Operation Northwind (1944)

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Operation Nordwind
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This article is about the 1944–1945 operation. For the 1941 operation, see Operation Northwind (1941).
Operation Northwind
Part of the Western Front of World War II
Date31 December 1944 – 25 January 1945 (1944-12-31 – 1945-01-25)
Location
Alsace and Lorraine, France and Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Result German operational failure
Belligerents
  Germany
Commanders and leaders
Units involved

United States Seventh Army

VI Corps

First Army

I Corps
II Corps
XC Corps
  • 361st Volksgrenadier Division
  • 245th Infantry Division
  • 256th Volksgrenadier Division
Strength
230,000
(average strength)[1]		 Unknown
Casualties and losses
 United States:
11,609[2][3]
killed and wounded, captured or missing[4]
 France:
7,000[5]
killed and wounded		 23,000 killed, wounded, or captured[6]

Operation Northwind (German: Unternehmen Nordwind) was the last major German offensive of World War II on the Western Front. Northwind was launched to support the German Ardennes offensive campaign in the Battle of the Bulge, which by late December 1944 had decisively turned against the German forces. It began on 31 December 1944 in Rhineland-Palatinate, Alsace and Lorraine in southwestern Germany and northeastern France, and ended on 25 January 1945. The German offensive was an operational failure, with its main objectives not achieved.

Objectives

By 21 December 1944, the German momentum during the

United States Third Army (which turned north to assist at the site of the German breakthrough), could relieve pressure on German forces in the Ardennes.[7] In a briefing at his military command complex at Adlerhorst, Adolf Hitler declared in his speech to his division commanders on 28 December 1944 (three days prior to the launch of Operation Nordwind), "This attack has a very clear objective, namely the destruction of the enemy forces. There is not a matter of prestige involved here. It is a matter of destroying and exterminating the enemy forces wherever we find them."[3]
: 499 

The goal of the offensive was to break through the lines of the

U.S. Third Army, intended to lead to the destruction of that army.[3]
: 494 

Offensive

See also:
Operation Nordwind order of battle

On 31 December 1944, German Army Group G (commanded by Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz) and Army Group Upper Rhine (commanded by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler) launched a major offensive against the thinly stretched, 110-kilometre-long (68 mi) front line held by the U.S. 7th Army. Operation Nordwind soon had the overextended U.S. 7th Army in dire straits; the 7th Army (at the orders of U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower) had sent troops, equipment, and supplies north to reinforce the American armies in the Ardennes involved in the Battle of the Bulge.

On the same day that the German Army launched Operation Nordwind, the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) committed almost 1,000 aircraft in support. This attempt to cripple the Allied air forces based in northwestern Europe was known as Operation Bodenplatte. It failed without having achieved any of its key objectives.

The initial Nordwind attack was conducted by three corps of the

25th Panzergrenadier Divisions were engaged in the fighting. Another smaller attack was made against the French positions south of Strasbourg, but it was finally stopped. The U.S. VI Corps
—which bore the brunt of the German attacks—was fighting on three sides by 15 January.

The 125th Regiment of the 21st Panzer Division under Colonel

River Rhine. Here the Maginot Line, running east–west, was used by Allied forces, and "showed what a superb fortification it was". On January 7 Luck approached the line south of Wissembourg at the villages of Rittershoffen and Hatten. Heavy American fire came from the 79th Infantry Division, the 14th Armoured Division, plus elements of the 42nd Infantry Division. On January 10 Luck reached the villages. Two weeks of heavy fighting followed, Germans and Americans each occupying parts of the villages while civilians sheltered in cellars. Luck later said that the fighting around Rittershoffen had been "one of the hardest and most costly battles that ever raged".[8]

Eisenhower, fearing the outright destruction of the U.S. 7th Army, had rushed already battered divisions hurriedly relieved from the Ardennes, southeast over 100 km (62 mi), to reinforce the 7th Army. But their arrival was delayed, and on 21 January with supplies and ammunition short, Seventh Army ordered the much-depleted 79th Infantry and 14th Armored Divisions to retreat from Rittershoffen and fall back on new positions on the south bank of the

Moder River
.

On 25 January the German offensive was halted, after the US 222nd Infantry Regiment stopped their advance near Haguenau, earning the Presidential Unit Citation in the process. The same day reinforcements began to arrive from the Ardennes. Although Strasbourg had been successfully defended, the Colmar Pocket had not yet been eliminated.

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ Cirillo 2003, Retrieved 16 August 2018
  2. ^ Cirillo 2003, Retrieved 16 August 2018
  3. ^ a b c Clarke, Jeffrey J.; Smith, Robert Ross (1993). Riviera to the Rhine (CMH Pub 7–10) (PDF). Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 March 2019. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  4. ^ Smith, Clark: Riviera To The Rhine. P. 527
  5. ^ Grandes Unités Françaises, Vol. V-III, p. 801
  6. ^ Clarke, Jeffrey (1993). U.S. Army in World War II European Theater of Operations: Riviera to the Rhine. Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. p. 527.
  7. ^ Clarke, Jeffrey (1993). U.S. Army in World War II European Theater of Operations: Riviera to the Rhine. Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. pp. 493–494.
  8. ^ Ambrose 1997, p. 386.

Bibliography

External links

https://wisvetsmuseum.com/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=OH_00915.xml

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