancy was the lynchpin, and in the subsequent fighting for the city Blaskowitz was forced to commit all his available armoured forces. Between Metz to the north and Nancy lay the 3rd and 17th SS Panzergrenadier Divisions, while the 553rd Volksgrenadiers defended Nancy itself. Just to the south were deployed the 15th Panzergrenadiers, and beyond them Panzer Brigade 112, the 21st Panzer Division and Panzer Brigade 111. Panzer Brigade 113 and the 11th Panzer Division were near Belfort.
Under the growing strain, it was not long before Blaskowitz and Manteuffel fell out. The 5th Panzer Army had to share control of the front with Blaskowitz’s 1st and 19th Armies, causing administrative headaches for von Knobelsdorff and Wiese. Nor were there enough telephones for command and control of the three armies, creating a far from ideal situation. When Manteuffel visited Blaskowitz on 11 September, both knew Hitler’s ambitious intentions were nonsense. In addition, the US 1st Army was bearing down on the German city of Aachen, obliging Field Marshal von Rundstedt to redirect all available forces to that area, including Panzer Brigades 107 and 108. This meant that a third of the panzer brigade counter-offensive force was lost already. Rundstedt had been sacked after the disaster in Normandy, but had then fo
und himself reappointed as Commander-in-Chief West in early September.
Panzer Brigade 106 was destroyed while trying to stop the Americans from reaching the Moselle on 8 September. Two days later the US 4th Armored Division and 35th ‘Sante Fe’ Infantry Division crossed the river south of Nancy in the face of fierce resistance from the 15th Panzergrenadier Division. The next day the US 80th ‘Blue Ridge’ Infantry Division crossed to the north of the city and on the 13th was counter-attacked by the 3rd Panzergrenadiers with ten assault guns. That day, with his defences ruptured, Blaskowitz gave the order to start evacuating Nancy, with the 553rd Volksgrenadier Division covering the withdrawal.
Elements of Leclerc’s French 2nd Armoured Division then crushed Panzer Brigade 112 at Dompaire, south-west of Nancy and north-west of Belfort, on 13 September. His Combat Command Langlade slipped between Kampfgruppe Ottenbacher and the 16th Infantry Division and took control of the high ground overlooking Dompaire. Following an American air strike, Panzer Brigade 112’s Panthers were hemmed in on three sides, although German reinforcements in the shape of 45 Panzer Mk IVs from Panzer Regiment 2112 almost threatened to trap one of the French battle groups.
Luckily a French road-block formed by armour and anti-tank guns beat off the reinforcements and by the end of the day the panzer brigade had lost 34 Panthers and the panzer regiment 28 Panzer Mk IVs. In total, Panzer Brigade 112 was reduced from 90 tanks to just 21, and suffered 1,350 men killed and wounded; the survivors were placed under the 21st Panzer Division. Blaskowitz and Manteuffel had now lost four panzer brigades before their counter-offensive had even started.
With the German garrison at Nancy under threat of encirclement, Blaskowitz threw the 3rd and 15th Panzergrenadier Divisions into the counter-attack, but they suffered heavy casualties and the US 80th ‘Blue Ridge’ Division rolled into the city on the 15th. When Manteuffel’s counter-offensive finally got under way on 18 September Panzer Brigade 113 ran straight into the Americans at Lunéville southeast of the city and was forced to disengage. The brigade was then redirected to attack towards Arracourt, east of Nancy, along with Panzer Brigade 111, but the latter became lost. During the 19th American tanks and artillery knocked out 43 tanks, but Blaskowitz ordered Manteuffel to renew the attack the following day.
General von Mellenthin noted:
Our Panthers were superior to the American Shermans, but the enemy had very strong artillery and anti-tank support, and when the fog lifted enjoyed all the benefits of overwhelming air power. The German attack cost nearly fifty tanks and achieved nothing.
Despite Blaskowitz’s orders, Panzer Brigade 113 did little and Panzer Brigade 111 committed only a few companies to the fighting. There was now a danger that Patton would drive a wedge between the 5th Panzer Army and the 1st Army and force his way to the Rhine.
Blaskowitz gets the sack
Blaskowitz held Manteuffel responsible for this sorry state of affairs, while the latter blamed his poor performance on his inexperienced panzer brigade crews. Hitler was so angry that his new panzer force had been squandered to no effect that he abruptly sacked the unfortunate commander of Army Group G. Blaskowitz’s other crime was quarrelling with Hitler’s right-hand man Heinrich Himmler about the second-line defences. General von Mellenthin recalled with some distaste:
On 20 September 1944 General Balck and I arrived at the headquarters of Army Group G, then situated at Molsheim in Alsace. It was our unpleasant duty to relieve the army group commander, General Blaskowitz, and his chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Heinz von Gyldenfeldt. As we drove up to the headquarters, with the wooded crests of the Vosges rising above, I thought of my last visit to this region – the breakthrough of the Maginot Line, … now I was chief of staff of an army group, which had barely escaped annihilation and was facing as difficult a crisis as could be imagined.
Hermann Balck had been told by Hitler that Blaskowitz lacked offensive spirit; Balck now was to fight for time while Hitler prepared for his counter-offensive in Belgium. Under no circumstances would those earmarked forces be diverted to Army Group G. Balck found Army Group G deployed as follows: General von Knobelsdorff’s 1st Army in the Metz-Château-Salins area; General Hasso von Manteuffel with the 5th Panzer Army defending the northern Vosges between Lunéville and Epinal; and Wiese’s 19th Army holding the southern Vosges and the Belfort Gap.
Balck threw the 1st Army into the attack on the 24th, spearheaded by the 559th Volksgrenadier Division and the remains of Panzer Brigade 106 west of Château-Salins. This advance was thwarted by heavy American air attacks. By 25 September the 11th Panzer Division had arrived, but with the new panzer brigades cut to pieces, Manteuffel could only muster 50 tanks. For the attack north of Arracourt that day the 11th Panzer Division had only 16 panzers and two regiments of panzergrenadiers, but it fought on tenaciously for another four days against the US 4th Armored Division. The 559th Volksgrenadiers were also obliged to renew their attack against the US 35th Infantry Division.
The remains of Panzer Brigades 111 were assigned to the 11th Panzer Division, 112 to the 21st Panzer Division and 113 to the 15th Panzergrenadiers. The US 3rd Army had now gone over to the defensive and American withdrawals enabled Manteuffel to occupy Juvelize and Coincourt east of Arracourt. German attacks on the 27th to take Hills 318 and 293 ultimately ended in failure, despite the best efforts of the 11th Panzer Division, which lost 23 panzers.
By the end of the month this messy fighting in Lorraine between Balck’s Army Group G and Patton’s US 3rd Army had become a stalemate. From an overall force of 616 panzers and assault guns committed in the area only 127 remained operational, though another 148 were repairable. Balck visited von Rundstedt at Bad Kreuznach on the 29th and informed him that Army Group G needed a minimum of 140 panzers as well as artillery otherwise all its offensive operations would come to a standstill. Rundstedt made it clear, however, that Hitler was currently preoccupied with Aachen and Arnhem, and that there would be no reinforcements. In response Balck instructed Manteuffel to break off his attacks and withdraw the exhausted 11th Panzer Division in order to husband his dwindling resources. Thus ended Hitler’s attempts to cut off Patton’s spearhead.
In October Army Group G lost the tough 3rd and 15th Panzergrenadier Divisions, which were sent to the Aachen area, and was given an ill-equipped security division as a replacement. Manteuffel’s 5th Panzer Army was also withdrawn ready for the major Ardennes offensive in December. The army group now had just 100 panzers with the 1st Army. The latter mustered some 86,000 men, with seven of its eight divisions covering a 120 km front; the battered 11th Panzer Division acted as the only reserve, with just 69 tanks. Patton had a huge numerical superiority: at least three-to-one in men and eight-to-one in tanks, not to mention a huge advantage in artillery. His forces struck on 8 November between Nancy and Metz with all the strength they could muster. Although the Germans were taken by surprise, bad weather slowed Patton’s armour. The 11th Panzer Division counter-attacked two days later, claiming 30 American tanks destroyed. Having rescued the shaken 559th Volksgrenadier Division, it then withdrew on Morhange.
The panzers counter-attacked again on the 12th, capturing an entire American battalion. Although the Germans abandoned Morhange, the Americans were forced to call a halt. On the night of 17/18 November the 1st Army withdrew, leaving the ill-equipped 10,000-strong Metz garrison to its fate. The last of the city’s forts did not surrender until 13 December, and in the meantime Leclerc’s tanks rolled into Strasbourg on 24 November.
Over the Moselle and Rhine
By 1945 the Germans were expecting a big Allied push over the Rhine and did everything they could to stiffen the defences of this vast natural barrier. They believed that the Allies would strike downstream of Emmerich, so Blaskowitz, now commander of Army Group H, deployed there the stronger of his two armies, the 25th under General Günther Blumentritt. General Alfred Schlemm’s battered 1st Parachute Army was left to cover the 72 km between Emmerich and Duisburg.
On 8 Febru
ary Montgomery launched Operation Veritable, thrusting the Canadian 1st Army under General Henry Crerar, supported by the British 2nd Army under General Miles Dempsey, into the Rhineland. Attacking through the Reichswald, Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Horrock’s British XXX Corps came up against Schlemm’s 1st Parachute Army. This attack was followed by Operation Blockbuster, which took the Canadians to the Rhine itself. The Americans hoped to launch Operation Grenade across the Rhine to the south, but this was delayed for two weeks by flooding. Eleven days after Veritable commenced, Lieutenant-General William H. Simpson pushed his US 9th Army forwards from Geilenkirchen to the Rhine around Dusseldorf. At the same time Patch’s US 7th Army advanced to the Upper Rhine.
By 10 February the German 19th Army’s LXIV and LXIII Corps had sustained in excess of 22,000 casualties and lost 55 armoured fighting vehicles and 66 artillery pieces. The LXIV Corps’ five divisions (2nd Mountain, 198th Infantry and the 16th, 189th and 708th Volksgrenadiers) all suffered heavy losses, in particular the 2nd Mountain Division, which lost 5,700 men killed, captured or wounded. The 198th Infantry Division escaped with just 500 combat troops, over 1,000 having been captured. Only the 708th Volksgrenadiers escaped largely intact. To the south LXIII Corps’ divisions (the 159th Volksgrenadier and the 338th and 716th Infantry) suffered similar fates. The long-suffering 19th Army was all but spent.
Operation Plunder was the codename for the principal attack across the Rhine, but during the Malta Conference Eisenhower announced additional crossings south of the Ruhr. It was almost as if the Americans were intent on stealing Montgomery’s thunder. At the beginning of March they launched Operation Lumberjack, striking between Koblenz and Cologne using Hodge’s US 1st Army and Patton’s US 3rd Army. A week later Hodges’ VII Corps was in Cologne, though the Germans had brought down the Hohenzollern Bridge over the Rhine.
Operation Dragoon Page 20