11 Days in December by Stanley Weintraub

Author:Stanley Weintraub
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Press

8

“Nuts!”

FOR ONCE, WE THINK OURSELVES A THOUSAND TIMES better off than you at home,” a panzer officer with the volatile surname of Rockhammer wrote ebulliently to his wife on the 22nd. “We shall throw those arrogant big-mouthed apes from the New World into the sea. They will not get into our Germany…. If we are to save everything that is sweet and lovely in our lives, we must be ruthless at this decisive hour in our struggle.” On the northern shoulder of the Bulge, St. Vith, finally in Wehrmacht hands, seemed to open up a path, if precious fuel held out, through Liège to Antwerp. Bastogne, the key road junction in the Bulge still in Allied hands, led to the Meuse.

After the war, von Manteuffel confided under interrogation, “We wanted St. Vith very badly; in fact it was vital to us in the first days of the attack. If St. Vith had fallen earlier, we would have been able to move on much more rapidly…. by preventing a defence line along the Amblève and Salm rivers…. St. Vith was much more important to us than Bastogne at that “ time, and those four days of waiting in front of St. Vith were of great disadvantage.”

With the town taken, more Germans became available to surround Bastogne. Although artillery could reach every point within the town, the western perimeter remained thinly manned as more troops were diverted toward the Meuse. On the morning of December 22, General Heinrich von Lüttwitz determined that he would end the standoff by bluffing that he could take Bastogne with the forces at his disposal. He sent a major, a captain, and two enlisted men under cover of a white flag to the company command post of the 327th Glider Infantry. Major Alvin Jones, its operations officer, hurried to the CP to receive them. Helmuth Henke of Lüttwitz’s Panzer Lehr Division had been in the import business before the war and spoke passable English. “We are parlementaires [bearers of a flag of truce]” Henke said, producing a letter in English and German. “We want to talk to your commanding general.”

While their men waited, the German officers, accepting blindfolds, were jeeped to Marvie, a village on the southeast perimeter facing Panzer Lehr. With the delivery of the ultimatum came the added persuasion of a cessation of firing, creating fast-spreading if illogical rumors that the Germans intended to surrender. In any case, there was sudden calm to exploit. Some troops used the break to shave, others to risk a visit to a latrine.

The peripatetic McAuliffe was about to leave Marvie to congratulate men manning a roadblock who had repelled an enemy attack. As the Germans stood waiting, Major Jones handed the bilingual message to Colonel Norman Moore. “What does it say, Ned?” McAuliffe asked as Morre scanned the English text.

“They want you to surrender,” Moore explained. *

“Aw, nuts!” said McAuliffe with some irritation at being bothered with what seemed an obvious absurdity. Nevertheless, he read the English text of the message:

To the U.

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