Home > Work > Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble
1 " American doctors did not of course know then what the Germans had discovered after the battle of Stalingrad. The combination of stress, exhaustion, cold and malnourishment upsets the metabolism, and gravely reduces the body’s capacity to absorb calories and vitamins. "
― Antony Beevor , Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble
2 " Many soldiers closed their minds to the suffering of the Belgians as they focused on the priority of killing the enemy. Those who did care were marked for life by the horrors that they witnessed. Villages, "
3 " French forces remained under SHAEF command as a result of Eisenhower’s compromise, but headaches in dealing with the French authorities persisted. Eisenhower subsequently complained that the French ‘next to the weather . . . have caused me more trouble in this war than any other single factor’. SHAEF "
4 " Hemingway, eager not to miss the big battle even though he was suffering from influenza, managed to reach Colonel Buck Lanham’s command post near Rodenbourg. The house had belonged to a priest suspected of being a German sympathizer. Hemingway took great delight in drinking a stock of communion wine and then refilling the bottles with his own urine. He claimed to have relabelled them ‘Schloss Hemingstein 1944’ and later drank from one by mistake. "
5 " Another division was even tougher in its views. ‘We have never been benefited by treating prisoners well . . . We are here to Kill Germans, not to baby them.’ Some soldiers in the 30th Division exacted their own revenge when they captured Germans wearing American combat boots taken from the dead. They forced them at gunpoint to remove them and walk barefoot along the icy roads. "
6 " A clear cold Christmas,’ Patton wrote in his diary that day, ‘lovely weather for killing Germans, which seems a bit queer, seeing Whose birthday it is.’ Patton "
7 " Over the previous 150 years, the border areas of Eupen and St Vith had moved back and forth between France, Prussia, Belgium and Germany, depending on the fortunes of war. In the Belgian elections of April 1939, more than 45 per cent of those in the mainly German-speaking ‘eastern cantons’ voted for the Heimattreue Front which wanted the area reincorporated into the Reich. But "
8 " As in all armies, it was not so much the fear of death as the fear of mutilation which preyed on minds. A German field hospital, or Feldlazarett, was little more than an amputation line. American doctors were horrified by the German army’s tendency to cut off limbs without a moment’s thought. A "
9 " The bad visibility to prevent flying, which Hitler had so earnestly desired, was repeated day after day. It does not, however, appear to have hampered artillery-spotting aircraft on unofficial business in the Ardennes. Bradley received complaints that ‘GI’s in their zest for barbecued pork were hunting [wild] boar in low-flying cubs with Thompson submachine guns. "
10 " In Waffen-SS units especially, the excitement and impatience were clearly intense. A member of the 12th SS Panzer-Division Hitler Jugend wrote to his sister on the eve of battle. ‘Dear Ruth, My daily letter will be very short today – short and sweet. I write during one of the great hours before an attack – full of unrest, full of expectation for what the next days will bring. Everyone who has been here the last two days and nights (especially nights), who has witnessed hour after hour the assembly of our crack divisions, who has heard the constant rattling of Panzers, knows that something is up and we are looking forward to a clear order to reduce the tension. We are still in the dark as to “where” and “how” but that cannot be helped! It is enough to know that we attack, and will throw the enemy from our homeland. That is a holy task!’ On the back of the sealed envelope he added a hurried postscript: ‘Ruth! Ruth! Ruth! WE MARCH!!!’ That must have been scribbled as they moved out, for the letter fell into American hands during the battle. "
11 " Asperger syndrome. "
12 " Neuro-psychiatric cases, termed combat exhaustion, rose to nearly a quarter of all hospital admissions. The German army, which refused to recognize the condition, apparently suffered far fewer cases. Combat exhaustion produced recognizable symptoms: ‘nausea, crying, extreme nervousness and gastric conditions’. Some "
13 " The division was shaken by the shock of battle. Even its commander was thought to be close to cracking up under the strain, and officers seemed unable to control their men. After bitter fighting to take the ruins of Chenogne on 1 January, about sixty German prisoners were shot. ‘There were some unfortunate incidents in the shooting of prisoners,’ Patton wrote in his diary. ‘I hope we can conceal this.’ It would indeed have been embarrassing after all the American fulminations over the Malmédy–Baugnez massacre. "
14 " Fighting in the Ardennes had reached a degree of savagery unprecedented on the western front. The shooting of prisoners of war has always been a far more common practice than military historians in the past have been prepared to acknowledge, especially when writing of their own countrymen. The Kampfgruppe Peiper’s cold-blooded slaughter of prisoners in the Baugnez–Malmédy massacre was of course chilling, and its indiscriminate killing of civilians even more so. That American soldiers took revenge was hardly surprising, but it is surely shocking that a number of generals, from Bradley downwards, openly approved of the shooting of prisoners in retaliation. There are few details in the archives or in American accounts of the Chenogne massacre, where the ill-trained and badly bruised 11th Armored Division took out its rage on some sixty prisoners. Their vengeance was different from the cold-blooded executions perpetrated by the Waffen-SS at Baugnez–Malmédy, but it still reflects badly on their officers. "
15 " But on the whole American soldiers demonstrated great sympathy for civilians trapped in the battle, and US Army medical services did whatever they could to treat civilian casualties. The "
16 " After the bloodbath of the First World War, army commanders from western democracies were under great pressure at home to reduce their own casualties, so they relied on a massive use of artillery shells and bombs. As a result far more civilians died. White phosphorus especially was a weapon of terrible indiscrimination. "
17 " Our troops know of the atrocities committed by the enemy and know that now it is a matter of life or death, we or they.’ A number of senior officers made it clear that they approved of revenge killing. When General Bradley heard soon afterwards that prisoners from the 12th SS Panzer-Division Hitler Jugend had spoken of their heavy casualties, he raised his eyebrows sceptically. ‘Prisoners from the 12th SS?’ ‘Oh, yes sir,’ the officer replied. ‘We needed a few samples. That’s all we’ve taken, sir.’ Bradley smiled. ‘Well, that’s good,’ he said. "
18 " The 112th Infantry Regiment of Cota’s 28th Division found that ‘on the morning of the initial assault, there were strong indications that the German infantry had imbibed rather freely of alcoholic beverage . . . They were laughing and shouting and telling our troops not to open fire, as it disclosed our positions. We obliged until the head of the column was 25 yards to our front. Heavy casualties were inflicted. Examination of the canteens on several of the bodies gave every indication that the canteen had only a short time before contained cognac. "
19 " While undoubtedly an American triumph, the Ardennes campaign produced a political defeat for the British. Monty’s disastrous press conference and the ill-considered clamour of the London press had stoked a rampant Anglophobia in the United States and especially among senior American officers in Europe. The "
20 " On Tuesday 26 December, Patton famously boasted to Bradley: ‘The Kraut has stuck his head in the meat grinder and I’ve got the handle.’ But this bravado concealed his lingering embarrassment that the advance to Bastogne had not gone as he had claimed it would. He "
