II Corps 18th Army Luxembourg The Netherlands Belgium France Britain 1941–1943 1944–1945 Germany Strategic campaigns The Battle of the Grebbeberg (Dutch: Slag om de Grebbeberg) was a major engagement during the Battle of the Netherlands, which was a part of the World War II Operation Fall Gelb in 1940.

In that case the army should fall back on the Water Line, which formed part of Fortress Holland, the Dutch national redoubt.

To defend the redoubt, it was necessary to slow the German advance in order to give as many Dutch forces as possible the chance of assembling in Fortress Holland.

Because the Dutch government did not want to antagonise local residents, permission to remove buildings and trees in the line of fire was refused, which greatly reduced the effectiveness of the defences and gave attackers plenty of cover.

In the months leading up to the invasion, German officers in civilian clothes visited the zoo and used its lookout tower to survey the local defences.

Resistance at the IJssel Line near Westervoort was fiercer than anticipated and it was dusk by the time the Germans had occupied Wageningen, the city directly to the east of the Grebbeberg.

In the early hours of 11 May, German artillery opened fire on the line of outposts, disabling the telephone system of the Dutch defenders.

That evening, Chris Meijer—an artillery sergeant who had been arrested for abandoning his post—was brought in and subjected to a court-martial and executed by firing squad.

The confusion that followed caused the attack to lose momentum before it had made contact with the enemy and by the time order had been restored, dawn had broken and the counterattack was called off.

One positive side-effect of the counterattack had been that Dutch artillery support forced the Germans to abandon their own planned night attack.

After the seizure of the outposts the previous day, the focus of the German force was on capturing the Frontline, which ran along the eastern slope of the Grebbeberg.

There was a much larger number of Dutch machine guns in the frontline, so that this time there were no blind spots in which German units could hide.

Von Tiedemann realised that an all-out assault like that of the day before would not work and ordered an artillery barrage which lasted for the better part of the morning.

The artillery bombardment did not destroy the defensive works, but did undermine the morale of the Dutch units, which were mainly composed of conscripts.

The defenders' ammunition supply was low because of skirmishes with German forces the night before and in the early afternoon the Dutch started to give way.

North of the Rhenen-Wageningen road, Major Johan Henri Azon Jacometti—commander of II-8 RI—personally led a counterattack, but it failed after Jacometti was killed.

There was no great higher level pressure on Von Tiedemann to make haste as the main German attack was near Rotterdam.

The commander of the third battalion of the SS brigade—Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Hilmar Wäckerle—was not satisfied with the limited progress and considered the fact that the Grebbe Line had not yet been breached to be a stain on his personal honor.

Completely in line with his impetuous character and the fearsome reputation he wished to create for the Waffen-SS, Wäckerle—contrary to his orders, moved two companies of his battalion forward into the Stopline.

The first attempt succeeded and Wäckerle infiltrated the Stopline and immediately advanced unopposed for 1,500 m (1,600 yd) with a company, driving the disheartened Dutch defenders before him.

Because the other German units had not participated in the advance, it was not exploited and most of the Stopline held firm, leaving Wäckerle surrounded deep in enemy territory.

Gelderman was in the process of convincing withdrawing Dutch forces to resume fighting when Wäckerle's SS company reached his position.

The job of attacking the Dutch troops north of the hill was given to the two remaining battalions of the SS brigade, which had seen continuous action for the past two days.

The battalions were made up of middle-aged men (as the high regimental numbers show), who had not been retrained for service and had not been able to create strong bonds of comradeship.

A sauve qui peut mentality took hold of the Dutch troops and the defence mounted by the 4th Division effectively collapsed as events on the Grebbeberg itself had taken a turn for the worse.

The fatal decision not to cut down wooded areas near the Stopline now became detrimental to the defenders, who were unable to keep German forces at bay due to the cover the trees provided.

The Stopline was intended as the last real line of defence to serve as a point from which an enemy breakthrough could be countered; it thus had no deeper positions.

The same air attack that had caused Brigade B north of the Grebbeberg to turn tail and run, also hit parts of the final line.

Defeat at this location meant the collapse of the entire Grebbe line and forced the Dutch to a full retreat of six divisions to the East Front of the Waterline.

[1] The East Front of Fortress Holland would never be attacked, as in the evening of 14 May 1940, the Dutch, after the Bombardment of Rotterdam surrendered in all provinces except Zeeland, where they continued to resist.