Kommando by James Lucas

Author:James Lucas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Frontline Books
Published: 1985-08-15T16:00:00+00:00

10

UNEXPECTED OFFENSIVE

Special Forces in the Ardennes, December 1944

In December 1944 an offensive was launched by the German Army in which three of the military special forces described in this book took part. That winter offensive came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge and the special units involved were Brandenburg, paratroops and some of Skorzeny’s own groups.

In so far as this offensive, decided upon and planned by Hitler, can be said to have had any strategic intent, it was to capture the port of Antwerp and by driving a corridor between them to split the British Army in Belgium and Holland from the American Army in France. What Hitler intended the German forces to do once they had reached Antwerp is unclear, although he spoke of bringing about another Dunkirk. What the Führer with his ability to reject unpalatable facts chose to ignore was that the Allies had unchallenged air superiority and that they were quantitatively stronger than the Germans. Also, with qualitative superiority in supplies, fuel and weapons, they could replace their losses quickly and easily – and the Germans could not. A sober appraisal of Operation ‘Watch on the Rhine’, which Hitler saw as a thrust from the Ardennes to the North Sea, produces the conclusion that its only result would be the forming of a long and narrow salient against which Allied ground and air forces would strike until the Germans withdrew.

The idea for this counter-attack had come suddenly to Hitler and, by this stage of the war, deeply suspicious of his military commanders, he told them nothing of his plan until the first week in November. His obsession with security prevented the commanders from briefing their staff until the last possible moment and, in fact, regimental commanders knew nothing but the bare outline of the operation until the day before ‘Watch on the Rhine’ opened.

Hitler had wanted the operation to be launched in the late autumn, but the date proposed had to be postponed several times; the final date chosen was 16 December. Four German Armies were to carry out the operation: from north to south they were: Fifteenth, Sixth SS Panzer, Fifth Panzer and Seventh Armies. To build up the military force Hitler created twenty-five Volksgrenadier divisions. Each of these had a lower infantry establishment than that in standard infantry divisions, but this was compensated by a higher establishment in automatic weapons. Volksgrenadier divisions, the Nazi Party’s attempt at creating an army, did not merely maintain the same fire of a normal division, but exceeded it. In order to strengthen the armour components for the forth coming battle, the Führer created ten new Panzer Brigades, each equipped with Panthers and Tigers. In a discussion with Skorzeny, Hitler ordered the special forces to be employed in such a way that the enemy front would be ruptured quickly, for the key to victory lay in speed. The armour would crack open the American defence on D-Day. The River Meuse would be crossed on D-Day plus

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