Victory In World War II by Nigel Cawthorne

Author:Nigel Cawthorne [Cawthorne, Nigel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788286435
Google: EwAvDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B074DWF8KC
Publisher: Arcturus
Published: 2017-07-30T04:00:00+00:00

Into the Ruhr

On 12 April General Gerow took the coal basin of the Ruhr. Two days later the Ruhr pocket was split in two. Army Group B surrendered, delivering 325,000 prisoners, including 29 generals, into Allied hands. Model could not be found. Fearing that he might be handed over to the Russians, Model committed suicide on 21 April.

As the American First, Third and Ninth Armies sped forward, the German army collapsed. Despite drumhead court martials and summary executions, German troops were surrendering at a rate of 50,000 a week by the middle of April. Their places were taken by Volkssturm – the German Home Guard made up of old men and young boys. Few had uniforms. When one of their battalion leaders was captured, he told his interrogators:

I had four hundred men in my battalion and we were ordered to go into the line in our civilian clothes. I told the local party leader that I could not accept the responsibility of leading men into battle without uniforms. Just before it was committed, the unit was given 180 Danish rifles, but there was no ammunition. We also had four machine guns and a hundred anti-tank bazookas. None of the men had received any training in firing a machine gun, and they were all afraid of handling the anti-tank weapon. Although my men were quite ready to help their country, they refused to go into battle without uniforms and without training. What can a Volkssturm man do with a rifle without ammunition? The men went home…the only thing they could do.

When they did go into action, they were simply no match for well-trained and well-equipped Allied troops.

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