The Battle of the Bulge was Germany’s last major offensive of the Second World War. In this video we look at some of the stories from the German infantry and .
Bibliography
Beevor, Antony. Ardennes, 1944: Hitler’s Last Gamble. London, UK: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2016.
Caddick-Adams, Peter. Snow & Steel: The Battle of the Bulge, 1944-45. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Chamberlain, Peter. Encyclopedia of German Tanks of World War Two. London, UK: Arms and Armour Press, 1978.
Chamberlain, Peter. British and American Tanks of World War II: The Complete Illustrated History of British, American, and Commonwealth Tanks, 1939-1945. London, UK: Cassell & Co., 2000.
Cole, Hugh M. The Ardennes: The Official History of the Battle of the Bulge. St. Petersburg, FL: Red and Black Publishers, 2011.
Holland, James. Normandy ’44: D-Day and the Epic 77-Day Battle for France. New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2019.
Schneider, Wolfgang. Tigers in Combat. 1. Vol. 1. Winnipeg, Man.: J.J. Fedorowicz, 1994.
21 Comments
A little known fact . 11Kilometes to the right of the German advance was a fuel dump . If they had known it was there , the outcome could well have been very different .
My uncles served during WW2. One with Patton, spoke of the horror perpetrated on Allied soldiers by the Wehrmacht. We were slaughtered after capture by German soldiers. Not by SS, but the regular army Germans were as horrific as the SS. Sadly as I have aged I have watched a determined rewrite of the true history of German action during WW2 and from 1938 on. I know not all people were evil but certainly we must all consider if our own death would be better than allowing millions of people to be slaughtered. If we are cowards we are still responsible for the actions of our neighbors if no one is saying This is Wrong.
Cowardly American soldiers? German wartime arrogance knew no bounds. Every army throws up its fair share of craven soldiers, including the Wehrmacht. But quite a few U.S. Army outfits acquitted themselves exceedingly well and honorably during the Ardennes Offensive.
Read Antony Beevor's account of the Ardennes Offensive and see where many small ordinary U.S. line infantry units confronted and outfought German forces that greatly outnumbered and outgunned them until the U.S. infantry were forced back or overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers.
These smaller actions in which regular U.S. line infantry outfits fought with great courage and ferocity succeeded in greatly slowing and delaying the German advance and in buying precious time for the U.S. main forces to organize or reorganize to counterattack the German main forces.
And in Beevor's account, too, see where U.S. infantrymen formed themselves into tank-killing teams and repeatedly knocked out German tanks one after another with grenades, small arms, and man-portable antitank weapons, notably the famous bazooka. Hardly cowardly!
If the Germans were so much better soldiers than the Americans, why did they fail to win the Ardennes campaign 1944-45, let alone the full damn war? The much-vaunted German Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS soldiers' man-for-man tactical superiority to the U.S. Army's soldiers is simply untrue in what I have read of German-U.S. battles through World War II. The massed soldiery of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS could do everything and anything except win the war for Germany.
And, incidentally, I am not an American. Just a reader of military history and an observer making observations from the military history that I've read.
If the German army had used light tanks and Stug tank destroyers instead of heavy panzers they might have been more efficient.
You can’t beat general mud. Something they also experienced in Russia.
My father was involved in all this. He thought the Western Allies should have stopped at the borders of the Reich and let the Russians take it all.
Most of them that had previous experience of combat probably thought it was a waste of time and effort. By that stage of the war all they could have tried was futile but they had burned their bridges with the crimes that had been perpetrated in the preceding years.
Fantastic video.
Germans – the Americans won't advance without air or heavy vehicle cover
The Americans – yeah… On account of all the bullets I'd rather not absorb
"Make Peace you fools!" FM Von Rundstedt. Turns out the old man was right.
The SS guy saying they were gonna be "re-educated" into democrats was not wrong. They were allowed to exist
Poor babies, they started the war and yet when they couldn't get home for Christmas they are crying? Boo, Hoo!
I’d rather watch the same video from a wehraboo perspective….where Germany went on to conquer the world.
These fools seriously made comparisons between themselves and the 300 Spartans? If that’s not proof that many in the German military were given drugs in hopes of increasing their effectiveness. Then I don’t know what is lol
My uncle was in Patton's 3rd Army relieving Bastogne from the south. He told me by a few days after Xmas the Germans were surrendering in droves, they were cold, hungry and without any more confusion about the course of the war. Some US units didn't accept surrender from SS troops, Malmedy Massacre was well know by all US troops by then.
"Victory or Siberia" slogan was not only used by the German Army but the Soviet Army too XD 😛 (jk)
A work friend was an US MP in Western Europe, he would tell stories Re the numbers of Germans who surrendered to him, per wiki etc 2.8 million surrendered to the west between d day and VE Day
Justice for Germans!!!!
Due to Operation Keelhaul some of the eastern conscripts did have to worry about that "…or siberia" part, but not any Germans.
He casually describes atrocities by US forces , but there is no follow up comment . Tell us when and where , if you think this happened .
Damn when he said “they are going to re-educate us to become democrats” it reminded me a lot of the last 5 years or so
Heard the familiar voice, subbed. 🙂 Tbh the channel has been popping up in my feed for a few weeks already , sorry I am a bit late. 🙂