Hitler in the Crosshairs by John Woodbridge Maurice Possley

Author:John Woodbridge, Maurice Possley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780310578550
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2011-08-20T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

THE 179th INFANTRY PLOWED AHEAD, TAKING HOXHOHL, Alsbach, Jugenheim, and Seeheim. But then, the men came face-to-face with Aschaffenburg, a city so heavily defended that some journalists called it the “Little Siegfried Line.”

The battle for Aschaffenburg was a six-day siege that ultimately left a historic and picturesque city in rubble. Soldiers would later recall being able to stand in the city center and see beyond the city limits. The buildings, church spires, and towers were gone.

In Aschaffenburg, American soldiers came up against fanatical teenage boys willing to fight to the death. The city was controlled by a German major who ordered that any civilian residents trying to flee be machine-gunned down. Many were.

Some German officers who sought to surrender were publicly hanged. One German lieutenant was strung up in front of a wine shop, his hands bound behind him. A sign hung from his neck: “Cowards and traitors hang!”

The city fell on April 3, and thousands of German soldiers were taken prisoner. The high-ranking officers who had overseen the carnage withdrew before they could be captured.

From mid-March to the end of the battle for Aschaffenburg, the 45th Division took nearly twenty thousand German soldiers prisoner and killed or wounded more than thirty-three thousand.

On April 9 Teen Palm wrote his mother.

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