Crusade in Europe

by Dwight D. Eisenhower

  In the meantime events farther south had been proceeding swiftly. Bradley’s first purpose was to secure a firm lodgment in the Frankfurt region from which an advance in strength would be undertaken toward Kassel. At this latter point we expected to join up with Montgomery’s attack on the north of the Ruhr and so complete the envelopment of that area.

  From the moment that General Patton pushed the U. S. 5th Division across the Rhine on the night of March 22 he had continued steadily to build up his bridgehead. By the evening of March 24 it was nine miles long and six miles deep, and the attacking troops had taken 19,000 prisoners. The entire XII Corps was now across the river and its 4th Armored Division pushed forward so rapidly that on March 25 It captured intact the bridges over the Main at Aschaffenburg.9

  The Remagen bridgehead, ever since its establishment, had continued to expand in spite of repeated piecemeal attacks by the German. General Hodges had thrown the III, V, and VII Corps into that area. By the twenty-sixth, German detachments on the northern flank of the bridgehead had been driven back across the Sieg, where they confidently expected to receive a major assault.10 However, the German was to suffer still another great surprise in the Remagen area. As soon as American forces had begun to establish themselves firmly in the Remagen bridgehead Bradley and I had started to develop our plans for deriving the greatest usefulness from this development.

  We had always planned, on Bradley’s front, to make our main crossings in the region where Patton had seized his bridgeheads, since this was the most suitable area from which to launch the southern prong of the great double offensive that was expected to surround the Ruhr. From Remagen we could of course turn the First Army to the north and northeast to assault the Ruhr directly. This would, however, involve frontal attack across the Sieg and would not accomplish the great and complete encirclement of that area which was an essential feature of our basic plan. Consequently Bradley and I had early decided to launch the troops out of the Remagen bridgehead to the southeastward to join up with Patton near Giessen.11 Bradley would then have his force concentrated and we were certain that his further success would be swift and sure.

  On the twenty-sixth of March the advance out of the Remagen bridgehead began. The V Corps, now under Major General Clarence R. Huebner, thrust rapidly to the southeast and overran Limburg. These great converging thrusts by Hodges and Patton completed the demoralization of the enemy in that region.

  Middleton’s VIII Corps, of the Third Army, was still west of the Rhine, lying along a stretch north of Braubach where, because of the rugged banks, bridging operations against an enemy looked almost impossible. Nevertheless, the VIII Corps made the attempt and, in spite of some sharp initial resistance, was successful. It was thus able to push forward directly and join in the great advance. Frankfurt was cleared by March 29 and armored spearheads were thrust forward in the direction of Kassel.12

  Still farther south, in the Sixth Army Group, Patch’s Seventh Army joined the attack. While that army had been engaged in the Saar operation the Rhine defenses in its region were considered sufficiently strong to require the use of airborne troops in order to assure a successful river crossing. For this purpose the U. S. 13th Airborne Division was directed to plan an attack. However, so great was the confusion of the enemy following his collapse in the Saar that the airborne assault was found unnecessary. General Haislip’s XV Corps, of the Seventh Army, forced a crossing of the river near Worms on March 26. Enemy detachments at the water’s edge presented stubborn opposition but it was quickly overcome and the XV Corps completed the crossing on the twenty-seventh.13 The Seventh Army immediately took up the advance and after linking up with the Third Army pushed on quickly to capture Mannheim.14 The final crossing of the Rhine against resistance was made by the French Army at Philippsburg April 1.15 From there the French were subsequently to strike southeastward in the direction of Stuttgart and clear the eastern bank of the Rhine all the way to the Swiss border.

  We now had crossings over the Rhine in every main channel we had selected for invasion. The ease with which these were accomplished and the light losses that we suffered incident to them were in great contrast to what certainly would have happened had the Germans, during the winter, withdrawn from the west bank and made their decisive stand along the river. It is a formidable obstacle and the terrain all along the eastern bank affords strong defensive positions. Frontal assaults against the German Army, even at the decreased strength and efficiency available to it in early 1945, would have been a costly business.

  We owed much to Hitler. There is no question that his General Staff, had it possessed a free hand in the field of military operations, would have foreseen certain disaster on the western bank and would have pulled back the defending forces, probably no later than the beginning of January. At that time the abortive attack in the Ardennes was a proven failure and the participating German troops were being driven back in defeat. Moreover, on January 12 the Russians began a great offensive that was to carry them all the way from the Vistula to the Oder, within thirty miles of Berlin.

  Militarily, the wise thing for the German to do at that moment would have been to surrender. His position was hopeless and even if he could have saved nothing on the political front he could have prevented the loss of thousands on the field of battle and avoided further destruction of his cities and industries.

  So long as he chose to continue the fight, possibly in the desperate hope that the Allies would fall out among themselves and consequently fail to complete the conquest, he should instantly have taken up in the west his strongest possible defensive line, the Rhine River, and gathered up everything he could to use as a central reserve. Even that procedure could have offered him no hope of eventual success, if for no other reason than the fact that our tremendous air force was now daily pulverizing the resources in his dwindling territory on an almost unendurable scale. But it was the only method that would have given him a chance to prolong hostilities and it now became clear that there could be no other reason to continue the war. Even Hitler, fanatic that he was, must have had lucid moments in which he could not have failed to see that the end was in sight. He was writing an ending to a drama that would far exceed in tragic climax anything that his beloved Wagner ever conceived.

  So far as the Allies were concerned the situation was somewhat like the one that followed upon the breakout in Normandy eight months earlier. There were, however, important differences. We now had present a ground and air strength satisfactorily disposed to brush aside any resistance that we would encounter and there was no Siegfried Line off in the distance for the enemy to man. Far more important was the health and strength of our logistical organization. Lying just behind the Rhine were stocks of equipment and supplies. Close by were the service organizations so necessary to provide for the rapid advance of troops and their constant maintenance. As quickly as we crossed the Rhine we installed floating bridges and they were soon supplemented with fixed types. The first semipermanent railway bridge was built at Wesel, in the northern sector. There, on one of the widest stretches of the river, American engineers constructed a bridge over which ran our first railroad train, less than eleven days after the capture of the site.16

  With our forces everywhere crossing the Rhine and with so much of the German strength lost in the wreckage of the Siegfried Line, the second great phase of our spring campaign was completed. It was then necessary to review the situation and prescribe the movement of forces to accomplish the third phase, the final destruction of German military power and the overrunning of German territory.

  The first step in this movement remained the encirclement of the Ruhr. This had always been a major feature of our plans and there was nothing in the situation now facing us to indicate any advantage in abandoning the purpose. On the contrary, it now appeared that this double envelopment would not only finally and completely sever the industrial Ruhr from the remainder of Germany but would result in the destruction of one of the major forces still remaining t
o the enemy.

  When the enemy failed to eliminate the Remagen bridgehead in the early days of March he began frantically to build up the southern defenses of the Ruhr along the Sieg River. In the same way, when Montgomery catapulted across the Rhine in the northern sector on March 24, the Germans hurriedly began to establish a line along the northern flank of the Ruhr region. The double envelopment would therefore surround these defending forces, tear a wide gap in the center, and open a path across the country to the eastward.

  I already knew of the Allied political agreements that divided Germany into post-hostilities occupational zones. The north-south line allotted by that decision to the British and American nations ran from the vicinity of Lübeck, at the eastern base of the Danish peninsula, generally southward to the town of Eisenach and on southward to the Austrian border.17

  This future division of Germany did not influence our military plans for the final conquest of the country. Military plans, I believed, should be devised with the single aim of speeding victory; by later adjustment troops of the several nations could be concentrated into their own national sectors.

  A natural objective beyond the Ruhr was Berlin. It was politically and psychologically important as the symbol of remaining German power. I decided, however, that it was not the logical or the most desirable objective for the forces of the Western Allies.18

  When we stood on the Rhine in the last week of March we were three hundred miles from Berlin, with the obstacle of the Elbe still two hundred miles to our front.

  The Russian forces were firmly established on the Oder with a bridgehead on its western bank only thirty miles from Berlin. Our logistic strength, which included an ability to deliver to forward elements some 2000 tons of supplies by air transport every day, would sustain our spearheads thrusting across Germany. But if we should plan for a power crossing of the Elbe, with the single purpose of attempting to invest Berlin, two things would happen. The first of these was that in all probability the Russian forces would be around the city long before we could reach there. The second was that to sustain a strong force at such a distance from our major bases along the Rhine would have meant the practical immobilization of units along the remainder of the front. This I felt to be more than unwise; it was stupid. There were several other major purposes, beyond the encirclement of the Ruhr, to be accomplished quickly.

  It was desirable to thrust our spearheads rapidly across Germany to a junction with the Red forces, thus to divide the country and effectually prevent any possibility of German forces acting as a unit. It was important also to seize the town of Lübeck in the far north as quickly as possible. By so doing we would cut off all German troops remaining in the Danish peninsula as well as those still in Norway. Such a thrust would also gain us northern ports in Germany through the capture of either Bremen or Hamburg, or both. This would again shorten our line of communications.

  Equally important was the desirability of penetrating and destroying the so-called “National Redoubt.”19 For many weeks we had been receiving reports that the Nazi intention, in extremity, was to withdraw the cream of the SS, Gestapo, and other organizations fanatically devoted to Hitler, into the mountains of southern Bavaria, western Austria, and northern Italy. There they expected to block the tortuous mountain passes and to hold out indefinitely against the Allies. Such a stronghold could always be reduced, by eventual starvation if in no other way. But if the German was permitted to establish the Redoubt he might possibly force us to engage in a long-drawn-out guerrilla type of warfare, or a costly siege. Thus he could keep alive his desperate hope that through disagreement among the Allies he might yet be able to secure terms more favorable than those of unconditional surrender. The evidence was clear that the Nazi intended to make the attempt and I decided to give him no opportunity to carry it out.

  Another Nazi purpose, somewhat akin to that of establishing a mountain fortress, was the organization of an underground army, to which he gave the significant name of “Werewolves.” The purpose of the Werewolf organization, which was to be composed only of loyal followers of Hitler, was murder and terrorism. Boys and girls as well as adults were to be absorbed into the secret organization with the hope of so terrifying the countryside and making so difficult the problem of occupation that the conquering forces would presumably be glad to get out.

  The way to stop this project—and such a development was always a possibility because of the passionate devotion to their Führer of so many young Germans—was to overrun the entire national territory before its organization could be effected.

  With these several considerations in mind I determined that as soon as the Twelfth and Twenty-first Army Groups could complete the Ruhr envelopment our next major advances would comprise three essential parts.

  The first would be a powerful thrust by Bradley directly across the center of Germany. By following this route his armies would traverse the central plateau of the country. Thus he would cross the rivers near their headwaters where they do not constitute the serious obstacles that they do in the northern German plain near the sea. To assure. Bradley of enough strength to drive uninterruptedly across the country the U. S. Ninth Army was to be returned to his command.20 Additionally we organized for Bradley’s group a new army, the Fifteenth, under the command of General Gerow, which was to have two principal functions. It was to take over matters of military government in rear of advancing troops. It would also provide the necessary Allied strength on the western bank of the Rhine facing the Ruhr to prevent any of the Germans in that region from raiding important points on our supply lines west of the river. Gerow was furthermore charged with the command of the U. S. 66th Division, which, hundreds of miles to the westward, was still containing the German garrisons in the Biscay ports of St. Nazaire and Lorient.21

  Bradley’s advance with his three armies was to begin as soon as he had made sure that the German forces in the Ruhr could not interfere with his communications. I had no intention of conducting a bitter, house-to-house battle for the destruction of the Ruhr garrison. It was a thickly populated region with no indigenous sources of food supply. Hunger alone could certainly bring about eventual capitulation and spare the Allies great numbers of casualties.

  The second and third parts of the general plan visualized, following upon Bradley’s junction with the Russians somewhere along the Elbe, a rapid advance on each of our flanks. The northern thrust would cut off Denmark; the southern one would push into Austria and overrun the mountains west and south of that country. In the early stages of Bradley’s advance the Sixth Army Group on the south and the Twenty-first Army Group on the left would advance generally in support of Bradley’s main thrust, making as much progress as possible in the direction of their final objectives.

  In turn, once Bradley had achieved his mission in the center, he would support Montgomery on the north and Devers on the south, as they undertook the final advances planned for them.

  This general plan was presented to Generalissimo Stalin.22

  Under the arrangement made in January and approved by the Combined Chiefs of Staff, I thought that I was completely within the scope of my own authority and responsibility in communicating this plan to the Generalissimo. However, we quickly found that Prime Minister Churchill seriously objected to my action. He disagreed with the plan and held that, because the campaign was now approaching its end, troop maneuvers had acquired a political significance that demanded the intervention of political leaders in the development of broad operational plans. He apparently believed that my message to the Generalissimo had exceeded my authority to communicate with Moscow only on purely military matters. He was greatly disappointed and disturbed because my plan did not first throw Montgomery forward with all the strength I could give him from the American forces, in the desperate attempt to capture Berlin before the Russians could do so. He sent his views to Washington.23

  The Prime Minister knew, of course, that, regardless of the distance the Allies might advance to the eastward, h
e and the President had already agreed that the British and American occupation zones would be limited on the east by a line two hundred miles west of Berlin. Consequently his great insistence upon using all our resources in the hope of assuring the arrival of the Western Allies in Berlin ahead of the Russians must have been based on the conviction that great prestige and influence for the Western Allies would later derive from this achievement.

  I had no means of knowing what his true reasons were but the protest immediately initiated an exchange of a series of telegrams, beginning with a message from General Marshall on March 29. In that message he informed me that the British Chiefs of Staff were concerned both as regarded the procedure which I had adopted in communicating with the Generalissimo and with what they called my change of plan. The British Chiefs informed Marshall that my main thrust should cross the plains of north Germany because by this means we could open German ports in the west and north. They pointed out that this would also to a great extent annul the U-boat war, and we should be free to move into Denmark, open a line of communication with Sweden, and liberate for our use nearly 2,000,000 tons of Swedish and Norwegian shipping.24

  Receipt of this information inspired the following:

  From Eisenhower to Marshall, dated March 30:

  Frankly the charge that I have changed plans has no possible basis in fact. The principal effort north of the Ruhr was always adhered to with the object of isolating that valuable area. Now that I can foresee the time that my forces can be concentrated in the Kassel area I am still adhering to my old plan of launching from there one main attack calculated to accomplish, in conjunction with the Russians, the destruction of the enemy armed forces. My plan will get the ports and all the other things on the north coast more speedily and decisively than will the dispersion now urged upon me by Wilson’s message to you.25