All the hopes of the German leadership now rested on the great offensive in the west. If successful, it could, they thought, prove a decisive turning point in the war. If it failed, the war would be effectively lost. But remaining on the defensive would simply mean eventually being crushed between the advancing western and eastern powers, who would be able to exploit their superior resources and seemingly limitless reserves of manpower. General Jodl, responsible for strategic planning, summarized the thinking at the beginning of November. ‘The risk of the great aim, seeming to stand technically in disproportion to our available forces, is unalterable. But in our current situation we can’t shrink from staking everything on one card.’1
The card to be played was a swift and decisive military strike aimed at inflicting such a mighty blow on the western Allies that they would lose the appetite for continuing the fight. This would lead to the breakup of what was perceived as an unnatural coalition of forces facing Germany. Hitler’s own characteristic thinking was plainly outlined in his address to his division commanders four days before the beginning of the offensive. ‘Wars are finally decided’, he asserted, ‘by the recognition on one side or the other that the war can’t be won any more. Thus, the most important task is to bring the enemy to this realization.’ Even when forced back on the defensive, ‘ruthless strikes’ had the effect of showing the enemy that he had not won, and that the war would continue, ‘that no matter what he might do, he can never count on a capitulation—never, ever’. Under the impact of severe setbacks and recognition that success was unattainable, the enemy’s ‘nerve will break in the end’. And Germany’s enemy was a coalition of ‘the greatest extremes that can be imagined in this world: ultra-capitalist states on one side and ultra-Marxist states on the other; on one side a dying world empire, Britain, and on the other side a colony seeking an inheritance, the USA’. It was ripe for collapse if a blow of sufficient power could be landed. ‘If a few heavy strikes were to succeed here, this artificially maintained united front could collapse at any moment with a huge clap of thunder.’2
The first deliberations for an offensive in the west had taken place at precisely the time of German crisis on that front—during the collapse in Normandy in mid-August. By mid-September the decision for the offensive, given the code-name ‘Watch on the Rhine’ (later changed to ‘Autumn Mist’), was taken. Utmost secrecy was of the essence. Only a few in the High Command of the Wehrmacht and among the regime’s leaders were in the know. Even Field-Marshal von Rundstedt, restored as Commander-in-Chief West on 5 September, was told only in late October of the aims of the operation.3 Jodl’s plans for the attack went through a number of variations before Hitler’s order to go ahead was given on 10 November. Then the intended launch of the offensive in late November had to be postponed several times because of equipment shortages and unseasonal good weather—the attack was depending on poor weather to ground enemy aircraft—before the final date was set at 16 December. The military goal was to strike, as in 1940, through the wooded Ardennes in the gap between the American and British forces, advancing rapidly to take Antwerp and, in tandem with German divisions attacking towards the south from Holland, cutting the enemy lines of communication with the rear, encircling and destroying the British 21st Army Group and the 9th and 1st US Armies in a ‘new Dunkirk’. It would, according to Hitler’s directive for the operation, bring ‘the decisive turn in the western campaign and therefore perhaps of the entire war’.4
The situation, on the eastern as well as the western front, had deteriorated drastically since the idea for the offensive had initially been conceived. On the eastern front, the Soviet incursion into East Prussia had, it is true, been repelled but the most acutely threatened area had meanwhile become Hungary, a crucial source of oil and other raw materials. German troops were engaged there in bitter attritional fighting throughout the autumn in fending off the Red Army’s attempt to take Budapest, ordered by Stalin at the end of October.5 In the west, meanwhile, American troops stood on German soil in the Aachen area. After taking the city in late October, their advance during the following weeks in the densely wooded hills beyond the Westwall, the Hürtgenwald, between Aachen and Eupen and Düren to the east had encountered ferocious defence and proved extremely costly to the Americans.6 By the time the Ardennes offensive began, the American advance had reached only the river Roer, near Jülich and Düren.7 Further to the south, the Americans had greater success, though again at a cost and only after tough resistance by the Wehrmacht. In Lorraine, General Patton’s 3rd US Army eventually forced the surrender of the heavily fortified town of Metz on 22 November, though, battle-weary and combating driving rain, sleet and mud as well as the enemy, it was unable to continue the advance to Saarbrücken. In Alsace, the 6th US Army Group of General Jacob Devers, encountering weaker German defences, drove through the Vosges Mountains to take Strasbourg on 23 November and reach the Rhine near Kehl.8 Even so, the German leadership—attributing, typically, the fall of Strasbourg to treachery within Alsace—was encouraged by the stiffened resistance during the autumn that had held the western Allies at bay.9
In the eyes of Hitler and his chief military advisers, Keitel and Jodl, the enemy inroads since the summer strengthened rather than weakened the case for the planned western offensive. The pressure, military and economic, on Germany was relentlessly intensifying. The tightening vice, they felt, could be loosened only through a bold strike. German losses of men and equipment had mounted sharply over the autumn, predominantly on the eastern front but also in the west. But so had those of the enemy. The American casualties in fierce autumn fighting for relatively minor territorial gains totalled almost a quarter of a million men, dead, wounded or captured.10 Hitler impressed upon his commanders that the time to strike against an enemy that had suffered high losses and was ‘worn out’ was ripe.11 Beyond that, the eastern front—the heavy fighting in Hungary notwithstanding—was for the time being seen to be relatively stabilized, though no one was in doubt that a big new offensive would soon be launched. This was seen as all the more reason to press home the advantage of a German offensive in the west without delay.
Heavy priority was accorded to the demands of the western offensive in allocation of men and armaments. Three armies of Army Group B were to take part. The 6th SS-Panzer Army, led by SS Colonel-General Sepp Dietrich, one of Hitler’s toughest and most trusted military veterans, and the 5th Panzer Army under its brilliant commander and specialist in tank warfare, General Hasso von Manteuffel, were to spearhead the attack in the north and centre of the front.12 The 7th Army, under General Erich Brandenberger, was assigned the task of protecting the southern flank. Some 200,000 men in five panzer and thirteen People’s Grenadier divisions were assigned to the first wave, supported by around 600 tanks and 1,600 heavy guns. However, many of the men were young and inexperienced. Some divisions came, already battle-weary, from the fighting on the Saar. Fuel shortages were a major concern, even with some supplies taken from the hard-pressed eastern front. And an even bigger worry was the weakness of the Luftwaffe. All available planes—including two-thirds of the entire fighter force—were assembled for the attack. Hopes had to be placed in bad weather limiting the massive supremacy in the air of the Allies. Even so, the Wehrmacht began with a substantial numerical advantage in ground-troops and heavy armaments in the 170-kilometre-wide attack zone.13 The element of surprise would be vital to make this momentary superiority tell. But even surprise would not be enough if the offensive could not be sustained.