Falaise: The Flawed Victory - The Destruction of Panzergruppe West, August 1944

The escape of II SS Panzer Corps was to have dire consequences. Just three weeks after the liquidation of the Falaise pocket Montgomery launched Operation Market Garden, intended to take the Allies across the mighty Rhine and into the Ruhr. Designed to swiftly bring Germany to her knees, Montgomery’s plan was ill-conceived, especially as the British 1st Airborne spearhead came up against the recuperating 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer Divisions at Arnhem. Although the SS were extremely under strength, the outcome of pitting lightly-armed paratroops against the panzers was inevitable.

Three months later, all the panzer divisions, now fully recovered, would be thrown into a surprise offensive against the Allies in the Ardennes, designed to cut them off from Antwerp. This was to fail and most of the panzer divisions were to end their final days trapped in the Rhur pocket.

Victory at Arnhem

Following Falaise and the liberation of Paris, Montgomery reasoned:

Montgomery’s logic was sound but failed to take account of two very depleted SS panzer divisions that had escaped the chaos of Normandy. After II SS Panzer Corps’ failed counterattack at Falaise, it had withdrawn eastward through Evreux and Soissons. On 4 September Bittrich and his staff were directed north to Eindhoven in the Netherlands to oversee the refit of the 9th SS along with the 2nd and 116th Panzer Divisions. The latter and the 10th SS were ordered to the Venlo-Arnhem-Hertogenbosch area, also in the Netherlands, and began moving the following day.

The 9th SS, under SS-Obersturmbannführer Walter Harzer, numbered about 6,000 men with just twenty Panther tanks, though not all were serviceable; however, it did have a large number of other armoured fighting vehicles such as self-propelled guns and armoured cars, along with forty armoured personnel carriers. Its sister division, still under SS-Gruppenführer Heinz Harmel, could muster barely 3,500 men and hardly any tanks.

According to Bittrich, his instructions from Model were verbal and he only ordered the 9th SS and 10th SS north. The 2nd Panzer Division, in fact, withdrew to the Wittlich area in September; the 116th Panzer was sent to Aachen or Dusseldorf for refitting and was transferred to the Cologne sector two months later, where it resisted the Allied Rhine crossings.

Major Winrich Behr serving General Krebs, Model’s Chief of Staff, recalled on 17 September:

German intelligence judged that the Allies would strike toward Arnhem, which lay on the northern bank of the Rhine. By the middle of the month the 9th SS was located in a triangle formed by Arnhem-Zutphen-Apeldoorn. They were scheduled to withdraw to Germany and had been ordered to hand over their vehicles to the 10th SS, though Harzer used every trick in the book to not surrender his precious equipment. The 9th SS had also despatched some forces south to support Kampfgruppe Walther, part of Student’s 1st Parachute Army, which numbered twenty-five armoured vehicles, including some Panther tanks and assault guns.

Montgomery, a usually-careful general showing uncharacteristic boldness with his narrow-front thrust, chose to ignore the intelligence about the two SS panzer divisions. Besides, what threat could these exhausted units pose? The 1st Airborne Division landed at Arnhem in ignorance of their presence on 17 September. Glider Pilot Alexander Morrison recalled the pre-briefing: ‘A tall, dapper-looking officer then moved to the centre of the platform and gave a brief summary of the known troops in northern Holland which, incidentally, made no reference to the two depleted divisions of German armour in the Arnhem area!’

Bittrich and II SS Panzer Corps learned of the British landings five minutes after they started. Following some initial confusion, his two divisions quickly cobbled together various kampfgruppen. The 9th SS, although preparing to transit home, quickly sent its reconnaissance battalion south, over the Arnhem highway bridge toward Nijmegen, and another battle group westward toward Oosterbeek, which would prevent reinforcements reaching those British paratroops in Arnhem itself. Harzer had removed the tracks and wheels from some of his vehicles and deliberately reported them unserviceable, so it was not until late afternoon that sufficient numbers of tanks were battle ready.

The following Day the 9th SS reconnaissance battalion, leaving a few self-propelled guns to guard the southern approaches of Nijmegen bridge, headed north to Elst. A column of twenty-two vehicles then attempted to force a crossing of Arnhem bridge, the northern end of which was now firmly in British hands; half were destroyed and the Germans were driven off.

Glider Pilot Louis Hagen was grateful that the 9th SS were not up to full strength:

The 10th SS was despatched to Nijmegen to hold the main bridges against the advancing British armour moving to link up with 1st Airborne, this was key to isolating and destroying the paratroops at Oosterbeek. However, with Arnhem bridge in British hands, the bulk of the 10th SS was obliged to use the ferry at Pannerden, eight miles (13km) southeast of Arnhem. Twelve Panthers reached the Nijmegen area and Arnhem Bridge was finally secured on 20 September. Major Behr recalls the attack on the 20th:

For three days Harmel’s SS slowed the British armoured advance and to the south the Panthers of Kampfgruppe Walther attacked toward Veghel, between Eindhoven and Nijmegen, on the 22nd. The 9th SS, reinforced by Schwere Panzer Battalion 506 consisting of some sixty King Tigers, set about eliminating the defenders at Oosterbeek. Luckilyfor the paras, these attacks were not very well coordinated. The 10th SS were eventually forced back toward Arnhem, so Bittrich sent forty-five Tigers and a company of Panthers to reinforce them following the landing of the Polish 1st Parachute Brigade at Driel south of Oosterbeek.

The British armoured forces pushing north along a single exposed road, under constant counterattack, could simply not get through and on 26th the decision was taken to evacuate the exhausted paratroops trapped at Oosterbeek. The SS lost 3,300 casualties, including 1,100 dead in the fighting. The British 1st Airborne Division at the start of the operation had numbered just over 10,000; only 2,163 escaped back across the Rhine. The 9th SS and 10th SS had helped thwart Montgomery’s attempt to swiftly end the war with a single thrust into the Rhur and the Allies reverted to their plodding broad-front strategy across the whole of western Europe.

Military historian Max Hastings notes:

In the meantime, following the Arnhem landings, Model wanted to attack from the west of Venlo and the 9th and 116th Panzer was selected for this. They arrived near Arnhem just as the remaining British paras were surrendering. On 1 October, along with the 10th SS, they were thrown into a counterattack toward Elst, halfway between Arnhem and Nijmegen.

The 9th Panzer only achieved modest gains and the 10th SS to the south lost eight Tiger tanks. The 116th got to within a mile and a quarter (2km) north of Elst, but the attack was called off six days later and the division despatched back to Aachen. The division was exhausted by this needless operation that did little to alleviate pressure on the 15th Army. Nonetheless, it continued to obstruct American efforts north of Aachen. During early November the 116th resisted the US 28th Infantry Division in the Hurtgen Forest, destroying fifty-three tanks.

On 8 November two squadrons of fighter-bombers from the US 9th Air Force’s 405 Group attacked the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division’s command post located at Peltre, France, two miles (3km) east of Metz. Two buildings were destroyed, killing most of the occupants. Within a matter of weeks of this incident the full impact of the flawed victory at Falaise and the failure at Arnhem was to be felt by the Allies.

Masterly effort

Despite the German defeat at Falaise, by the end of the summer Adolf Hitler began to plan a massive counter-stroke against the Allies. He intended to punch his armour through the lightly-defended Ardennes region in Belgium and grab the port of Antwerp. This would strangle the Allied supply lines. His anxious generals wanted to restrict their goal to Liege, but Hitler ruled the panzers must reach Antwerp.

This was not to be some feeble counterattack like Mortain, or indeed every counterattack that had been characterised by it since. This was to be a full blown counteroffensive using two whole panzer armies. Most of the generals who had escaped from Normandy were to play key roles. At Army and Corps level they knew that this was an all or nothing gamble. At divisional level some hoped that they could unbalance the Allies’ momentum, regain the initiative and recapture the heady glory of the Blitzkrieg.

Astoundingly, despite the losses inflicted on them in Normandy, just four months later all the panzers divisions (except the 21st) were to be involved in Hitler’s major counterstroke. Army Group B was allocated the strategic reserve of 2,168 tanks and assault guns, some 700 were held with the 15th Army for the proposed supporting attack, leaving 970 for the opening of the offensive with a follow-on force of about 450. Some 2,500 tanks had been committed to the German attack through the Ardennes in 1940, but by this stage of the war these numbers must be viewed as quite remarkable. During the last half of 1944 Hitler was able to refit the tattered remains of thirty-five divisions, which had been shredded on the Eastern and Western Fronts, as well as forming fifteen new divisions.

Considering the disaster of Falaise and the ongoing efforts of the Allied bomber fleets, the regeneration of 5th Panzer Army, now under General der Panzertruppen Hasso von Manteuffel, is little short of a miracle. The 2nd and 9th Panzer Divisions were successfully reorganised after their heavy losses in Normandy and by December each division had over 100 tanks. The 9th included Tigers of the attached Schwere Panzer Abteilung 301. Two of 5th Panzer Army’s three panzer corps commanders were familiar faces. General von Lüttwitz found himself in charge of XLVII Panzer Corps, which included his old command, 2nd Panzer, as well as 9th Panzer and Panzer Lehr. General Krüger, still commanding LVIII Panzer Corps, had responsibility for the 116th Panzer. General Karl Decker’s XXIX Panzer Corps would be brought up to direct 1st SS and Panzer Lehr at the end of December.

The two SS Panzer Corps of SS-Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich’s 6th SS Panzer Army were also swiftly rebuilt. The two panzer divisions of SS-Gruppenführer Herman Priess’ I SS Panzer Corps were each brought up to about 22,000 men; the 1st SS Panzer Division was supplemented with Tiger tanks of SS Schwere Panzer Battalion 502 and 12th SS, now under SS-Brigadeführer Hugo Kraas, was rebuilt, though it lacked experienced junior officers. The 2nd SS, re-assigned to SS-Gruppenführer Heinz Lammerding, and 9th SS, re-assigned to SS-Brigadeführer Sylverster Stadler, formed SS-Obergruppenführer Willi Bittrich’s II Panzer Corps and were similarly re built with better than average recruits, though the 9th SS lacked transport.

In late September the Allies became aware that the Germans were withdrawing their armour from the front in order to build up a panzer reserve. Signals intelligence indicated that Normandy veterans the 1st SS, 2nd SS, 9th SS and 12th SS Panzer Divisions along with the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division were being pulled back for rest and refitting. Following its performance at Arnhem, the 9th SS had moved to Paderborn for a well-earned break and to be re-equipped. In early October the I SS Panzer Corps withdrew to Westfalen for refit. German tank strength on the Western Front steadily expanded to 2,600, compared to 1,500 on the Eastern Front, by December.

Throughout September-December the Panzer Lehr, 2nd SS and 10th SS Panzer Divisions helped hold the Siegfried Line while Hitler built up his counterattack force for the Ardennes offensive. After three months the Americans had been unable to punch though the Siegfried Line between Geilenkirchen and Aachen. After Arnhem the 10th SS were to wreak yet more havoc. While trying to eliminate the German salient at Geilenkirchen on 15 November, elements of the British 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division were trapped by the 10th SS around Hoven.

On 12/13 November the 17th SS and 21st Panzer, with its last seven tanks, counterattacked at Sanry-sur-Nied, driving the Americans back, though they were themselves forced to withdraw for fear of encirclement. The 17th SS was ordered to retreat and escaped being trapped in Metz, which finally fell on 17 November. By the beginning of December the division was down to just 4,000 men and twenty tanks.

The Panzer Lehr, all but destroyed in Normandy, was in the process of being rebuilt when it was committed to the counterattack against the US 3rd Army in the Saar region. Unable to replace its losses in time for the Ardennes attack the division was bolstered by the attachment of Sturmgeschütz Brigade 243. The 116th Panzer Division was given very little time to recover as it was committed to the fighting in the Hurtgen Forest during the end of 1944, but even so was able to muster over 100 armoured fighting vehicles.

General de Guing and was in awe of the German efforts: ‘We must acknowledge that the re-equipping of these Panzer Armies during the difficult autumn was a masterly effort by such a hard pressed enemy’. Three things had made this possible, the escape of the panzer divisions from Normandy, German industry going flat out and the Allies struggling at the end of their supply lines. The Germans had gathered twenty-eight divisions, including eight panzer divisions, numbering 275,000 men, 950 armoured fighting vehicles and 1,900 field guns.

These forces consisted of: 6th SS Panzer Army with the 1st SS, 2nd SS, 9th SS and 12th SS Panzer Divisions and the 501 and 506 Schwere Panzer Battalions, equipped with 450 tanks, assault guns and self-propelled guns; 5th Panzer Army, including the 2nd, 9th, 116th and Panzer Lehr Panzer Divisions, with about 350 armoured fighting vehicles; 7th Army, now under General der Panzertruppen Erich Brandenberger, which lacked armour except for the 5th Parachute Division’s Sturmgeschütz Brigade 11 and the panzer units of the 15th Panzergrenadier Division.

Three other Normandy veterans that took part in the Ardennes offensive were the 341 and 394 StuG Brigades assigned to 15th Army’s LXXXI and LXXIV Army Corps respectively. Brigade 394 was reassigned to 19th Panzer Army’s XXXIX Panzer Corps in the New Year. Abteilung 301 reported to LXXXI Army Corps in November with thirty-one Tigers (four were inoperable) and sixty-six BIVs (five of which were inoperable). It served in the Ardennes with Army Group B. At the start of the attack the battalion had twenty-seven tanks but less than half were available; by 30 December it had twenty-one operational Tigers.

Everything that the Germans had striven so hard to rebuild now stood on the very brink of victory or destruction. Elements of the 1st SS and 12th SS Panzer Divisions launched the 6th SS Panzer Army’s main thrusts to the north, along the line St Vith-Vielsalm, on 16 December 1944. They did so under dense cloud, thereby avoiding the unwanted attentions of the Allies’ troublesome fighter-bombers. Perhaps not surprisingly after its losses in Normandy, the 12th SS was Only able to field one mixed tank abteilung for the Ardennes offensive, consisting of two companies of Panzer IVs and two companies of Panthers. The other abteilung remained in Germany where it was being reconstituted. The division also committed its two panzergrenadier regiments and its anti-tank battalion to the struggle.

Kampfgruppe Peiper, drawn from 1st SS, consisted of 100 Panzer IVs and Panthers, forty-two formidable King Tigers and twenty-five assault guns. Unfortunately, desperately short of fuel, SS-Obersturmbannführer Peiper, instead of pushing west, turned north to seize 50,000 gallons of American gasoline at Bullingen. His force was eventually surrounded and destroyed, leaving forty-five tanks and sixty self-propelled guns north of the Amblève River. The 12th SS, following-up the kampfgruppe, was unable to budge the Americans from the Elsenborn Ridge and had to swing left, nor was Panzer Lehr able to get to Bastogne before the Americans reinforced the town.

On the northern shoulder, the 9th SS headed northward after breaking through the Losheim Gap. Initially only the artillery regiment and reconnaissance battalion were committed, though once St Vith was captured, the rest of the division was brought in. On 18 December the 9th SS reached their official start line and fought their way toward Manhay and Trois Ponts before being replaced by the 12th Volksgrenadier Division. They got as far as Salmchateau, less than halfway to the Meuse.

Meanwhile, 116th Panzer drove between Bastogne and St Vith, but the Americans holding out in Bastogne delayed 2nd Panzer. Failing to take Bastogne greatly slowed 5th Panzer Army’s drive on the Meuse. St Vith fell on 21 December, though American artillery fire forced 6th SS Panzer Army to become entangled with the 5th Panzer Army. Hitler felt that even if Antwerp were not taken, keeping his panzers in the hard won bulge created in the frontline would slow the Allied push on the vital Ruhr. To secure the bulge, Bastogne had to be taken and the 12th SS was shifted south to help capture the town.

By 22 December 9th SS had been committed to the southern flank of 1st SS, but they were unable to reach Kampfgruppe Peiper. At the end of the month the 9th SS were replaced by the 12th Infantry Division and also moved south to help with the assault on Bastogne. Once the weather cleared, however, Allied fighter-bombers began to attack the panzers in a repeat of the Falaise battle. Exposed on the snow-covered landscape many were easy targets.

Lacking fuel, 2nd Panzer got as far as Celles, just four miles (6.5km) short of the River Meuse before American armour moved in for the kill. Celles was not far from Dinant on the Meuse, where Rommel’s 7th Panzer had crossed the river in 1940, heralding France’s defeat. American tanks also halted the 2nd SS, and 116th and Panzer Lehr were stopped short of Marche.

Even in the face of defeat, the 2nd SS continued to inflict heavy losses on the Americans. Normandy survivor SS-Obersturmführer Fritz Langanke, taking his Panther tank into battle just before Christmas, recalled:

On Christmas Eve the reconnaissance battalion of 2nd Panzer reached Foy-Nôtre-Dame just three miles from Dinant. Pushing on to the river they ran into five British Shermans from the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment guarding the crossing. Losing two panzers, the Germans fell back. General Bayerlein was ordered to help 2nd Panzer near Celles.

At midnight, Unterofizer Otto Henning of Panzer Lehr’s reconnaissance battalion met some stragglers from 2nd Panzer:

Panzer Lehr’s efforts to rescue 2nd Panzer were thwarted by allied air power. On Christmas morning the Americans launched an all-out assault on the tip of the German bulge, seeking to trap those forces at Celles. The 2nd Panzer reconnaissance battalion was surrounded at Foy-Nôtre-Dame on Christmas day and 148 men surrendered. Their achievement of getting the furthest in Hitler’s Ardennes offensive had got them nowhere other than a prisoner of war camp. In three days fighting in and around the Celles pocket the 2nd, 9th and Panzer Lehr lost eighty-two tanks and 2,500 casualties.

The US 6th Armored Division launched an attack near Bastogne on 2 January 1945. Although the tanks were driven off, their infantry broke through the positions of the 26th Volksgrenadier Division, reaching Michamps. Under Normandy survivor von Ribbentrop, the 12th SS escort company and I Abteilung, SS-Panzer Regiment 12, was sent to counterattack. They recaptured Michamps and Obourcy and, along with the fighting at Arlencourt, 12th SS accounted for twenty-four American tanks. The 12th SS were then thrown at the northeast outskirts of Bastogne on the 4th, but the Americans turned back every attack. Shortly after, the 12th SS were withdrawn to Cologne. By now the 9th and 12th SS Panzer Divisions only had fifty-five tanks left between them.

Rundstedt counselled Hitler to withdraw the two battered panzer armies east of Bastogne, ready for the inevitable Allied counterattack. To the south in Alsace, to distract attention from the Ardennes, the Germans launched Operation North wind, involving ten divisions, including the Normandy veterans 21st Panzer, 10th SS Panzer under XXXIX Panzer Corps and 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division, on 31 December. At the crucial moment Edgar Feuchtinger was again absent from 21st Panzer and was at home in Germany. On the 26th, the 17th SS had received fifty-seven new assault guns; a Panther tank company from 21st Panzer also reinforced it. Along with the 36th Volksgrenadier Division, the division attacked the US 44th and 100th Infantry Divisions near Rimlingen on 1 January. Within a week Northwind had been thrown back and the Americans recaptured Rimlingen on the 13th.

The 10th SS achieved some modest success in its attack from Offendorf to Herlisheim on 17 January, avoiding a mauling by American armour. Although the attack petered out, SS-Obersturmführer Bachmann, adjutant of the 1st Panzer Abteilung, SS-Panzer Regiment 10, remembered:

Bachmann’s tanks crews were rewarded with Iron Crosses, with Bachmann gaining the Knight’s Cross. While Northwind caused a crisis, it also wasted away Germany’s already-meagre reserves. After the Allies counterattacked in the Ardennes on 8 January, Hitler finally ordered a partial withdrawal. The 6th SS Panzer Army was needed on the Eastern Front, following a major Russian offensive. The 9th SS moved to the Longchamps area to help maintain communication with the 5th Panzer Army to the south and the 116th Panzer was moved to the Kleeve sector on the Rhine.

By the 28th the German bulge had gone, for the loss of 100,000 casualties and most of their armour; 5th Panzer Army and 6th SS Panzer Army lost up to 600 tanks. Although the offensive was stopped, it showed how the defeat at Falaise had singularly failed to crush the panzer divisions on the Western Front. Hitler’s great gamble had not paid off, although in five weeks of fighting twenty-seven US divisions suffered 59,000 casualties thanks to his reconstituted panzer divisions. However, Hitler had achieved what Falaise had failed to do, the near total destruction of his panzer forces in the West. This time there could be no miraculous recovery.

Holding the Rhine

General von Manteuffel’s 5th Panzer Army was redeployed to help defend the Ruhr. In preparation for the advance of Montgomery’s 21st Army Group (Canadian 1st, British 2nd and US 9th Armies), the Allied air forces sought to disrupt communications within the Ruhr and between the Ruhr and the rest of Germany with Operation Bugle. This was followed by Operation Clarion, a major bombing offensive designed to destroy German communications and morale at the end of the month. Significantly, Bugle helped to ensure that much of Model’s Army Group B, consisting of 5th Panzer Army and General Gustav von Zangen’s 15th Army, remained trapped in the Ruhr.

Following the counterattacks into the Ardennes and Alsace, German reserves were now completely depleted. The remaining mobile panzer reserve comprised the XLVII Panzer Corps, consisting of the 116th Panzer Division and the 15th Panzergrenadier Division. These sounded formidable but they could scrape together just thirty-five panzers. Units of 9th Panzer were also despatched to defend Cologne.

The Americans launched Operation Lumberjack on 1 March, employing Lieutenant Courtney H Hodge’s US 1st Army and General George S Patton’s US 3rd Army attacking between Koblenz and Cologne. The plan was to drive Army Group B back through the Eifel region to the Rhine. Six days later, Hodges met his VII Corps commander General Collins on the Rhine at Cologne. The US 3rd Armored Division drove the remnants of the 9th Panzer Division from the city, but the Hohenzollern Bridge was destroyed before it could be secured.

These operations served to distract the Germans southward. Lieutenant General Fritz Bayerlein, commanding the German LIII Corps, wanted to gather three divisions before counterattacking at Remagen, but Hitler gave orders for immediate attacks with everything to hand. On 10 March the newly-formed Schwere Panzer Abteilung 512 was thrown at the bridgehead. It was one of only two units equipped with the Jagdtiger, which, although armed with a formidable 12.8cm gun, weighed a colossal seventy tons and was not easy to operate. The 512 were unsuccessful, as were elements of 9th Panzer, and covered the German withdrawal.

Montgomery’s preparations for the crossing of the Rhine took two weeks, which many felt unnecessary. The Americans were particularly unhappy with his cautious preparations and meticulous planning. While they were getting ready, the XLVII Panzer Corps was able to regroup in the Netherlands and the Germans improved their defences, particularly at Speldrop.

General Brian Horrocks, commanding the British XXX Corps, had a good picture of what to expect:

On the whole, the stunned Germans defending the Rhine were brushed aside on 23 March and by dawn the Allied bridgehead had been firmly established. However, the Germans were quick to recover their wits and the fallschirmjäger began to fight back. At midnight on the 23rd the 15th Panzergrenadier Division was directed toward Rees near the German II Parachute Corps sector, while the 116th Panzer Division was ordered across the Lippe to attack the Americans. It found itself having to take control of the frontline from the 180th Infantry Division, which had disintegrated.

At 1800 on the 25th, the Americans drove 116th Panzer from Hunxe. The following Day the panzers initially found themselves holding the entire XLVII Panzer Corps front until assisted by the 180th and 190th Infantry Divisions. To the south LXIII Corps, consisting of the 2nd Parachute and ‘Hamburg’ Divisions, struggled to hold the line. The latter was made up of staff and communications personnel supported by some fallschirmjäger. During the night of 27/28, the 116th Panzer withdrew under covering fire from the divisional artillery, two days later it was strengthened with just fourteen new Jagdpanthers.

With the Allies swarming over the Rhine, there was very little the Germans could do to contain them. Within a week of the crossing Montgomery had amassed twenty divisions with 1,500 tanks, and 30,000 German PoWs went into the ‘bag.’ General Schlemm’s 1st Parachute Army was forced northeastwards toward Hamburg and Bremen, which opened a breach with the German 15th Army defending the Rhur. Schlemm was wounded and command fell to General Günther Blumentritt, who, along with his superior, General Johannes Blaskowitz, was under instruction to hold fast at all costs. Both knew in reality that this was a pointless exercise, the situation was a shambles, there were few panzers or artillery and no air cover or reserves. Those reinforcements that did arrive were deemed all but useless, comprising frightened old men and boys.

Blummentritt, feeling it his duty to save the men under his command rather than throw them away in the defence of the Reich, withdrew behind the Dortmund-Ems Canal, toward the cover of the Teutoburger Forest. During April both geographical features were assaulted by the British 7th and 11th Armoured Divisions, which had pushed over the Rhine.

At Glissen west of the River Weser, the 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry 11th Armoured Division, captured weeping, ill-equipped youngsters from the 12th SS. They had been reduced to bicycles and panzerfausts to fend off British tanks. The 7th Armoured found itself enduring a feeble counterattack southwest of Harburg from members of the 12th SS Reinforcement Regiment and other Hitler Youth supported by just two self-propelled guns on 26 April. A day later, in the Harsfelt area, elements of the division captured a former 21st Panzer officer leading school students armed with panzerfausts.

To the south General Bayerlein, with LIII Panzer Corps, was ordered by Model on 29 March to try to break out eastwards with the remains of the Panzer Lehr, 9th Panzer, 3rd Panzergrenadier and 3rd Parachute Divisions. This represented the panzers’ last major offensive in the West, but by 2 April they were back where they started, driven back by American firepower.

Hodges’ US 1st Army broke out of the Remagen bridgehead, then the spearhead of the US 9th and 1st Armies linked up on 2 April at Lippstadt east of the Ruhr. The US 2nd and 3rd Armored Divisions had sealed the Ruhr pocket. The remnants of Model’s Army Group B, some nineteen divisions from the 5th Panzer Army and 15th Army along with LXIII Corps from the shattered 1st Parachute Army, were caught in the Ruhr pocket. Hitler grandly dubbed it the ‘Ruhr fortress.’ The Allies meantime pushed on to meet up with the Red Army on the Elbe. The Ruhr pocket was left to Lieutenant General Leonard T Gerow’s specially-created US 15th Army, consisting of eighteen divisions from the US 1st and 9th Armies. The outcome was inevitable.

Surrender

The 9th, 116th and Panzer Lehr Panzer Divisions, who had been unable to contain the American breakout in Normandy but successfully avoided being trapped in the Falaise pocket, surrendered to the Americans in mid-April. Some 36,000 German troops, including 3,000 from 116th Panzer, were rounded up near Brilon. Other elements of the 116th, such as Panzerjäger Abteilung 228 and 9th Panzer, capitulated in the Harz Mountains. On the 21st Generalleutnant Josef Harpe, commanding the 5th Panzer Army, finally surrendered along with 325,000 men, including twenty-nine generals. Model chose death and committed suicide the same day. Within two weeks Nazi Germany had capitulated.

The two remaining Normandy veterans still in the west, who had fought so vainly to halt the American break-out, also laid down their arms. The 2nd Panzer Division, members of which had fought to the last at St Lambert-sur-Dives, had lost almost half its strength in Normandy and since been involved in the Rhine battles, ended the war at Plauen, where it surrendered in May. The ill-prepared 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division, which had been swept away by Operation Cobra yet, nonetheless, escaped Normandy, after taking part in Operation North Wind was pushed back into Bavaria and finally surrendered its weapons in the Achen see area on 7 May 1945. The division was able to muster just two Infantry and one transport regiment and three armoured cars.