Eventual Allied victory: McCreedy, “Planning the Peace: Operation Eclipse and the Occupation of Germany,” JMH (July 2001): 713+ (seventy-two studies); Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 466 (four in five Americans supported); Ziemke, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944–1946, 86–90 (War Department’s top linguist).
The victorious Red Army: Mosely, “The Occupation of Germany,” Foreign Affairs (July 1950): 580+.
“The defeat of Germany will leave Russia”: Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943–1944, 523–24.
Winston Churchill also perceived: Kimball, Forged in War, 286; Reynolds, In Command of History, 460–63 (“naughty document”). One prominent historian believes Stalin’s confirmational tick mark was intended for Romania only, and that in fact he wanted a 90 percent share in Bulgaria rather than Churchill’s proposed 75 percent (Plokhy, Yalta, 147).
Although the “percentages agreement”: Hastings, Winston’s War, 415–19; Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography, 759–61.
That fall, a separate controversy: Kimball, Forged in War, 275 (“two Jeffersonian gentlemen farmers”), 276 (“unnatural, unchristian”); Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945, 474 (“re-creation of an agricultural state”). Churchill’s change of heart may also have been encouraged by a U.S. agreement to continue providing American aid to Britain after the war (Stoler, Allies in War, 170).
“They brought it on themselves”: Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, 190–91.
Others in the Anglo-American braintrust: ibid., 193 (“flew into a rage”); Grayling, Among the Dead Cities, 161 (“blind vengeance”); Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War, 569–71 (“general evils”); Weinberg, A World at Arms, 796–97; Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 467 (proposal to summarily shoot).
“The papers have taken it up”: Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War, 580–81; Ziemke, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 101–05.
“a ruined no-man’s land”: Collier, The Freedom Road, 1944–45, 189.
“A policy which condones or favors chaos”: VW, vol. 2, 147.
“Henry Morgenthau pulled a boner”: Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War, 580–81; TSC, 342 (“inspired by the Jews”).
This contretemps cooled Roosevelt’s enthusiasm: Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors, 228 (“I dislike making detailed plans”); TSC, 342–43 (would not be enslaved), 351; Mosely, “Dismemberment of Germany,” Foreign Affairs (Apr. 1950): 487+ (seven disparate states); Mosely, “The Occupation of Germany,” Foreign Affairs (July 1950): 580+ (three occupation zones); ALH, I-178–79; Weinberg, A World at Arms, 792–95.
No formal ratification of this plan: Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952, vol. 1, 280 (single Allied commander); Chandler, 1873 (“eastern portion of Germany”); Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors, 231–32 (“not having any faith”).
“Something ‘big’ will come out of this war”: Brower, ed., World War II in Europe: The Final Year, 22.
Montgomery’s promise to Eisenhower: Bryant, Triumph in the West, 252 (“He has never commanded anything”), 254 (“You have always told me”); Hastings, Armageddon, 153 (“feeling of optimism”); Crosswell, Beetle, 778 (“Eisenhower is quite useless”).
On Tuesday afternoon, November 28: VW, vol. 2 167–68; Bryant, Triumph in the West, 258–59 (“We talked for three hours”).
“Ike does not agree”: Howarth, ed., Monty at Close Quarters, 16.
“He thinks Bradley has failed him”: Bryant, Triumph in the West, 258–59.
“We have achieved none of this”: msg, BLM to DDE, Nov. 30, 1944, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 83; Chandler, 2325.
On Friday, December 1: Sylvan, 197 (hives); Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 346 (“as angry as I had ever seen him”).
“There are certain things in your letter”: Chandler, 2323–25.
“such canalized egotism”: Hart-Davis, ed., King’s Counsellor, 265, 311 (“mental unstability”).
“He had no competence in the fine art”: Ambrose, The Supreme Commander, 512.
A British official who watched Montgomery: Hamilton, Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976, 117 (“like a little bird”); Danchev, 620 (“goes on harping”).
But others in the highest British circles: Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, 267 (“We have of course sustained”); VW, vol. 2, 167 (“We have definitely failed”); TSC, 315 (“a decisive break”); Love and Major, eds., The Year of D-Day, xliii (“no prospect of Ike”).
Some of Montgomery’s partisans were more savage: Danchev, 625, 628.
The fairways at Reims: Sixsmith, Eisenhower as Military Commander, 178 (never swung a golf club); Danchev, 627–30 (“Eisenhower completely fails”).
At Montgomery’s request, another high-command conclave: Baedeker, Belgium and Holland, 239–40; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht; www.fortified-places.com/sieges/maastricht1673.html.
Eisenhower and Tedder spent Wednesday: Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 347; Chandler, vol. 5, chronology, 175; Signal Corps footage, http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675070150_General-Eisenhower_Omar-Bradley_Bernard-Montgomery_World-War-II (smartly tailored); “Extracts from report of Maj. Gen. K. W. D. Strong,” Nov. 29, 1944, BLM corr, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 83 (twenty German divisions a month); Hastings, Armageddon, 140 (less than ten miles), 148.
“The master plan”: “Notes of Meeting at Maastricht on 7.12.1944,” Tedder notes, Sidney H. Negrotto papers, MHI, box 4; copy in Harold R. Bull papers, DDE Lib, box 2. VW, vol. 2, 167–68.
Round and round they went: Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 347 (“tedious affair”); Ambrose, The Supreme Commander, 610.
“The meeting was affable”: corr, D/SAC to CAS, Nov. 7, 1944, NARA RG 319, SC background files, 2-3.7 CB 8 (“Another balls up”).
“I personally regard the whole thing”: Bryant, Triumph in the West, 264–65; Hamilton, Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976, 163.
Bradley a few days later wrote: Hamilton, Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976, 163 (“He refused to admit”); D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, 635 (“an indication that I had failed”); corr, Everett S. Hughes to wife, Dec. 1, 1944, Hughes papers, LOC MS Div, box II:3, folder 4 (“We are all so human”).
Staking Everything on One Card
An iron sky roofed the gray-green Taunus Hills: Alfred Jodl, ETHINT 51, July 31, 1945, MHI, 24.
To the unschooled eye: Kappes, “Hitler’s Ultra-Secret Adlerhorst,” 2003, http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/adlerhorst.aspx (Interior furnishings); White, Conquerors’ Road, 54–57 (heavy metal doors and peepholes); Raiber, “The Führerhauptquartiere,” AB, no. 19 (1977): 1+ (Artificial trees); “Kransberg-die Perle in Taunus,” www.kransberg.com (centuries of neglect).
Hitler shuffled into his private chalet: Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, 762; Percy Ernst Schramm, “The Preparations for the German Offensive in the Ardennes,” in Parker, ed., The Battle of the Bulge: The German View, 121–22 (vocal cords); Günther Blumentritt, “Battle of the Bulge,” part 1, n.d., PIR, MHI, 6 (“He seemed near collapse”); Overy, Why the Allies Won, 274–75 (“will-o’-the-wisp”); Germany VII, 680 (“everything on one card”).
Even a delusional megalomaniac: Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 345.
German war production: Ardennes, 4–5 (118,000 military trucks), 8 (holidays abolished); Charles V. P. von Lüttichau, “The Ardennes Offensive: Germany’s Situation in the Fall of 1944,” OCMH, 1953, part II, NARA RG 319, R-series, #25, box 6, 44, 52, 59, 62, 67, 69 [copy also in CMH, 2-3.7]; Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, 595 (“Heroes of National Socialist Labor”), 603, 629 (vitamins); Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom, 249 (Seven million prisoners-of-war).
To shore up a military now losing: MEB, “Overall View of Germany’s Economic, Political, and Military Situation at the Begin
ning of 1945,” May 1950, NARA RG 319, R-series #28, 12; Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 347; Ardennes, 8 (“rear-area swine”), 15; Steinhoff et al., Voices from the Third Reich, 461 (“out of sheer terror”); TT, 43; Megargee, Inside Hitler’s High Command, 221 (Volkssturm); Evans, The Third Reich at War, 676 (“Closed because of the call-up”); Willmott, The Great Crusade, 416 (robbed German industry); Rush, Hell in Hürtgen Forest, 306 (“bow-and-arrow infantry”).
Secret weapons always beguilded: Rudolf Lusar, “The German Weapons and Secret Weapons of World War II and Their Subsequent Development,” 1956, CMH, 16–17; Germany VII, 339 (“as if an angel”), 341–48, 353–54; VW, vol. 2, 144 (oddly ineffective); Muller, “Losing Air Superiority: A Case Study from the Second World War,” Air & Space Power Journal (winter 2003): 55+.
No less innovative were new “electro” U-boats: Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, 613–16; Spector, At War at Sea, 253; Brower, ed., World War II in Europe: The Final Year, 128; Hinsley, 600–603; Blair, Hitler’s U-Boat War, vol. 2, The Hunted, 1942–1945, 627, 657–59.
Well into 1945, German submarines continued: U-boats during the war were credited with sinking three thousand Allied and neutral vessels (Roskill, White Ensign, 413–15, 422–23). Clay Blair calculates that in 1944–45, a total of 188 ships were sunk by U-boats (Hitler’s U-Boat War, vol. 2, The Hunted, 1943–1945, 820).
But scarcely any vessels would be sunk by the new U-boats: Blair, Hitler’s U-Boat War, vol. 2, The Hunted, 1942–1945, 659, 820; Weinberg, A World at Arms, 771–72.
Dusk enfolded the Taunus Hills: Günther Blumentritt, “Battle of the Bulge,” part 1, n.d., PIR, MHI, 8–10 (Many believed they had been summoned); Spayd, Bayerlein, 179–80 (each man surrender his sidearm); Kappes, “Hitler’s Ultra-Secret Adlerhorst,” 2003, http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/adlerhorst.aspx.
A double row of armed SS guards: Spayd, Bayerlein, 179–80; TT, 47 (“handkerchief”).
Ten minutes later Hitler hobbled in: Günther Blumentritt, “Battle of the Bulge,” part 1, n.d., PIR, MHI, 1; OH, Hasso von Manteuffel, Oct. 12, 1966, John S. D. Eisenhower, CBM, MHI, box 6, 15–17; Spayd, Bayerlein, 180 (Nick-Esel); Hasso von Manteuffel, “The 5. Pz Army and the Offensive in the Ardennes,” Apr. 1946, FMS, #B-151, MHI, 78–79 (“a broken man”); Parker, ed., The Battle of the Bulge: The German View, 121–22 (“stared vacantly”).
Then he spoke: Parker, ed., The Battle of the Bulge: The German View, 4.
“Never in history”: Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe, 578.
As the Allies approached each other: GS VI, 65; Jacobsen and Rohwer, eds., Decisive Battles of World War II: The German View, 401–2 (Canada).
“Rome would not be thinkable”: Parker, ed., The Battle of the Bulge: The German View, 4–8 (“most daring”); Megargee, Inside Hitler’s High Command, 218.
Toward that end he had a plan: The name was changed shortly before the attack for security reasons. HERBSTNEBEL had been the army group code-name (TT, 36–38).
It had come to him as in a fever dream: Alfred Jodl, ETHINT 50, July 26, 1945, K. W. Hechler, CBM, MHI, box 12; Kershaw, Hitler, 1936–45: Nemesis, 732; Ardennes, 1–10, 13; Charles V. von Lüttichau, “The Ardennes Offensive: Planning and Preparations,” Aug. 1953, OCMH, NARA RG 319, R-series #12, 11–13, 31–33 (“Antwerp”); MEB, “The Idea for the German Ardennes Offensive in 1944,” May 1952, OCMH, NARA RG 319, R-series #9, 22–23 (“sealed in the West”).
The naysayers promptly said nay: MEB, “The Idea for the German Ardennes Offensive in 1944,” May 1952, OCMH, NARA RG 319, R-series #9, 109 (“great surprise”); Parker, ed., Hitler’s Ardennes Offensive, 248 (“no offensive”); Charles V. von Lüttichau, “The Ardennes Offensive: Germany’s Situation in the Fall of 1944,” 1953, OCMH, CMH, 2-3.7, 39; Ardennes, 72 (invasion of the Soviet Union); British interrogation report, Gerd von Rundstedt, July 9, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427, ML #2126, box 24231 (“much too weak”); Jacobsen and Rohwer, eds., Decisive Battles of World War II: The German View, 396–97.
“The soldier can do nothing”: Günther Blumentritt, “Battle of the Bulge,” part 1, n.d., PIR, MHI, 6; Blumentritt, Von Rundstedt, 268–70 (“I am a better judge”).
Even Model, who claimed to love: Lewin, Montgomery as Military Commander, 312 (“moldy”); Westphal, The German Army in the West, 180–81 (“small solution”); “The Ardennes Offensive,” British monograph, Aug. 1, 1945, CMH, Geog Belgium, 370.2, 7–8; OH, Hasso von Manteuffel, Oct. 12, 1966, John S. D. Eisenhower, CBM, MHI, box 6, 15–16; Hasso von Manteuffel, “The 5. Pz Army and the Offensive in the Ardennes,” Apr. 1946, FMS, #B-151, MHI, 78-38-45, 71; Fritz Krämer, ETHINT 21, Aug. 14–15, 1945, MHI, 3 (Wehrmacht soldiers would fight).
The Führer was unmoved: Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 482–85; Ardennes, 34–35 (promised thirty-eight divisions), 30–32 (virtually unchanged); Hasso von Manteuffel, “The 5. Pz Army and the Offensive in the Ardennes,” Apr. 1946, FMS, #B-151, MHI, 73 (two thousand planes); GS VI, 66–67 (“Not to Be Altered”).
And thus was the plan fixed: Ardennes, 71–72; Germany VII, 681; Cirillo, “Ardennes-Alsace,” 3, 10.
With the possible exception of the Vosges: MacDonald, “The Neglected Ardennes,” Military Review (Apr. 1963): 74+ (“impenetrable massif”); Ardennes, 43 (ten all-weather roads).
Hitler had been consumed for weeks: Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 482–85 (Alsatian troops); “Germany’s War Effort and Its Failure,” Oct. 8, 1945, UK Chiefs of Staff Committee, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, GB JIC (46) 33, 153 (vehicles built in November); Merriam, Dark December, 105 (“hold the reins loose”); Jacobsen and Rohwer, eds., Decisive Battles of World War II: The German View, 396–97 (German forces on the Meuse within forty-eight hours); Hasso von Manteuffel, ETHINT 46, Oct. 29, 1945, MHI, 9 (four to six days). Westphal quoted Jodl as claiming that six days to the Meuse would be “quite permissible for this phase” (The German Army in the West, 182).
No significant interference was expected: Germany VII, 682 (Brussels); Herbert Büchs, Jodl aide, ETHINT 34, Aug. 31, 1945, MHI, 12–13 (Vague plans).
Two tank armies would form the point: Barnett, ed., Hitler’s Generals, 411–13, 419; MMB, 133 (hippopotamus whips); Belfield and Essame, The Battle for Normandy, 166–67 (of his original 23,000 men); TT, 160–61 (“decent but stupid”), 26, 29 (Losheim Gap); Jacobsen and Rohwer, eds., Decisive Battles of World War II: The German View, 396–97 (nine divisions); Cirillo, “Ardennes-Alsace,” 11; Ardennes, 77 (wheeling northwest toward Antwerp).
On the left, the Fifth Panzer Army: Jacobsen and Rohwer, eds., Decisive Battles of World War II: The German View, 396–97; “Battlebook,” USAREUR staff ride, Ardennes, Dec. 2001 (“a daredevil”); SLC, 396 (a thousand artillery tubes); Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, 450 (fretted more about fuel); “The Ardennes Offensive,” British monograph, Aug. 1, 1945, CMH, Geog Belgium, 370.2, 11; Parker, ed., The Battle of the Bulge: The German View, 136–37 (only three million gallons), 133 (two thousand horses); Barnett, ed., Hitler’s Generals, 327 (“take it from the Americans”).
A thousand trains beginning in early December: München-Gladbach’s name was changed to Mönchengladbach after the war. “The German Counter-Offensive in the Bulge,” Sept. 1945, U.K. War Office, Directorate of Tactical Investigation, CARL, N-13205, 3.
Security remained paramount: Ardennes, 48–51; Hasso von Manteuffel, ETHINT 46, Oct. 29, 1945, MHI, 1–2 (started a rumor).
Maps remained sealed: “The Ardennes Offensive,” British monograph, Aug. 1, 1945, CMH, Geog Belgium, 370.2, 12–16, 23; Ardennes, 69–70 (delayed again for nearly a week).
“The army must gain a victory”: Josef “Sepp” Dietrich, ETHINT 16, July 10, 1945, MHI, 2–3; Parker, ed., The Battle of the Bulge: The German View, 9–10 (“both sides are equal”).
The central weather office in Berlin: Royce L. Thompson, “Weather of the Ardennes Campaign,” Oct. 2, 1953, CMH, 10–12.
“Troops must act with brutality”: Bauserman, The Malmé
dy Massacre, 2–6.
“War is of course a test of endurance”: Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 486–87; Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, 762.
Finally spent, Hitler ended: Spayd, Bayerlein, 180 (would not disappoint); Ardennes, 28–32 (“grave doubts”).
The Light Line
For three months after her glorious liberation: Moorehead, Eclipse, 186 (“without light”); Pogue, Pogue’s War, 212 (leg sores); Gellhorn, The Face of War, 183 (“bath in champaigne”); Moorehead, Gellhorn, 224 (“platform soles”).
The small fuel ration: corr, Pleas B. Rogers to family, Jan. 17, 1945, and Nov. 14, 1944 (“cold as charity”), and Oct. 14, 1944 (crematorium), Rogers papers, MHI; Richler, ed., Writers on World War II, 542–43 (sawdust by the ton); memoir, William Henry Baumer, n.d., HIA, box 1, 170 (“we opened the windows”); memoir, Raymond H. Croll, 1974, Croll papers, MHI, 300 (“refrigerator door”).
By late November conditions began to brighten: Pogue, Pogue’s War, 212; pamphlet, “Red Ball SOP,” Oct. 1, 1944, Ewart G. Plank papers, HIA (“light line”); Whipple, “Logistical Bottleneck,” IJ (March 1948): 6+ (seven thousand tons a day); minutes, meeting of chief administrative officers, Dec. 22, 1944, Versailles, NARA RG 331, E 1, SHAEF SGS, box 55 (“electricity consumption in Paris”).
For liberators behind the light line: diary, Jan. 22, 1945, Kingsley Andersson, HIA, box 1 (PX open only to general officers); corr, E. S. Hughes to wife, Dec. 8, 1944, Everett S. Hughes papers, LOC MS Div, box II:3, folder 4 (hunting partridge); diary, CBH, Dec. 27, 1944, MHI, box 4 (Chesapeake oysters); Middleton, Our Share of Night, 336 (“chair-borne infantry”); Pogue, Pogue’s War, 334 (“COMZ set-up”), 213 (French waitresses).
The Majestic was hardly unique: OH, J. C. H. Lee, Mar. 21, 1947, FCP, MHI (Fifty-one generals); Pogue, Pogue’s War, 203 (frock coats); Beevor and Cooper, Paris After the Liberation, 1944–1949, 126 (Wehrmacht boot leather).
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