The situation in September 1944 was dire for Nazi Germany. The Western Allies had landed in Normandy in June, advancing across Northern France and Belgium. Operation Bagration had recently seen Soviet victory in the East, and Italy was continuing to be a slow attritional battle in the Allies’ favour in the South.
Meanwhile, it was going nearly as badly internally for Hitler. On 20 July 1944, a conspiracy against the Führer culminated in a failed assassination attempt led by Wehrmacht officer Claus von Stauffenberg. Hitler would never trust the Wehrmacht again, with any remaining semblance of independence the German Army had from the Nazi State vanishing.
“It will be Another Dunkirk”
In a well-rehearsed, but to those in the room apparently spontaneous speech, on 16 September 1944, Adolf Hitler announced, “I shall go over to the attack… out of the Ardennes… Objective Antwerp. It will be another Dunkirk.”
It would not in fact be another Dunkirk. The operation launched exactly three months later, on 16 December 1944, and would be a total and costly failure for what remained of German offensive striking power. They would lose over 100,000 troops and over 500 armoured fighting vehicles. A futile last-ditch attempt to win an unwinnable war.
The Replacement Army
SS leader Heinrich Himmler gained command of the Replacement Army – Germany’s strategic army reserve – in the aftermath of the Stauffenberg Plot. It had previously provided around 60,000 trained troops a month for frontline service, but under Himmler’s command it managed to find and equip 450,000 men by the start of the Ardennes offensive.
How is that possible? Quite simply nowhere was off limits! Veterans who were recovering from injury had their recovery periods shortened. They were joined by surplus Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe personnel who were no longer required in their original service arm as the number of ships and aircraft dwindled.
Even factory workers were taken and replaced by nearly 200,000 women – showing how desperate the war effort was as this going against a core principle of Nazism. Fortifications were emptied, airfields were cleaned out, industry was ransacked, barrels were scraped. There was no one left.
These new formations were to be called Volksgrenadier Divisions. There were also significant numbers of new Volksartilleriekorps and Volks-Werfer Brigades – equipped with a (mostly outdated) variety of artillery pieces and Nebelwerfers respectively.
What should be clear however, is the total lack of armoured support these units would have. There simply was not the spare capacity to equip the existing units to their full strength let alone form new ones.
6th Panzer Army
Due to Hitler’s distrust of the Wehrmacht at this stage, a new army was formed. 6th Panzer Army consisted of four SS Panzer Divisions, four infantry divisions, a parachute division and numerous supporting assets.
This was to be the main striking force of the upcoming operation, under the command of Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich who was known by Allied intelligence for his aggressive style of operations.
Army Group B
The operation was to fall under the responsibility of Army Group B, commanded by Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model. Though in reality, this was Hitler’s personal operation, with the Führer having full operational control over the 3 armies that made up Army Group B.
6th Panzer Army would be on the northern flank of the operation, 5th Panzer Army would thrust through the centre, with 7th Army on the southern end of the three.
It was deemed that 6th Panzer Army was to be greater in size than both the other armies combined and (likely due to Hitler’s favouritism of the SS) much better equipped than them as well. Dietrich would have over 700 tanks, tank destroyers and assault guns under his command; ranging from StuGs all the way up to King Tigers.
In the centre, 5th Panzer Army, commanded by Hasso von Manteuffel, had less than half the number of armoured fighting vehicles at nearly 300. With the 5th amassing three panzer divisions, a panzergrenadier division and four infantry divisions plus three volksartilleriekorps and two volks-werfer brigades.
Erich Brandenburger’s 7th Army was initially equipped with a sum total of zero pieces of armour. Though they were primarily a defensive force, German High Command agreed they did require some mobility. They were allocated one brigade of StuGs – nowhere near what was needed to properly fulfil the task allotted to them.
Brandenburger’s force was nearly entirely composed of forces from the Replacement Army; five infantry divisions and one veteran panzergrenadier division plus another three volks-artillerie corps and two volks-werfer brigades. Though the lack of armour was a significant weakness, the main issue with this force structure was the near total lack of motorised transport. 7th Army was reliant on horses for its mobility and supply chain.
As pointed out by Peter Caddick-Adams in his comprehensive volume on the Bulge, ‘Snow & Steel’ (one of the main sources for this article): “So carried away in their enthusiasm for Herbstnebel were the Fuhrer and OKW that they failed to see that they were sending their Seventh Army into battle in late 1944 exactly as it had been deployed in 1914: with its infantry marching on foot and horses dragging the same weapons it had used thirty years before.”
The Plan of Attack
The overarching plan for the offensive was for Army Group B to cross the Meuse River and swing up towards Antwerp, capturing the city and port, trapping the British 21st Army Group in a pocket from which they could not escape.
The orders for 6th Panzer Army were to break through the American lines, crossing the Meuse before turning north and thrusting towards Antwerp. Once in position, the 15th Army (just coming out of attempting to defend Aachen from the Americans), would take up a defensive position in the eastern part of their sector.
5th Panzer Army were also to cross the Meuse but instead would go straight for Brussels and form a defensive line there. Meanwhile, the far less mobile 7th Army would not attempt to cross the river but would instead form the southern shoulder. They had explicit orders to defend this flank from what Hitler believed to be inevitable and rapid counterattack by Patton’s Third Army.
This was a highly ambitious and optimistic plan especially considering the limitations of each formation.
The Opposing Allied Forces
Army Group B did still have two big advantages: the element of surprise and the weakness of the American formation facing them.
Facing the entire Army Group B and its three armies consisting of seven panzer and fourteen infantry divisions was the grand total of five US infantry divisions and one cavalry. With many of these formations either being worn down by the recent bitter fighting in the Hurtgen Forest or being completely green, i.e. never having seen combat before.
The American formations to take the brunt of the initial assault had no armour support to speak of, with the newly deployed bazooka being the only real defence against the panzer spearheads.
Under normal circumstances, these divisions would have had the benefit of allied air support, but German High Command had timed this whole operation to launch when the weather inhibited flying operations. The men would be on their own.
Why were the Allies Unprepared?
The question that always gets asked around the Bulge is why didn’t the Allies know it was happening? Whilst this is a topic that could take up an entire book by itself, it really boils down to the fact that information is different to intelligence.
It is extremely difficult to sift through the sheer amount of information constantly pouring into HQs at every level and turn it into something tangible. Though there were signs, for a variety of reasons they were not formulated into a coherent picture. The picture being an entire German Army Group was to come crashing through a few unprepared American Divisions.
