Four Hours of Fury

by James M. Fenelon

  General der Fallschirmtruppen Alfred Schlemm commanded the 50,000 troops in the Pocket. Schlemm’s short stature, dark complexion, and wide Slavic features made him a physical anomaly in the upper echelons of the Aryan Third Reich. One observer offered “anthropoidal” as the best adjective to describe the fifty-one-year-old general.

  Whether he looked vaguely simian or not, Schlemm’s abilities and agile mind were respected by his peers as well as his adversaries. Awarded the Iron Cross twice as an artillery officer in World War I, he’d spent the interwar years in Germany’s hibernating military, studying and refining his craft.

  In 1938 he transferred to the Luftwaffe, where he qualified as a pilot and planned anti-aircraft defenses along the western borders. In early 1941 he became chief of staff for the newly formed Flieger Corps, which consolidated the elite parachute and air landing troops into a unified command. That same year he played a key role in planning the invasion of Crete, Germany’s largest airborne assault of the war. Shortly thereafter, with a promotion to major general, he commanded a division on the eastern front and later led field corps in Russia and Italy.

  His career had matured in an age of technological advances: from temperamental biplanes to thundering jet fighters, from static muddy trenches to blitzkrieging panzers and dive-bombers. Now as commander of the I Fallschirmjäger-Armee (1st Parachute Army), he leveraged his three decades of military experience to stubbornly hold his position in the Pocket.

  In addition to organizing his four parachute divisions, two panzer divisions, and a panzer grenadier division into a cohesive defense, Schlemm obsessed over the nine Rhine bridges in this sector. To facilitate the flow of materiel to the front lines, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht—the German Army’s High Command—desperately needed to keep the remaining bridges intact as long as possible. Schlemm knew Allied doctrine would normally dictate destroying the bridges to prevent reinforcement of the Pocket, but apparently they were letting them stand in the hopes of seizing one to aid their own crossing over the formidable water obstacle.

  The implications of the Allies capturing one of the bridges became an anxious preoccupation. Schlemm later recalled the potential consequences: “[I was] personally responsible for the prompt and thorough destruction of all Rhine bridges in my sector. Special courts were ready to judge immediately the responsible person in case he let a bridge fall undamaged into enemy hands. Every dereliction of duty was to be punished by death. . . . I designated an officer to be responsible for each bridge. He had engineers and troops who had to insure that the demolition of the bridge was carried out successfully.” Each officer reported via radio directly to Schlemm, who reserved exclusive authority to demolish the bridges.

  Hitler’s plan to utilize the Pocket and its bridges as a launching point for a counterattack added to Schlemm’s complications. Given the demand for more troops, armored vehicles, and aircraft in Russia, Italy, and along the length of the Rhine, Schlemm was privately dubious Hitler could assemble the forces required for such a strike. However unlikely that was, Hitler continued to overrule reality with bombastic demands that the Wehrmacht prepare to burst across the Rhine just as they had out of the Ardennes Forest. From the Führerbunker he officially declared the Wesel Pocket a “fortress,” a designation that brought even greater dictatorial scrutiny. Schlemm’s requests to remove useless equipment or personnel across the bridges for refitting were denied as a matter of course, since assent violated Hitler’s order to hold the fortress for the imminent offensive.

  As the oversight governing his tactical options became more draconian, Schlemm took disobedient, life-threatening risks to fulfill his primary task: keeping the enemy at bay. Without seeking permission from his chain of command, Berlin, or the Führer, Schlemm quietly ordered fifty howitzers, sitting idle at the Westwall, moved to the Pocket to buoy his defenses.

  He needed every gun he could find as Montgomery’s 21 Army Group probed for a weakness in his perimeter that could be exploited for a route to the Rhine. To Schlemm’s surprise, he found most of the British attacks to be uncoordinated and piecemeal feints rather than committed thrusts en masse.

  On Thursday, the first of March, from a spot of high ground, he observed an attack on his southern flank near Krefeld. Scrutinizing the maneuver through his binoculars, Schlemm watched as the attackers began a very cautious advance led by Sherman tanks.

  It seemed the primary mission of the tanks was to draw the fire of his concealed anti-tank guns. Those tanks fortunate enough to survive the ploy then pulled back as artillery hammered the revealed positions. Once the shelling ceased, the attackers again moved forward with flame-throwing tanks now in the vanguard; occupants of any remaining bunkers had to choose between fleeing or getting burned alive. The Allied units repeated the process every hundred yards or so. Schlemm found the tactic a fascinating study of using overwhelming firepower at the expense of speed. But despite the impressive display, the plodding tactics allowed him time to reposition his defenses and repulse the attack.

  “The disadvantage for the enemy was that he never surprised us,” Schlemm later said. “We could determine from the kind and location of artillery fire and from the assembly positions of the tanks where and when the attack would take place.”

  He later confessed that had all the tanks simply stormed forward at once, they could have overrun his defenses and been in Wesel within twenty-four hours.

  Schlemm often directly influenced such events from the front lines himself. As the attacks rolled in, he shifted his forces to meet them, sometimes beating the Allies to vital road junctions or key terrain by mere minutes. He used his Fallschirmjäger—parachute infantry—to great effect, relying on their aggressive fighting spirit to zealously blunt Allied advances, which provided the time he needed to reorganize.

  In one hilltop battle, just north of Xanten, a group of Fallschirmjäger beat back attacks for five days before withdrawing after getting flanked. The weeklong struggle had been a bloody ordeal of man versus machine, and in their wake the Axis paratroopers left behind the corpses of 276 comrades and a scrapyard of 320 smoldering Allied tanks. Montgomery later wrote, “Not in the course of the entire war had enemy units offered more bitter resistance, as did the German Fallschirmjägers during the fighting for the Rhineland.”

  Schlemm also used the terrain to his advantage. Cratering and mining the raised roads forced the Allies into either exposed, creeping advances or bold rushes across open, muddy meadows, which risked bogging down the heavy tanks and favored German artillery. But in spite of the slow progress, the Allies continued to advance steadily, threatening to seize several of the bridges. Their never-ending supply of artillery shells and their ability to rapidly replace losses allowed them to nip at Schlemm’s forces around the clock.

  As his perimeter shrunk, Schlemm ordered the demolition of the bridges his army could no longer protect. Having first razed the bridge at Uerdingen just as the Allies attempted to cross it, Schlemm next ordered the destruction of the Homberg Bridge on Saturday, March 3. After ten minutes of waiting for the affirming sound of explosions, he radioed to inquire about the delay. The radio operator told him a Wehrmacht colonel, claiming higher authority, had countermanded his orders, preventing the engineers from completing their task.

  Furious, Schlemm evoked the specter feared by every German: Adolf Hitler. Emphasizing that his authority came directly from the Führer, Schlemm promised he would personally shoot the colonel, the radio operator, and anyone else he found at the bridge if they failed to blow it immediately. Seconds later he heard the explosions.

  To avoid such precarious incidents at the other bridges, Schlemm dispatched military police units with orders to arrest anyone attempting to usurp his authority.

  Schlemm had carefully considered his decision to blow up the Homberg Bridge. Days before, engineers had spent hours systematically rigging the span for explosives, but to prevent accidental detonation, they installed only the infrastructure and detonation cord, not th
e actual charges. This cautionary measure was a gamble, as the engineers would potentially have little time to install the charges, or to troubleshoot their handiwork should the explosives fail in the face of the enemy barreling forward.

  Schlemm also had to keep the resulting retardation of river traffic in mind. Given the need to prevent rapid repair by the Allies, the bridge had to be totally destroyed, and the ensuing wreckage would likely impede river traffic, preventing delivery of essential fuel and ammunition to the Pocket.

  Inevitably there would be questioning from the Berlin cabal of micromanagers demanding he justify his decisions from over 300 miles away. After the event, Schlemm had to be able to prove the demolition a military necessity, not the act of a panicked defeatist.

  • • •

  A few days later, wondering how he could be expected to lead an army under such ridiculous conditions, Schlemm raced to intercede on behalf of a court-martialed subordinate. The officer, after twenty-one days of heavy combat and losing all the soldiers under his command, crossed the Rhine seeking a new assignment. Arrested for desertion and sentenced to be hanged as a warning to others, his life was saved by Schlemm’s intervention.

  By Monday, March 5, the Allies’ continued advance had driven Schlemm’s forces into a smaller perimeter centered on the only two remaining bridges at Wesel. The Pocket now contained a growing collection of damaged tanks, vehicles without fuel, artillery without ammunition, and idle personnel without training for the task at hand. To avoid the unwanted attention of Allied aircraft, the abandoned equipment was pushed off roads and concealed. But the growing detritus of war accumulated to the point of impeding Schlemm’s ability to shift his forces within the Pocket.

  It was time to appeal to his superior, Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz, the commander of Heeresgruppe H (Army Group H). Schlemm hoped the more senior officer, who understood the local situation, might prevail in arguing his point with Berlin. The High Command reluctantly authorized the removal of the useless materiel, but with its consent came a list of specific types of equipment and personnel permitted for withdrawal. In turn, each unit commander had to testify by signature that the evacuated men were unable to contribute to the fighting; the documents were then forwarded to Berlin for review and filing.

  All around the perimeter, the British, Canadians, and Americans repeatedly used isolated tank attacks in attempts to break through what they believed to be thinly held lines. In one effort, Schlemm’s competently manned and well-camouflaged anti-tank guns destroyed twelve of fourteen Sherman tanks. In another, near Rheinberg, where the Allies endeavored to cut the Pocket in half, a determined defense took out thirty-nine of fifty-four Allied tanks before the attackers retreated.

  Schlemm maneuvered his treasured anti-tank guns and artillery adroitly, shifting them to specific hot spots, which the removal of obstructing debris had made easier. The Pocket’s shrinking footprint also helped, providing the paradoxical benefit of allowing him to concentrate his firepower and reinforce the perimeter in depth; his artillery could now swivel and fire across the width of the Pocket to defend any section of the perimeter. He also leveraged the withering fire of his anti-aircraft guns by pressing them into a direct fire role against Allied tanks and troops.

  • • •

  On the night of March 6, streams of RAF bombers pummeled Wesel for the fifth time in three weeks. Schlemm recognized it as yet another attempt to cut his supply lines. From altitudes of over 16,000 feet the British dropped combinations of 4,000-pound blockbusters and 500-pound general-purpose munitions, targeting the rail network, depots, and suspected troop concentrations.

  Across the river, from the relative safety of the Pocket, Schlemm’s troops watched in awe for hours as wave after wave of explosions and concussions ripped the town apart. Occasionally they could hear the whine of German jet aircraft cutting across the steady droning of bomber engines, but Hitler’s wonder weapons seemed to make little impression on the never-ending flow of British aircraft. The glow of fires reflected off the Rhine’s black current, and dark clouds of smoke billowed up to blanket the stars.

  Sunrise revealed the extent of the devastation. Covered in ash, the craters and rubble looked more like a monochromatic lunar landscape than a city. Schlemm’s assessment of the damage and its impact on his logistics was interrupted by more bad news. Ninety miles upstream, outside of his sector, an intact, dual-track railway bridge had fallen into Allied hands. After confused authority caused a delay, and explosives failed to topple it—due to only half of the charges detonating—the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen was seized by forward elements of an American armored division. By order of Berlin four German officers were executed for their incompetence.

  The capture of the bridge was a dramatic loss as GIs dashed across the span under German machine gun fire while frantically searching for and cutting any remaining demolition cord.

  “The bullets didn’t worry us half as much as the bridge,” recalled Gaccarino Mercandante, a mortarman from Brooklyn. “We expected the Heinies to blow the bridge right out from under us at any minute so we didn’t waste any time getting to the other side.”

  Desperate to destroy the bridge, Rundstedt sent bombers, floating mines, and even frogmen to finish the job. Finally after ten days, the thousand-foot span, structurally weakened from the original detonations, heavy Allied traffic, and multiple attacks, collapsed into the Rhine. Almost 200 US Army engineers went with it.

  In the intervening days before the bridge gave way to stress and gravity, the Allies built several pontoon bridges adjacent to it; these temporary floating trestles allowed for the steady flow of tanks and men into Germany. Rundstedt, in an attempt to stem the growing American bridgehead at Remagen, shifted several divisions south. With virtually no reserves to call on, he moved units from around Wesel, their departure draining vital manpower from Schlemm’s perimeter.

  • • •

  In the Pocket, the Allies targeted Schlemm’s artillery with increasingly effective counter-battery fire, which he estimated to be 20 to 25 percent heavier than any return fire he could muster. To protect his howitzers, he wanted to shift them to concealed positions on the far bank, from where they could still engage Montgomery’s oncoming forces.

  Once again he had to seek permission from the High Command. This time, with Berlin focused on the Remagen crisis, oversight had loosened and Schlemm received authorization to relocate a portion of his artillery. Taking advantage of the opportunity, he shuttled every howitzer he had across the Rhine.

  Schlemm’s prospects for holding out were getting dire. Now down to 8,000 men, and seeking to prevent annihilation, he demanded Berlin send an officer to verify his tenuous position firsthand.

  On the morning of March 9, an Oberstleutnant (lieutenant colonel) from the High Command arrived. Schlemm and his men eyed the junior officer as he entered the makeshift headquarters, noting with amusement that he’d elected to wear a new, freshly pressed dress uniform. The pink stripes on his trousers were hard to ignore—officially a pale shade of carmine to designate a staff officer of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, as well as veterinarians, meteorologists, librarians, and other specialists who failed to impress combat troops. If the dapper officer intended to instill confidence by radiating Berlin-blessed officialdom, he was wasting his efforts. The exhausted men had been under fire for the last thirty-one days, and thus could muster little curiosity about unworthy outsiders.

  Schlemm ensured the errand boy fully appreciated the situation by making the Oberstleutnant crawl with him to a forward position in the midst of an Allied artillery barrage. After a few near misses and now covered in mud from head to toe, the Oberstleutnant concurred that holding the bridgehead was hopeless. He radioed Berlin stating the Wesel bridges were in critical danger of an Allied breakthrough, advising evacuation to save the remaining troops.

  Anticipating this small triumph, Schlemm had previously organized his men for a methodical withdrawal, and that night his I Fallschirmjä
ger-Armee initiated the retreat plan.

  The two remaining bridges, although damaged from overshot Allied artillery fire, were still solid enough to support the crossing of heavy armored vehicles. While the infantry held the perimeter, the remaining tanks and self-propelled guns made their way across.

  Schlemm stationed himself at the foot of one of the bridge’s east spans, shaking the hand of each man as he came over, thanking him for his courageous stand. He saw that his men were filthy and dead tired, but a passing Fallschirmjäger demonstrated the unit’s élan when he encouraged Schlemm not to worry and assured him that once established on the other side they wouldn’t sell so cheaply. Safe for the moment, Schlemm knew that it was just a matter of time before he and his men would be expected to defend this new piece of real estate down to the last bullet and the last man.

  • • •

  To create the illusion of a fully manned front line, two of Schlemm’s infantry regiments remained in defensive positions along the perimeter. These rearguard units covered the withdrawal by launching localized counterattacks and laying down barrages of mortar fire to occupy the Allies’ attention. They were to make their crossing by small assault boats and commandeered rafts after the destruction of the bridges.

  Schlemm wanted to blow the bridges at 04:00, but men were still streaming across at the designated time. He delayed the destruction by two hours, but again, troops carrying, pushing, and towing as much equipment as possible filled the bridge. Civilian refugees escaping the Allied invaders crowded over the bridge as well. Mixed into the flow were the walking wounded, ambulances, supply trucks, carts loaded with ammunition, and even cattle—anything that might be of use once on the other side.