Wehrmacht forces for the Ardennes Offensive
By October, the progress of the Western Allies' three army groups had slowed considerably, allowing the Germans to partly rebuild their strength and prepare for the defense of Germany itself.
The bulk of the offensive's armored strength was in the Sixth Panzer Army, which was tasked with the capture of the Belgian port of Antwerp.
Despite an immense German effort in the face of intense Allied bombing to build the necessary stocks for the offensive, there were shortages of fuel, ammunition, weapons and manpower by the scheduled date of the counterattack.
[3] General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander on the Western Front, used the opportunity to encircle the German army in Normandy.
[5] Despite efforts to break through the U.S. 30th Infantry Division to cut off Allied forces in Northern France,[6] by 13 August it was clear that the offensive had failed.
[12] By early September, as the Allies pushed to the German border, Model calculated that the actual strength of the 74 divisions at his disposal was no more than that of 25.
[14] Approaching the Belgian border in early September the Allied offensive came to a grinding halt, as its supply lines struggled to keep up with the pace of the advance.
[18] In an effort to open the Scheldt estuary, Eisenhower approved Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's Operation Market Garden, which was launched on 17 September.
[19] However, by 21 September the operation had failed to dislodge German defenders from the southern Netherlands and open the seaway to Antwerp; the supply problem was at its worst.
[26] Patton's Third Army was tasked with the capture of Metz and the Lorraine; his first obstacle was Fort Driant, built in 1902 and improved over the years by both the French and the Germans.
[39] Despite the casualties taken the ground gained was comparatively worthless, and the fighting for Aachen had not necessarily brought German defeat any closer.
[40] The Germans, too, had suffered heavy casualties; the 116th Panzer Division, for example, had lost its offensive capabilities after countless attempts to break the U.S. First Army's encirclement of Aachen.
[41] This gave American and British commanders a false sense of security, believing that the Wehrmacht did not have the strength to launch a counteroffensive.
[48] After also throwing the 8th Infantry Division into the attack it was able to take the town of Hürtgen, but was not able to advance much farther given the number of casualties it had sustained.
[56] His basic plan involved an early morning breakthrough along the lightly defended sector of the Ardennes Forest, with the eventual task of crossing the Meuse River and capturing Antwerp in order to deny the Western Allies a crucial port.
[69] Finally, Dietrich's army also included the 326th and 246th Volksgrenadier divisions, forming the 67th (LXVII) Infantry Corps under the command of General Otto Hitzfeld.
[81] Although von der Heydte originally requested to use the entirety of the 6th Parachute Regiment, this was denied on the basis that it would alert the Western Allies to the intentions of the Wehrmacht; ultimately, however, the German general was allowed to hand pick his platoon and company commanders.
[83] General von der Heydte immediately dismissed the worst 150 men given to him and replaced them with volunteers from the parachute school, some of whom did not have any jump experience.
[88] Operation Greif, commanded by Otto Skorzeny's 150th Panzer brigade, was designed to capture certain bridges over the Meuse River.
[97] Hitler promised his army commanders complete air support, reporting that Goering had told him that the Luftwaffe was able to deploy some 3,000 fighters for the operation; although the German leader also commented to discount 1,000 from the report, due to Goering's tendency to exaggerate, he said that there would be nonetheless at least 2,000 fighters to protect German ground forces.
[104][105] Field Marshal von Rundstedt made repeated requests for more men, noting that the Western Allies were completely superior in manpower, yet was denied by Wehrmacht High Command.
Rundstedt noted the difficulty of holding encircled American troops once the operation began, due to the lack of sufficient infantrymen.
[111] Although Western Allied bomber missions increased in intensity as the war progressed, 1944 was marked with some of the highest production rates for German industry; for example, while in January 1944 1,017 fighter aircraft had been manufactured, in September of that year 2,878 were built.
[113] However, the effects of the air raids did real damage; for example, Panzer IV production decreased from 300 in August 1944 to only 180 in September,[114] because the steel plant producing the tank's armor had been destroyed by Allied bombers.
[118] Ammunition was in dire need, as well, and ultimately the rail system was forced to stop troop movements in favor of moving more supplies to the front.
[120] Of the petroleum stocked for the offensive, much of it was released to units operating along the front, fighting against American and British actions in the Lorraine and around Aachen.
[123] On the eve of the Soviet Vistula–Oder Offensive, in January 1945, the Red Army had an impressive force of 1,670,000 soldiers, 28,360 artillery guns and heavy mortars, over a thousand Katyusha rocket launchers, 3,300 armored fighting vehicles and nearly 3,000 aircraft.
[125] During December 1944 the Wehrmacht had concentrated the bulk of its mechanized forces and logistical support on the Western Front, reducing its ability to defend Germany's eastern border from the Soviet Union.
[130] In fact, von Rundstedt had asked for the Ardennes Offensive to be called off on 22 December 1944, in favor of reorienting Germany's armored strength to the East, but this was flatly refused by Hitler.
