Based just to the north of Arnhem, 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen and 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg were still very much understrength. Each division could field a maximum of 6,000–7,000 men, and while there had been an arrival of light vehicles, there were few tanks, assault guns, and artillery.12 On 10 September, OKW ordered Hohenstaufen to return to Germany for refitting, with Frundsberg to remain in the Netherlands. Hohenstaufen was also instructed to hand over its heavy weapons and equipment to Frundsberg, although this order was only partially carried out.
The Allied landings on 17 September went with hardly a hitch, all three divisions landing the vast majority of their soldiers within the designated zones. The Germans were taken unawares as the armada of nearly 1,500 C-47 transport aircraft and more than 3,000 towed gliders (plus escorts) flew over their heads. Field Marshal Model—commander of Army Group B—was at lunch at the Hotel Tafelberg in Arnhem when the Allies struck, fighter-bombers shooting up the hotel. Model left immediately to rendezvous with Bittrich at II SS Panzer Corps headquarters.
Despite the surprise of the Allied airborne landings, the German response was swift and efficient at all levels. Krafft’s battalion was taking part in a training exercise close to the British drop zone and promptly engaged the gliders as they landed. Krafft correctly surmised that Arnhem was the British target and blocked one of the main routes into the town. By the evening, a larger mixed SS and army force under Sturmbannführer Spindler, Hohenstaufen’s artillery commander, had arrived to reinforce Krafft. Despite these measures, they were unable to stop Lieutenant-Colonel John Frost’s 2nd Parachute Battalion from slipping through the German screen and securing the north side of the road bridge over the Rhine.
At II SS Panzer Corps headquarters, Model and Bittrich prepared their countermeasures. In the first instance it was decided that the Hohenstaufen Division—under Obersturmbannführer Walter Harzer, who had replaced the wounded Stadler—would be responsible for containing the British, while Harmel’s Frundsberg Division was ordered to cross the Rhine and advance south to deal with the American threat at Nijmegen. Unfortunately for Harmel, Frost’s seizure of the Arnhem bridge prevented his SS soldiers, most of whom were on the north side of the river, from crossing over the bridge toward Nijmegen. Harmel was consequently forced to use a nearby ferry, which only slowly fed his troops into the battle.
Just before Frost’s arrival at the bridge, Hohenstaufen’s reconnaissance battalion had crossed it on its way toward Nijmegen. On the following day the Germans attempted to return over the bridge, now defended by British paratroopers. The SS battalion was led by Viktor Graebner, a typically thrusting reconnaissance commander who had just been awarded the Knight’s Cross. Aware of the British presence, he decided to force the position. In a cavalry charge of armored personnel carriers and armored cars, the SS troops roared over the bridge, only to be met by a hail of fire that stopped them in their tracks, with Graebner killed in the attempt.
On 18 September a second wave of British airborne troops successfully landed in the British drop zone, and on the following day a concerted effort was made to link up with Frost’s battalion. The Germans were also being steadily reinforced, and Spindler’s blocking troops repulsed all British attempts to reach the bridge.
Bittrich simultaneously pressed his forces to eliminate the British position at Arnhem. Artillery, tanks, and assault guns provided fire support, before the panzergrenadiers were sent in to wrest control of what remained. SS soldier Alfred Ringsdorf recalled the intensity of the action: “This was a harder battle than any I had fought in Russia. It was constant, close-range, hand-to-hand fighting. The English were everywhere. The streets for the most part were narrow, sometimes not more than 15 feet wide, and we fired on each other from only yards away. We fought to gain inches, cleaning out one room after the other. It was absolute hell!”13
By 20 September the situation of the 2nd Parachute Battalion was critical: the Germans were literally blasting their defenses to pieces, while ammunition, food, and water were running out and casualties rising. During the afternoon the Germans allowed British wounded to be evacuated; in the evening the SS troops closed in, and by the early hours of the twenty-first all resistance had ceased. Once the bridge was back in German hands, reinforcements could swiftly cross the Rhine to support the defenders of the bridge over the River Waal, just north of Nijmegen. The tide of battle was now turning in the Germans’ favor, with reinforcements reaching the front in growing numbers. And for once the Allies did not enjoy air supremacy, enabling German ground forces to move in daylight with relative impunity.
To the south of Nijmegen the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division had been drawn into the battle to secure the nearby Groesbeek Heights, unable to make progress in capturing the key Waal bridge until 19 September, following the arrival of armored units from the British XXX Corps. Kampfgruppe Euling—a battalion-strength unit under Hauptsturmführer Euling—maintained a resolute defense of the southern side of the bridge.
On the twentieth an intrepid group of U.S. paratroopers launched their own amphibious assault over the Waal using recently arrived collapsible boats. Despite coming under intense fire and suffering heavy casualties, the Americans managed to establish a bridgehead on the north bank of the river. At the same time, the tanks of XXX Corps beat back the German defenders and crossed the still intact road crossing. Harmel had been forbidden by Model from blowing the bridge, the German field marshal insisting that it be kept open for a possible counterattack. Once over the river, the British failed to exploit their advantage, tamely waiting for further reinforcement.
Meanwhile, the Germans north of the Rhine began to put the squeeze on the British paratroopers, now reduced to a pocket based around Oosterbeek. Lippert’s NCO training unit joined army forces under General Tettau, pushing in the British perimeter from the west, while the Hohenstaufen attacked from the north and east. To the south, the British just about managed to keep open their access to the Rhine. The paratroopers inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans, forcing them to moderate the scale of their repeated infantry attacks. But with time on their side, the Germans could rely on their superior firepower to grind down the enemy.
Despite the ferocity of the fighting, the Arnhem battle became known for the chivalry displayed by both sides, allowing the evacuation of the wounded to receive medical attention in relative safety. Rottenführer Wolfgang Dombrowski described his surprise at the development: “What were we to do with our wounded? A red cross flag was produced and casualties approached, step by step. To our astonishment fire ceased immediately. Stretcher bearers picked up the wounded, moved off, and the shooting started again. We couldn’t understand this as we were used to conditions on the Eastern Front. These paras were supposed to be hard men—we knew they were!—and yet we were allowed to pick up the wounded. The other side was then given the opportunity to do the same.”14
On 21 September the 1st Independent Polish Brigade was dropped on a landing zone just south of the Rhine, suffering heavy losses from the now well-prepared Germans. Due to bad weather, the drop had been made two days late, and these otherwise valuable reinforcements could do little to change the outcome. On the following day, ground troops from XXX Corps linked up with the Poles, although attempts to reach the British paratroopers on the Rhine’s north bank were largely thwarted.
On 24 September, as the perimeter around Oosterbeek began to shrink farther, the British admitted defeat and made the decision to withdraw across the Rhine. During the night of 25–26 September, the British managed to evacuate most of their troops, leaving just 300 men to be captured as dawn broke. The Anglo-Polish forces fell back to Nijmegen, a position they held over the winter of 1944–1945. The Allied hope of breaking into Germany’s industrial heartland of the Ruhr via the Netherlands had been dashed.
Alongside indifferent Allied planning, the prime reason for the Germans’ success lay in their ability to mobilize forces of all kinds at a moment’s notice and throw them straight
into battle. And key to this mobilization was the presence of II SS Panzer Corps, whose commanders directed their troops and those of the Wehrmacht with great skill. By an unfortunate coincidence for the Allies, the Hohenstaufen and Frundsberg Divisions had undergone their training in France, with emphasis given to repelling a potential airborne invasion. That training was put to good use at Arnhem. The close of Market Garden marked the end of significant Allied offensive action in the West for the remainder of 1944.
Chapter 28
FINAL GAMBLE IN THE WEST
THE INABILITY OF the Western Allies to break through into Germany during the fall of 1944 gave Hitler a chance to reorganize and rebuild his battered armies. Rather than husbanding his resources to conduct a dynamic defense to slow Allied advances on both the Eastern and the Western Fronts, he gambled upon an offensive in the West. This would consist of an armored assault through the Ardennes region in southern Belgium, scene of his great triumph in 1940.
While Hitler was preparing his offensive, Himmler and his chief recruiting officer, Gottlob Berger, considered how best to use a surprise windfall of new recruits. The loss of France and Belgium to the Allies had the paradoxical effect of briefly increasing the numbers of men available for service in the Waffen-SS. Collaborators from these countries, fearful of retribution, fled with their families for safety in Germany. Even in the Netherlands, still predominantly under German control, 30,000 members of the Dutch Nazi Party and dependents crossed the border to escape the coming wrath of their fellow countrymen.1 Once in Germany, the collaborationist refugees were totally dependent on the goodwill of their host, and those of military age were conducted toward the Waffen-SS, ostensibly to take part in the coming reconquest of the territories recently lost in the West.2
The French contribution to the Nazi war effort had comprised the army-organized Légion des Volontaires Français and the SS Frankreich Brigade.3 The Allied liberation of France led to the flight of Vichy paramilitary groups to Germany—including 2,500 men from the Milice—along with various individuals who decided to throw in their lot with the Nazis. Hitler’s virulent anticommunism and anti-Semitism had appealed to many on the French Far Right, among them journalist Christien de la Mazière. As the Allies closed on Paris, the aristocratic, idealistic Mazière refused to change sides or go underground. He instead asked to join the new French SS formation being organized by Himmler, which would become the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne.
In marked contrast to the experience of most SS recruits, Mazière drove his own car into Germany—complete with some sightseeing on the way—arriving at the training camp for the French at Wildflecken in October 1944. After swearing allegiance to Adolf Hitler, he was inducted into the Waffen-SS. Mazière described his feelings at that moment: “These men fascinated me and I wanted to be assimilated into their ranks. I saw them as a race apart. They struck me as strong, courageous, and ruthless beings, without weakness, who would never become corrupt.”4 Even at this late stage of the war, the Waffen-SS still had the power to attract individuals into its military brotherhood.
Mazière found that his new formation was divided between the old members of the LVF, who saw themselves as representatives of France, even if fighting for Germany, and survivors from the Frankreich Brigade, who had more fully adopted the outlook and attitudes of the Waffen-SS. The men of Joseph Darnand’s Milice contingent had hoped to operate as a semi-independent unit, but to their disgruntlement they found themselves distributed throughout the formation.
Nominally commanded by Colonel Edgar Puard from the LVF, actual control of the Charlemagne Division was taken by Brigadeführer Gustav Krukenberg. A Francophile German officer, Krukenberg did his best to combine the disparate elements of the division into a cohesive whole, albeit with only partial success. By early 1945 it could muster around 8,000 men, organized in two infantry regiments with a battalion each of artillery and antitank guns, plus some support units. Darnand lobbied for the division to be deployed in the West, but in February it was ordered to the Eastern Front to prop up the wavering German defenses in Pomerania.
With Belgium under Allied control by mid-September, the still committed Flemish and Walloon collaborators decamped across the border to Germany. The veteran Flemish SS assault brigade was upgraded to become the 27th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Langemarck on 12 September 1944. Under the leadership of Standartenführer Thomas Müller, it was based around the old assault brigade, the formation drawing its extra recruits from the refugees from Flanders of military age. Workers from German industry and those acting as auxiliaries in the Wehrmacht were also redirected into the formation, which according to Flemish sources reached a total of 15,000 men. In theory this was sufficient to form a full-strength division, but shortages of weapons and equipment and lack of sufficient training reduced its battleworthy element to 5,000–6,000 men, divided into two infantry battle groups with antitank and antiaircraft support.5
On 18 September Himmler redesignated the 1,800-strong SS Assault Brigade Wallonien as the 28th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Wallonien. Sufficient recruits of acceptable quality proved hard to find, however, so that even with the induction of some Frenchmen and Spaniards, the total figure comprised little more than 4,000 soldiers, organized on similar lines to its fellow Belgian formation. Command had originally been given to German SS officers, but in January 1945 Léon Degrelle achieved his ambition of undisputed command of the Walloon troops, with the rank of Standartenführer. It had been planned that the two Belgian SS divisions would follow the German offensive in the Ardennes and take control of the reconquered parts of Belgium. The failure of the offensive brought this proposal to an abrupt halt, and both formations continued their training until dispatch to the Eastern Front in early 1945.
The last of these new Western European formations was the 34th Volunteer Grenadier Division Landstorm Nederland, based around Dutch SS paramilitary units formed in March 1943 for antiresistance actions and to maintain public order in the event of an Allied invasion (some of its units fought against the British at Arnhem). The division was activated on 10 February 1945 under the command of Oberführer Martin Kohlroser, a veteran Leibstandarte officer who had first achieved notoriety during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. By combing Dutch right-wing organizations—and through the offer of decent rations during the “hunger winter” of 1944–1945—a force of some 8,000 men was assembled. Not much was expected of the division, however, and it remained in the Netherlands as a garrison force for the remainder of the war.
HITLER’S PROPOSED 1944 offensive through the Ardennes was a modified rerun of the victorious assault that had defeated France in 1940. The 1944 plan differed from the original in that instead of a drive west to the English Channel, the Germans would turn due north to capture Brussels and the vital port of Antwerp, thereby dividing the U.S. and British armies (Hitler still held to the notion that a military success over the Western Allies would force them to the negotiating table, separate from the Soviet Union). On the American side of the line, the hilly, densely wooded Ardennes was considered a quiet sector: not only was it lightly manned, but the troops deployed there were either refitting after sustained periods of combat or greenhorn units acclimatizing themselves to frontline conditions.
Despite its chronic manpower problems, the Wehrmacht assembled a substantial force for the coming offensive. The German Fifteenth Army—the most northerly of the German formations—would remain on the defensive but if the opportunity arose was to launch a limited assault to support the main attack. Directly to the south was Sepp Dietrich’s newly formed Sixth Panzer Army, which contained two Waffen-SS panzer corps and, on Hitler’s express orders, was to be the main strike force in the drive on Antwerp. Supporting Dietrich were General Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army (spearheaded by three panzer divisions) and General Brandenberger’s Seventh Army, the latter an all-infantry formation of just four divisions acting as the southern flank guard to the main assault.
Un
der the overall command of Field Marshal Model, the Germans assembled around 250,000 men with 1,900 guns and 900 armored fighting vehicles. Germany was also scoured for all available aircraft, personnel, and aviation fuel, enabling the Luftwaffe to gather 1,500 pilots and aircraft to support the offensive.6 Yet, despite these efforts, the Allies could muster four times as many aircraft, with better-trained pilots and seemingly unlimited supplies of fuel and ammunition.
Within the Sixth Panzer Army, I SS Panzer Corps (now led by former Totenkopf commander Hermann Priess) comprised Leibstandarte and Hitlerjugend Divisions, while Wilhelm Bittrich’s II SS Panzer Corps had been reordered to include the Hohenstaufen and Das Reich Divisions (Frundsberg was held back in army reserve). Following their battering on the invasion front, the SS panzer divisions had undergone yet another period of rapid rebuilding, Gottlob Berger’s SS Main Office working tirelessly to find replacement manpower.
The Hitlerjugend Division continued to draw upon the Hitler Youth for recruits, but the new teenagers lacked the fervor of the original volunteers, while the more experienced soldiers were still recovering from their mauling in Normandy. Hans Postenberg, who joined in June 1944, explained the situation:
After my training I was sent to the 12th SS Hitlerjugend, which had retreated back across France and was a mere shadow of its former self. Most of the lads had been killed or wounded in Normandy and those that survived were very shaken and in no further state for further combat without a good rest and of course further reinforcements. We were sent to a rest area where a lot more lads waited, but the Hitler Youth Division never got back its old strength again.7
Even if the there were doubts as to the quality of the four Waffen-SS and three army panzer divisions leading the attack, a far greater weakness lay with the infantry who would follow the armored formations. Apart from two paratroop divisions—now of only average quality—the German infantry component was supplied by the newly designated Volksgrenadier divisions. These were based around a cadre of experienced officers and NCOs but in the main consisted of overage or underage recruits, along with those previously considered medically unfit for military service. Unsurprisingly, they would prove incapable of conducting the aggressive offensive action necessary to link up with the panzer divisions.
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