The German Question, Part One Hundred Fifty-Two

Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/C
"Germany In World War Two" Part Five/A
"The End of Hitler's Reich" Part One

The Germans withdrew many of their armored units from the front line in western Europe. Why? Allied intelligence reports indicated the Germans were preparing to defend their homeland, and after the tremendous losses in Normandy and the retreat across France, they were trying to replenish their units for a last stand. This proved to be wrong, as Hitler planned a major offensive against the Americans. He hoped for something of a repeat of 1940's stunning victory over France by breaking through the American lines in the Ardennes region,* as German forces had broken through the French lines at that time in the some region, but this time, unlike in 1940, his armies would turn northward to capture the port city of Antwerp, and thus split the Allied forces, with mainly British and Commonwealth forces to the north, and American forces to the south. With the prospect of the war continuing, the Allies might then negotiate, or so the logic seems to have been. If he could get a treaty with the Western Allies, he then could turn all of his forces against the Soviets. While much of this was nonsense, even a straw floating on the surface looks good to a drowning man.

The plan was daring, but essentially unrealistic. First, the Allies had announced previously that they would only accept "unconditional surrender" from Germany. Historians have debated whether this was the proper Allied policy, as it gave the Germans little choice but to resist, and it gave the Nazis lots of fodder for their propaganda machine to keep the German public behind the war. The memory of the armistice in November 1918 and the subsequent Versailles Treaty made Germans wonder what would be in store for them with "unconditional surrender." The Nazis answered the question for Germans by saying the victors would destroy Germany (as if the Nazis weren't already doing so). There's no question in my mind that Nazi leaders absolutely feared for themselves, for once the victorious powers learned of the extermination camps and the multitude of other atrocities committed with the knowledge, support, and often, the direct participation of the various Nazi leaders, severe punishment would be called for. Trials would certainly follow Germany's defeat, and they knew it.

Further, in 1940, German tanks were much lighter and more agile. By late 1944, German tanks, while some of the best produced by any nation during the war, were necessarily much heavier. Why is this important? Because the Ardennes is a hilly, forested area with a limited number of narrow roads. The region is largely countryside, with small villages dotting the landscape. These heavy tanks would have to navigate these narrow roads in order to get through the American lines and then race for Antwerp. Not only that, heavier tanks meant more fuel consumption, and that meant more vehicle traffic along those same narrow roads, as the supply units sought to keep the tanks and motorized units rolling forward. And then too, in 1940, the German army was well trained and fresh. By late 1944, after suffering hundreds of thousands of casualties on all fronts just since summer, German units, especially infantry and motorized infantry units, were badly under strength. Replacements were often quickly rushed to front line units without full training, and a fair number of these men had been transferred from naval units or from the Luftwaffe, where they no longer fulfilled a necessary role, but morale then also became a problem. Additionally, experienced officers at every level had suffered heavy casualties which could not be easily replaced. Unlike 1940, the Luftwaffe did not rule the skies, and Allied aircraft would be able to pounce on moving German columns, especially along those narrow roads mentioned above. All in all, it just wasn't 1940.

One thing was like 1940. Like the French, the Americans "assumed" the Ardennes would be a "quiet sector," due to the difficult terrain. It was lightly held, and some of the units there were just recently arrived in Europe and did not have much combat experience. Other units had experience, perhaps too much so, but just as the German units had to be replenished due to casualties, these American units received replacements, but again, these were not experienced men. Now these forces would have to face a major German offensive, and while it was not 1940 again for the German army, the Germans were still deadly. Also, weather conditions during that time of year would help keep Allied planes from hovering over the battlefield, giving the German forces one less problem, although it turned out to be only a temporary respite.

The attack came on the morning of December 16, 1944. Hitler had moved to a temporary headquarters in western Germany, near Bad Nauheim in Hessen, to oversee the offensive. The German forces penetrated American lines in places, but not all, and the clogged roads proved to be a major headache for their armored and supply units, as I noted above. Thousands of Americans were killed or surrendered, but thousands held out, especially at a key road center, the town of Bastogne. Try though they might, the Germans could not dislodge the Americans, and eventually the offensive sputtered to a halt. The maps showed a huge "bulge" in the American lines where the Germans had broken through, and to the Western Allies the battle thus became known as "The Battle of the Bulge."

In early 1945, the Germans launched another, but smaller, offensive in Alsace, but it too soon broke down. A daring air attack by German fighter planes often flying below radar struck Allied airfields on January 1, 1945, and while there was limited success in destroying aircraft still on the ground, the Luftwaffe suffered further irreplaceable casualties, while the Allies quickly made up for their losses.

* The Ardennes lies largely in eastern Belgium, including the German populated area of Eupen-Malmedy, but also in a portion of northern Luxembourg.

WORD HISTORY:
State (Status)-This noun goes back to the Indo European root "sta," which meant "to stand, be standing." This gave its Latin offspring "stare" (not the same as the English word), also meaning "to stand," which produced the derived "status," meaning "how things stand, condition." Status was borrowed from Latin into English in the late 1600s as a term for a person's "legal standing." It has since expanded in meaning beyond the legal sense to "person's or matter's condition," as in, "What's the status of my online order?" "State," a derivative of "status" ("What's the 'state' of my online order?") was borrowed into English in the 1200s. The idea of "the ruling power of a country, or region, government," came from the idea of "the condition of the nation." This then came to be applied to the "government." The verb form of "state," "to say things," came from the noun, and ties in with the word's basic connection with the meaning "stand;" thus "place words in a standing order," or "put words on the record," and the derived word "statement" still typically carries the notion of being "official" ("The mayor issued a statement"). German also borrowed the word "state" (with the government meaning), as "Staat" (Low German and Dutch use the same spelling). Other Germanic languages have similar words, also from borrowings.