Battle for the Ruhr: the German Army's Final Defeat in the West" (2006)
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2006 Battle for the Ruhr: The rGe man Army's Final Defeat in the West Derek Stephen Zumbro Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Zumbro, Derek Stephen, "Battle for the Ruhr: The German Army's Final Defeat in the West" (2006). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2507. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2507 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. BATTLE FOR THE RUHR: THE GERMAN ARMY’S FINAL DEFEAT IN THE WEST A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Derek S. Zumbro B.A., University of Southern Mississippi, 1980 M.S., University of Southern Mississippi, 2001 August 2006 Table of Contents ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................................iv INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1 RETREAT TO THE REICH.....................................................................................20 2 DESTROYING THE RUHR.....................................................................................67 3 INTO THE RHINELAND.......................................................................................107 4 CROSSING AT REMAGEN...................................................................................139 5 CROSSING AT WESEL.........................................................................................177 6 OPERATION VARSITY.........................................................................................215 7 BREAKOUT TOWARD THE EAST.....................................................................246 8 CLOSING THE RUHR POCKET..........................................................................307 9 SEALING THE TRAP............................................................................................357 10 DEATH IN THE EGGEGEBERGE.......................................................................391 11 REDUCING THE POCKET...................................................................................429 12 TOTAL COLLAPSE...............................................................................................477 13 DISINTEGRATION................................................................................................516 14 DEFEAT AND OCCUPATION.............................................................................549 EPILOGUE..............................................................................................................................582 REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................598 BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................................620 ii APPENDIX A MAP 1: FRONT LINE, FEBRUARY 1945............................................................ 627 B MAP 2: ENCIRCLEMENT, MARCH 1945............................................................628 VITA........................................................................................................................................629 iii Abstract This chronicle describes the events concerning the retreat of Field Marshal Walter Model’s Army Group B from the invasion of Normandy in June, 1944 to it’s ultimate destruction in the Ruhr Pocket in April, 1945. The author focuses on the German perspective of the Second World War, and describes the experiences of former Wehrmacht soldiers, Volkssturm conscripts, Hitler Youth members, and civilians as they witnessed the collapse of the Third Reich. The study encompasses events in northwest Germany, primarily in the lower Rhineland and the Ruhr Valley, as Model’s army group was encircled and destroyed by Allied forces. Detailed accounts of the Ardennes Offensive in Belgium, penetrating the German frontier, and the subsequent capture of the Ludendorff Bridge reveal how the impending defeat was experienced by the German defenders. An examination of the subsequent courts martial and executions of German officers by Nazi officials following the loss of the bridge at Remagen exhibit the ruthlessness and the perverse system of justice within the Third Reich. The Allied crossings of the Rhine through Operations Varsity and Plunder are described by Wehrmacht survivors, local inhabitants and refugees, many of whom had fled the Ruhr industrial area to escape the Allied strategic bombing campaign only to find themselves caught in the vicious battles on the east bank of the river as Eisenhower prepared to launch the final drive toward Berlin. Interviews with former German soldiers portray the experience of becoming prisoners of the United States Army during the closing weeks of the conflict. Accounts from witnesses iv reveal how local inhabitants endured marauding bands of liberated prisoners and former slave laborers while experiencing defeat, anarchy and eventual occupation by the Allies. The narrative details the dissolution of Army Group B as American forces destroyed the remnants of the Wehrmacht units trapped within the pocket. Walter Model’s final days are portrayed through interviews with the sole surviving staff officer who accompanied him as they evaded Allied forces until the field marshal chose suicide over surrender, and ended his life in a forest south of Duisburg, Germany on 21 April, 1945. v Introduction In late April, 1945, the German economic and military infrastructure was in the final throes of total collapse. The Anglo-American armies stood at the Elbe River, awaiting the imminent encirclement of Berlin by Soviet forces. Far to the south, SS General Karl Wolf was negotiating the surrender of all German forces in Italy. Isolated pockets of German troops continued to exhibit signs of resistance, mostly in combating Soviet forces that were marching ever deeper into the frontiers of western Europe. Far to the west of the apocalyptic events taking place east of the Elbe, a tiny contingent of German soldiers on the Rhine, representing the last vestiges of Army Group B, were bringing their own participation in the war to an end. On the afternoon of 21 April, 1945, Field Marshal Walter Model, commander of the Wehrmacht’s once-formidable Army Group B, spoke briefly to a trusted staff officer before handing him an envelope containing a final letter to family members, a wedding ring, and several additional, personal possessions. He then walked a short distance into a densely wooded area south of the Ruhr city of Duisburg, drew his service pistol, and ended his life. This action also served to officially and irrevocably end the existence of Army Group B. Some two years previously, in early February, 1943, Germany had received the inconceivable announcement that Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus had surrendered the Wehrmacht’s Sixth Army at Stalingrad. At that time Model had remarked to his son, Hans-Georg Model, “a German field marshal doesn’t surrender...such a thing is not possible.” It was impossible to foresee the dramatic turning of the 1 course of the war, and Model could not have known that he, like Friedrich Paulus, would witness the total annihilation of his forces. Although not the primary focus of this work, by virtue of his position Walter Model remains a pivotal figure of this story. The enigmatic officer’s meteoric rise to field marshal was not without merit. On no less than five separate occasions he had been dispatched to save a collapsing front in Russia. Finally, in late summer 1944, Model found himself again sent into a chaotic situation to save Wehrmacht forces from irrecoverable defeat. The field marshal’s last command spanned a period of eight months, during which Model’s battered divisions conducted an arduous and costly retreat across France and Belgium to the borders of the Reich. The narrative follows the fate of Model’s forces as they were pursued, methodically encircled and finally destroyed by Omar Bradley’s Twelfth Army Group and Bernard Montgomery’s Twenty- first Army Group over a period of eight months. This relatively short span of time saw the retreat across France to the borders of the Reich, Montgomery’s debacle at Arnhem, the vicious series of engagements in the Hürtgen Forest, the fall of Aachen, the Ardennes Offensive, the breaching of the Rhine, and finally the encirclement and destruction of the army group in the Ruhr Valley. By following Model we observe the final set of battles in the West and we are provided an insight as to how our own forces were viewed by a vanquished enemy. The GI’s of World War Two are widely accepted in our culture as citizen-soldiers who, when called upon, made selfless sacrifice in a successful, albeit costly endeavor to preserve our freedom. Yet a critical examination of how the American soldier waged this war through the eyes