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The Last Days - Part 1

© William Waller

It appears from the evidence available that one of the reasons, perhaps the major reason in Hitler’s mind, for the Battle of the Bulge, was that he was convinced that the Allies would very soon split up because “Never in history was there a coalition like that of our enemies…… If now we can deliver a few more blows, then at any moment this artificially bolstered common front may suddenly collapse…”. On such wishful thinking was based the strategy of defeating the Allies piecemeal, because they “may” fall out! Hitler had retreated into the history of Napoleonic times when many coalitions were formed which quickly broke apart, usually when an already victorious Napoleon suddenly fixed his whole attention on one of the coalition members, and advance to invade. Hitler was in no such position, being already defeated but refusing to acknowledge the fact and plead for terms.

The sudden attack in the Ardennes Forest on a 70-mile front, on 16th December, certainly took the Americans and British by surprise. And for once the meteorologists were correct in their forecast that the thick mist that day would last for several days, grounding the Allied planes. The Germans were able to advance in several places but they could not take Bastogne and the maximum distance any unit managed was 60 miles. By 17th January it was all over and Hitler had lost 120,000 men and thousands of, now literally, irreplaceable tanks and planes; having earlier lost the Ruhr industrial area, he now lost Silesia to the advancing Russians, and armament output dropped about 90 percent. Hitler also still pursued his no-withdrawal orders and, instead of allowing his soldiers to move back into Germany, he now made them fight further pitched battles in the Saar and yet another attempt on Bastogne, simply adding to his losses.

Guderian, at the moment C-in-C in the East, was enraged by the waste when he knew that, at any moment, the Russians would resume their advance, any reinforcements would have helped.. Hitler would only understand that his men had been holding a line along the Vistula and further north, since October; but conveniently forgot that the Russians were also well into Hungary where they took Budapest at Christmas. With the loss of Silesia, Speer also wrote a report pointing out that Germany could not now sustain all-out war. Hitler’s response to both Guderian and Speer was to refuse to see them!

The Russian offensive was, in fact, by far the biggest of the war. Some 180 divisions along a front from the Baltic to well south of Warsaw set out on 12th January to bring the war finally and in full devastation to the land and people of Germany. Within two weeks, they were at one point only 100 miles from Berlin and there was no stopping them. To any one other than Hitler and the remaining few still fanatically loyal to him, it was obvious that such follies as the offensive in the Ardennes were mere sideshows in the face of the combined might of the Allies. Certainly the troops in the field started to show their positive reaction to the stupidity of continuing to fight against such overwhelming odds. They began to desert in numbers, or to allow themselves to be captured with very little resistance.

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