The Supreme Commander

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  The scramble for publicity and Eisenhower’s readiness to take a bantering tone with Marshall illustrated only one side of the mood at SHAEF in early March. The Allies could hardly suppress the feeling that they had finished the war, but—and it was an important qualification—they recalled that they had felt the same way in September 1944. The Germans at that time had recovered. The Wehrmacht was still an impressively efficient machine and the individual German soldier still commanded respect. In addition to general worries, there was the specific, hard fact that the great Russian winter offensive had faltered badly. On February 15 the Red Army reached the Oder-Neisse line, some thirty-five miles from Berlin. Then it stopped. For the next month there was little activity on the Oder-Neisse front. The Russians did make further gains in Hungary, to the south, but all eyes were centered on Berlin, where no progress was being made. Perhaps, just perhaps, the Germans might achieve another miracle.

  There was also the possibility of extensive enemy guerrilla activity. In September Eisenhower had been concerned about how he would handle the situation if the organized German resistance collapsed, the AEF moved into Germany, and then guerrilla warfare began. Guerrilla warfare was not a new phenomenon, but it had reached impressive new heights of efficiency during World War II. SHAEF believed that the Germans were organizing an underground army of “Werewolves,” youngsters who were being trained for murder and terrorism. The SS provided them with leadership, weapons, and fanaticism. If the Germans had time enough to perfect the organization and training of these forces, they might make the occupation so costly that the conquerers would be glad to get out. “The evidence was clear that the Nazi intended to make the attempt and I decided to give him no opportunity to carry it out,” Eisenhower later declared. “The way to stop this project … was to overrun the entire national territory before its organization could be effected.”12

  Connected to this fear of guerrilla activity was the idea, widespread in the Allied camp, that the Nazis intended to set up a mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps, from which Hitler would direct the continued resistance. This area was easily the best natural defensive region the Germans could occupy, and from his mountain stronghold around Berchtesgaden Hitler could—it was feared—combine what remained of the fighting forces in Germany and Italy and hold out indefinitely. SHAEF intelligence reported that Germany’s best SS divisions were moving toward Berchtesgaden, and stories were circulating about prepared positions. The natural defensive strength of the area was excellent. The persistently bad weather, the mountainous terrain, and the altitude would cut down on or eliminate the use of Allied air forces; the Germans had convincingly demonstrated in Italy how well they could fight in mountains; the Allies’ most potent weapon, their mobility, would count for little in the area.

  On March 11 SHAEF G-2 reported that the main trend of German defense policy was to safeguard the Bavarian Alps. “This area is, by the very nature of the terrain, practically impenetrable.…” The reporter, carried away with his own verbiage, continued, “Here, defended by nature and by the most efficient secret weapons yet invented, the powers that have hitherto guided Germany will survive to reorganize her resurrection; here armaments will be manufactured in bombproof factories, food and equipment will be stored in vast underground caverns and a specially selected corps of young men will be trained in guerrilla warfare, so that a whole underground army can be fitted and directed to liberate Germany from the occupying forces.” This must rank as one of the worst intelligence reports of all time, but no one knew that in March of 1945, and few even suspected it.13

  Even Churchill was afraid of these possible developments. On March 17 he asked Ismay to comment on Hitler’s strategy, which puzzled him. The resistance Hitler was offering in Hungary to the Russians, Churchill felt, made sense only if the Nazis were planning to retire into southern Germany in an attempt to prolong the fighting there. To American (and Russian) intelligence, this was the only explanation for the transfer of Sixth Panzer Army to the Danube Valley after the Russians had arrived at the Oder River.14

  For Eisenhower, the way to stop the build-up in the Alpine region and to stifle any attempt at guerrilla war appeared simple—overrun Germany as quickly and completely as possible. Bringing the war to a rapid conclusion therefore took on a new urgency for him, an urgency that went even beyond Brooke’s. He was determined to push his forces forward wherever possible, and he tried to get more men for the final offensive. He began planning for a large-scale airborne drop in the Kassel area, well back from the Rhine, and at a place which offered numerous tactical opportunities. Paratroopers at Kassel could help Montgomery seal off the Ruhr, and to the east of Kassel there was an open plain that led directly to Dresden, which could be taken. Eisenhower was thinking of using seven to ten divisions, four or five of which would be normal infantry divisions to be flown into the area after the paratroopers secured it. Eisenhower’s biggest problem was lack of manpower because he could not afford to take men from the other offensives. On March 12, therefore, he asked Marshall if he could possibly have one of Clark’s divisions in Italy, and also asked Brooke if the British 1st Airborne Division, then refitting, could be sent to the Continent soon. Brooke was agreeable, but Marshall refused Eisenhower’s request. “It would be asking a good deal to take one of Clark’s six dependable American divisions at this particular moment,” Marshall explained, “especially when he knows you have nearly ninety already available.…”15

  Eisenhower accepted Marshall’s decision, although not with good grace. He said he only asked “because this is presumably a vital front,” and he was “merely seeking every possible soldier to apply at what might be a decisive moment so as to give us the greatest possible certainty of complete victory.”16 A little later, on March 27, he admitted that the Allied ground armies had advanced so rapidly that—as had happened scores of times—they would be overrunning the drop zone before the paratroopers could have been ready for the operation. Eisenhower explained that the only thing he feared was that “the German may still find enough strength to oppose our penetrations along some line fairly deep in his own country … [and] I was looking forward to an airborne operation … which would have made it impossible for the German to do this.”17

  So Eisenhower was thrown back on his own resources, which were in any case sufficient. Before beginning the final thrust he took a short vacation. Smith had been urging him for quite a while to take a brief rest cure, but he had insisted that he did not need one. When an American citizen offered the use of his villa in Cannes, Smith became more insistent. It took him four days, but he finally convinced the Supreme Commander that he had to get some relaxation or face a nervous breakdown. Eisenhower finally said he would go if Bradley came along. On March 19 a small party accompanied the generals to the Riviera, where Eisenhower spent five quiet days.18

  While at Cannes Eisenhower had an opportunity to talk quietly with Bradley and to think through once again the plans for the drive through Germany. Since January, and especially after Remagen, his inclination had been to keep increasing the strength of the attack on Bradley’s front. At first it had been intended as a diversion, then as a secondary effort to help Montgomery, or—a little later—as an alternative major thrust if Montgomery was halted. By the third week in March Bradley’s operation had become, in Eisenhower’s mind, equal in scope and importance to Montgomery’s. On March 21 he finalized this conclusion by making it a part of his operational orders. He had left instructions with the SHAEF staff to prepare a directive on the subject, and while at Cannes talked over the telephone with Bull about it. The upshot was a directive that instructed Bradley to establish a firm bridgehead over the Rhine in the Frankfurt area, then make “an advance in strength” toward Kassel. This would lead to a link-up between Hodges’ forces moving east from Remagen and Patton’s coming up from Frankfurt. It would also, not incidentally, give Eisenhower a force south of the Ruhr equal in strength to Twenty-first Army Group north of the area.19

  On
March 22 Patton made a surprise crossing of the Rhine. He took the river “on the run,” moving across as soon as he reached it, which contrasted sharply with Montgomery’s operations. His preparations for PLUNDER were meticulous. The next day, March 23, Eisenhower flew from Cannes to XVI Corps headquarters, where he stayed up all night to watch elements of the Ninth Army begin their crossing of the Rhine as part of PLUNDER. There was a big air drop on the east bank, so the sky was full of airplanes. Simpson pushed across quickly and strongly, thereby cutting his casualties, which were minimal—only fifteen killed in one assault division and sixteen in the other. More than 1200 artillery pieces delivered the preliminary bombardment, which Eisenhower told Marshall “was an especially interesting sight because of the fact that all the guns were spread out on a plain so that the flashes from one end of the line to the other were all plainly visible. It was real drum-fire.”20 To the north, meanwhile, British Second Army got across against heavy opposition, while Hodges and Patton to the south extended their bridgeheads. The offensive was rolling.

  On March 24 Eisenhower and Bradley went to Montgomery’s headquarters. Eisenhower carried with him a report to the CCS prepared by Morgan and Whiteley. In it the SHAEF officers argued that operations north of the Ruhr had only limited possibilities, as Montgomery’s forces could not be deployed in strength until railroad bridges had been built over the Rhine, which would take two months. “I shall therefore be enabled,” the draft read, “to widen the base of the operations to isolate the Ruhr, by advancing also in force from the south. This will greatly increase the speed of deployment of offensive forces against the enemy.” The argument implicit in the draft corresponded nicely with Eisenhower’s own thoughts, but before issuing it he wanted to get Montgomery’s reactions.

  Montgomery did not like the tone of the message. He wanted to retain U. S. Ninth Army in his army group, and he wanted the Allied emphasis placed on his offensive toward Berlin. To mollify him, Eisenhower changed the draft somewhat, making it more general, but he did not tamper with its substance. After pointing out that the Rhineland battles had destroyed a large proportion of the enemy forces on the western front, and adding that he did not want to seem overoptimistic, Eisenhower said it was his “conviction that the situation today presents opportunities for which we have struggled and which must be seized boldly.” Hodges and Patton had secured bridgeheads “which can be consolidated and expanded rapidly to support a major thrust which will assist the northern operation and make our exploitation more effective.” This still could be read to mean that Montgomery’s attack would be the major one, with Bradley playing a supporting role, but that was not Eisenhower’s intention, as his next sentence revealed. “It is my personal belief that the enemy strength on the Western Front is becoming so stretched that penetrations and advances will soon be limited only by our own maintenance.” Montgomery already had all the forces he could maintain; the unmistakable implication was that Bradley, whose maintenance situation was much better, would be turned loose with all the men and supplies available. Eisenhower emphasized the point in his concluding remark: “I intend to reinforce every success with the utmost speed.”21

  Eisenhower spent the next two nights at Bradley’s headquarters, where Bradley presumably urged him to concentrate his efforts in the center of the offensive. One result of the discussion was a directive that formalized the concept of attacks in equal strength north and south of the Ruhr. Earlier Eisenhower had spoken of Montgomery sealing off the Ruhr in the north and east while the air forces completed the job in the south. Now he definitely committed his troops to a gigantic encirclement, ordering both Montgomery and Bradley to advance toward Kassel-Paderborn, where they would link up. “Having effected junction,” he continued, they should “mop up and occupy the whole area east of the Rhine enclosed by their advances and prepare for a further advance into Germany.” Who would direct that “further advance” was still an open question.22

  On March 25 Eisenhower went to Montgomery’s headquarters for a quick visit. Churchill and Brooke were already there. The Prime Minister showed Eisenhower a note he had received three days earlier from Molotov. The Russian accused the West of dealing “behind the backs of the Soviet Union, which is bearing the brunt of the war against Germany,” by conducting surrender negotiations with the German military command in Italy. Eisenhower, according to Churchill’s later account, “was much upset, and seemed deeply stirred with anger at what he considered most unjust and unfounded charges about our good faith.” The Supreme Commander said he would accept surrenders in the field whenever offered; if political matters arose he would consult the heads of governments. What Churchill said to Eisenhower is not known, but he implies strongly in his memoirs that his objective was to beat the Russians to Berlin and hold as much of eastern Germany as possible “until my doubts about Russia’s intention have been cleared away.”23

  Thus was raised what would become one of the great controversies of World War II. Once the AEF was over the Rhine, and given the Russian position on the Oder-Neisse, the fate of Germany was sealed. Under the circumstances, critics have said, especially taking into account the clear evidence of Russian intentions, Eisenhower should have directed his forces in a pell-mell race for Berlin. In this context, the question of whether or not he could have beaten the Red Army to the capital is beside the point—he should have tried. What the Allies would have gained had Eisenhower, instead of the Red Army, taken Berlin, no one has ever made explicit. In any case, whatever Churchill said to Eisenhower on March 25 as they stood in a small house looking down on the Rhine, he did not convince the Supreme Commander of the need to drive to Berlin. SHAEF planners had already decided the AEF could not get there before the Russians. Eisenhower’s basic purpose remained what it had always been—the rapid and thorough defeat of Germany. If advancing on Berlin would help achieve that purpose, Eisenhower would do so; if it would not, he would direct his forces elsewhere.

  Eisenhower’s planning for a final offensive by the Americans continued. He spent March 26 with Patton, Hodges, and Bradley at First Army headquarters. Together they went across the Rhine at Remagen, visited troops on the other side, had lunch in a German hotel, and talked. On the twenty-seventh Eisenhower went to Paris for a press conference; he spent the next day in the office clearing up a backlog of work (“Eisenhower did not have a minute to himself all day,” the office diary reads. “Some member of his staff was in his office most of the afternoon.”) Smith was ill, which did not help Eisenhower in his administrative endeavors.24

  At the top of the pile on Eisenhower’s desk was a cable from Marshall. The Chief of Staff, like Bradley, had more of an American than an Allied orientation to his strategy, and he suggested that with the imminent breakup of German defenses Eisenhower might want to push heavy columns southeastward on a broad front, aiming for either Linz or Munich. Such a push would be a purely American operation. It would also avoid a head-on clash with the Russians, for to the south of Berlin Red Army lines bowed eastward. A possible clash was a problem Marshall took seriously. He asked Eisenhower what preparations he had made for “control and coordination to prevent unfortunate instances and to sort out the two advancing forces,” and suggested an “agreed line of demarcation. The arrangements we now have with the Russians appear quite inadequate for the situation you may face and it seems that steps ought to be initiated without delay to provide for the communication and liaison you will need with them.…”25 There was also a cable from Montgomery on Eisenhower’s desk. The field marshal said that when the encirclement of the Ruhr was complete he intended to drive to the Elbe River (and thus toward Berlin). He assumed U. S. Ninth Army would remain under his command.

  Montgomery’s assumption was unfounded. Eisenhower had made his policy, and in a series of messages he dictated on March 28 he set in motion the final campaign. He had decided to make the main thrust in the center, under Bradley, with Dresden as the objective. He explained to Marshall that he rejected the idea of moving toward
Munich or Linz because the advance toward Dresden offered the shortest route to the Russians and would divide the remaining German forces roughly in half. To provide Bradley with sufficient force, Eisenhower announced his intention of taking Ninth Army away from Montgomery and giving it to Bradley. To ensure co-ordination with the Russians, he wired Stalin to tell the Russians of his plans, suggest that the Red Army meet the AEF around Dresden, and to ask for information as to Russian intentions. The change in plans was complete.26

  In making his decision Eisenhower had indicated that he was determined to direct his operations toward the quickest possible defeat of Germany. The negative aspect of the plan was that he left Berlin to the Russians. The Supreme Commander was still fighting World War II. According to his critics, this meant that he had ignored the obvious—that the Cold War was already under way—and in the process had thus thrown away the fruits of victory. The assumption of Eisenhower’s critics has been that he could have taken Berlin and that had he done so it would have made an enormous difference in the Cold War. Both assumptions remain unproven.

  But even if postwar events would not have been much changed by anything Eisenhower did at the late date of April 1945, the nagging question remains: Why didn’t he try to take Berlin? The capture of the capital was the obvious culmination of the offensive that began in 1942 in North Africa. The Western press, and the American and British people, assumed that SHAEF was directing its armies toward Berlin. The SHAEF planning staff had in fact planned for that end. In September 1944, when it seemed that the AEF would soon be advancing into Germany, the planners drew up a proposal for the final offensive. “Our main object must be the early capture of Berlin,” it began, “the most important objective in Germany.” The way to accomplish this, according to the proposal, was to make the major advance north of the Ruhr, with a secondary advance coming from Frankfurt. In the two-pronged thrust, Montgomery’s forces should be twice as powerful as Bradley’s.27 Eisenhower himself had told Montgomery on a number of occasions, “Clearly Berlin is the main prize.”