kampfgruppe hansen order of battle

The speed of the advance of the Allies caused several military logistics issues: By December 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower (the Supreme Allied Commander on the Western Front) and his staff decided to hold the Ardennes region primarily as a rest area for the U.S. First Army, with limited Allied operational objectives in the area. [181], The Germans officially referred to the offensive by the codename Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein 'Operation Watch on the Rhine', while the Allies designated it the Ardennes Counteroffensive. It included the most experienced formation of the Waffen-SS: the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. disclaimer: our products are for ----security company with 120 men. Panther number 225, commanded by SS Rottenfuhrer Franz Prahm, was the first tank in the column. Having given orders to Dempsey and Crerar, who arrived for a conference at 11am, I left at noon for the H.Q. Peiper learned that his reinforcements had been directed to gather in La Gleize to his east, and he withdrew, leaving wounded Americans and Germans in the Froidcourt Castle[fr]. Because it lacked sufficient troops and those of the 26th VG Division were near exhaustion, the XLVII Panzerkorps concentrated its assault on several individual locations on the west side of the perimeter in sequence rather than launching one simultaneous attack on all sides. [29] German forces remained in control of several major ports on the English Channel coast into the autumn, while Dunkirk remained under siege until the end of the war in May 1945. 560 was assigned to Kampfgruppe Kuhlmann (12. Photos from the early days of the German offensive are few and far between, but here are some shots taken on December 16, 1944 throughout the Western Front by U.S. Army Signal Corps photographers. As a result, by the end of October, the supply situation had eased somewhat. These 4 kampfgruppes where involved in the battle of the bulge, but where there any more kampfgruppes from any other divison than from LAH involved in the battle for the bulge? According to Winston Churchill, the attack from the south under Patton was steady but slow and involved heavy losses, and Montgomery was trying to avoid this situation. Patton's Third Army in the south, centered around Bastogne, would attack north, Montgomery's forces in the north would strike south, and the two forces planned to meet at Houffalize to reduce the bulge, and push east back toward the offensive start line. After turning to other pressing issues, his staff reminded him that they should reply to the German demand. The weakened Seventh Army had, at Eisenhower's orders, sent troops, equipment, and supplies north to reinforce the American armies in the Ardennes, and the offensive left it in dire straits. They were for the most part well organized and supplied for the attack, although they were counting on capturing American gasoline dumps to fuel their vehicles. Copy No. The German tanks along the road leading to Stoumont came under heavy American tank fire from Stoumont and the nearby village of Roua. Battalion, Sturmbannfhrer Hans Scappini (Killed in action 7 June 1944) III. At the same time, they felt that maintaining a purely defensive posture (as had been the case since Normandy) would only delay defeat, not avert it. Modern mechanized armies need a robust logistics chain to provide fuel, ammunition, and other sinews of war to sustain combat operations. The surprise attack caught the Allied forces completely off guard and became the costliest battle in terms of casualties for the . by Timo 22 Aug 2004, 13:49, Post By November, it was clear that Soviet forces were preparing for a winter offensive.[34]. [178], During World War II, most U.S. black soldiers still served only in maintenance or service positions, or in segregated units. Regardless, those who now found themselves surrounded threw down their weapons and came out of their positions. Armee conquered the Crimea and captured . Armies. Peiper and Knittel both faced the prospect of being cut off. [159], However, American historian Stephen Ambrose, writing in 1997, maintained that "Putting Monty in command of the northern flank had no effect on the battle". The German losses in the battle were especially critical: their last reserves were now gone, the Luftwaffe had been shattered, and remaining forces throughout the West were being pushed back to defend the Siegfried Line. [77], Peiper advanced north-west towards Bllingen, keeping to the plan to move west, unaware that if he had turned north he had an opportunity to flank and trap the entire 2nd and 99th Divisions. Liddell Hart and the Weight of History; by John Mearsheimer; pages 8-9, 203-204; Cornell University Press; 2010; A Very Special Relationship: Basil Liddell Hart, Wehrmacht Generals and the Debate on West German Rearmament, 1945-1953, by Alaric Searle; War In History 1998 5: 327; published by SAGE for the University of Salford, Manchester; "Liddell Hart and the Mearsheimer Critique: A 'Pupil's' Retrospective" (PDF); Strategic Studies Institute. Intercepted German communications indicating a substantial German offensive preparation were not acted upon by the Allies. 7 / Junl/Jull 1988 v 3- Jahrgang S 55 I Sfr6,50 i DM 6,50 ^" **' ' -*,. The Americans shelled Kampfgruppe Peiper on 22 December, and although the Germans had run out of food and had virtually no fuel, they continued to fight. In the initial days of the offensive, Kampfgruppe Peiper rolled through the Ardennes like a slow-moving train. These predictions were largely dismissed by the U.S. 12th Army Group. The only Allied units to have participated directly at Arnhem are the 1st Airborne Division, 1st Polish Brigade, 38 and 46 Groups RAF, and the 52nd Troop Carrier Wing USAAF. [149], Focusing exclusively on his own generalship, Montgomery continued to say he thought the counteroffensive had gone very well but did not explain the reason for his delayed attack on 3 January. The Ardennes offensive was also named Rundstedt-Offensive, but von Rundstedt strongly objected "to the fact that this stupid operation in the Ardennes is sometimes called the 'Rundstedt-Offensive'. The research process of over twenty years culminated in five volumes: Birth of a Regiment (May 1942-September 1943), Spearhead of the Fifth Army (September 1943-April 1944), The Battle of the Bridges (April 1944-November 1944), Blocking Kampfgruppe Peiper (November 1944-February 1945), End of an Odyssey (February 1945-January 1946). Food was scarce, and by 22 December artillery ammunition was restricted to 10 rounds per gun per day. The Russians retreated. [91] Dietrich's decision unknowingly played into American hands, as Robertson had already decided to abandon the villages. This view was opposed by the British Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Alan Brooke, as well as Field Marshal Montgomery, who promoted a rapid advance on a narrow front under his command, with the other allied armies in reserve. [39] The plan banked on unfavorable weather, including heavy fog and low-lying clouds, which would minimize the Allied air advantage. 2. His Kampfgruppe was surrounded, virtually out of fuel, short of ammunition, and reduced to about a quarter of its original strength. NEERPELT Bridgehead. [128], After officers of the regular German Army attempted to assassinate him, Hitler had increasingly trusted only the Nazi Party SS and its armed branch, the Waffen-SS. 945 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 At 09:15, the Luftwaffe launched Unternehmen Bodenplatte (Operation Baseplate), a major campaign against Allied airfields in the Low Countries. Peiper's Panthers flank Stoumont from the fields east of town. The objective was the "Baraque Michel" crossroads. Release date : March 15, 2016. The Germans suffered heavy losses at an airfield named Y-29, losing 40 of their own planes while damaging only four American planes. In short order, the squadron, minus . [citation needed], Gen. Eisenhower, realizing that the Allies could destroy German forces much more easily when they were out in the open and on the offensive than if they were on the defensive, told his generals, "The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity for us and not of disaster. Although they failed to take the vital bridges over the Meuse, their presence caused confusion out of all proportion to their military activities, and rumors spread quickly. The 6th Panzer Army was given priority for supply and equipment and was assigned the shortest route to the ultimate objective of the offensive, Antwerp. In fact, their horse-drawn artillery and rocket units became a significant obstacle to the armored units. These 30 newly rebuilt divisions used some of the last reserves of the German Army. Due to the news blackout imposed on the 16th, the change of leadership to Montgomery did not become public information until SHAEF announced that the change in command had "absolutely nothing to do with failure on the part of the three American generals". The pressure on the defenders reached its high-water mark when German halftracks rattled into town and disgorged their cargo, that cargo being fresh Panzergrenadiers who went house to house and mopped up what was left of the American defenders in Stoumont. But who exactly fired the shots and why is, despite many possible scenarios, a mystery to date. info@nationalww2museum.org The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (German: Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) and its variants were the highest awards in the military and paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany du There sat the heaviest and, at least theoretically, the most lethal striking forces of the offensive. Believing the route open, only to be repulsed with heavier fire than he had experienced in Stoumont, Peiper instructed his men to hold firm and wait for orders. Named after its commanding officer, Jochen Peiper, Kampfgruppe Peiper was the most powerful force in the entire German offensive in the north. With casualties mounting, and running short on replacements, tanks, ammunition, and supplies, Seventh Army was forced to withdraw to defensive positions on the south bank of the Moder River on 21 January. In France, orders had been relayed within the German army using radio messages enciphered by the Enigma machine, and these could be picked up and decrypted by Allied code-breakers headquartered at Bletchley Park, to give the intelligence known as Ultra. To the north, the 277th Volksgrenadier Division attempted to break through the defending line of the U.S. 99th and the 2nd Infantry Divisions. War II. On 1 January, in an attempt to keep the offensive going, the Germans launched two new operations. Kampfgruppe Hansen. Many historians have written about the famous Buffalo Soldiers of the all-Black 92nd Infantry Division, who fought with distinction during World War II. Eight of Peipers Panthers entered a field to the east of Stoumont and approached the town from its flanks. The Panthers began to move forward, albeit cautiously. Eleven black American soldiers were tortured after surrendering and then shot by men of the 1st SS Panzer Division belonging to Schnellgruppe Knittel. [104] By late Christmas Eve the advance in this sector was stopped, as Allied forces threatened the narrow corridor held by the 2nd Panzer Division. At the close of this first day of battle, therefore, the only certain view of the enemy was this: German forces were attacking all along the line from Monschau to Echternach; they had succeeded in making some dents in the forward American positions; at a number of points the defenders seemed to need reinforcement; and the . The headlong drive on Elsenborn Ridge lacked needed support from German units that had already bypassed the ridge. While the majority of the Kampfgruppe became embroiled in a bitter battle north of Caen, one As the German infantry continued their push, Peipers artillery dropped smoke in the field to the east of town to cover the advance of the Panthers that had earlier deployed there. What little intelligence they had led the Allies to believe precisely what the Germans wanted them to believe-that preparations were being carried out only for defensive, not offensive, operations. By 24 December the German advance was effectively stalled short of the Meuse. Klaus Von Allworden Made up of three infantry companies, two MK IV self-propelled guns and one towed PAK 40 A/Tank gun, this unit was on the Dreyenseweg on the afternoon of the 17th and blocked the advance of 1st and 3rd Para Battalions. [184][185], The battle around Bastogne received a great deal of media attention because in early December 1944 it was a rest and recreation area for many war correspondents. [e][f] When they offered their alternative plans, Hitler would not listen. Schnellgruppe Knittel was forced to disengage from the heights around Stavelot. Order of Battle June 1944. The deployment and distribution of the divisions of the Wehrmacht and subordinate units of allies one day before the Allied air invasion near Arnhem on 17 September 1944 and the stabilization of the Western Front after the break-out of the Allied armies from Normandy. An incredibly thick blanket of fog hung low over Stoumont and the Amblve valley on the morning of December19. Even Dietrich believed the Ardennes was a poor area for armored warfare and that the inexperienced and badly equipped Volksgrenadier soldiers would clog the roads the tanks needed for their rapid advance. The amount lost in arms and equipment, of course, was very substantial. It has two squadrons that provide reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition for Stryker brigade combat teams. Fierce American resistance on the northern shoulder of the offensive, around Elsenborn Ridge, and in the south, around Bastogne, blocked German access to key roads to the northwest and west that they counted on for success. [69][70] Afterwards, Peiper advanced to the west, towards the River Meuse and captured Ligneuville, bypassing the towns of Mdersheid, Schoppen, Ondenval, and Thirimont. The powerful Waffen SS Panzer Divisions, Leibstandarte and Hitler Jugend were expected to burst through the American lines along what would be called the Northern Shoulder and blast their way to the port of Antwerp. [82] Three tanks attempted to take the bridge, but the lead vehicle was disabled by a mine. )[6] T.N. As a result, the start of the offensive was delayed from 27 November until 16 December. Kampfgruppe Peiper attacked Stavelot on 18 December but was unable to capture the town before the Americans evacuated a large fuel depot. [95] They had little time to establish any unit cohesion or train together. Montgomery, refusing to risk underprepared infantry in a snowstorm for a strategically unimportant area, did not launch the attack until 3 January. The other Kampgruppen tried to free the supply route which had also been cut by the Americans (by taking Stavelot) but this also failed. Knittel joined up with Peiper and reported the Americans had recaptured Stavelot to their east. The German offensive drew to a close on 25 January. Because Skorzeny's men were captured in American uniforms, they were executed as spies. Even during interrogation, they continued their goal of spreading disinformation; when asked about their mission, some of them claimed they had been told to go to Paris to either kill or capture General Dwight Eisenhower. The Battle of St. Vith was an engagement in Belgium fought during the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine in World War II.It was one of several battles on December 16, 1944 constituting the opening of Germany's Ardennes counteroffensive (more commonly known as the "Battle of the Bulge").. British XXX Corps was significantly reinforced for this effort. After their defeat, Germany would retreat for the remainder of the war. [78] Instead, intent on driving west, Peiper turned south to detour around Hnningen, choosing a route designated Rollbahn D as he had been given latitude to choose the best route west.[59]. Planning for the "Watch on the Rhine" offensive emphasized secrecy and the commitment of overwhelming force. this is a pre-order & is not in-stock. [148], His comments were interpreted as self-promoting, particularly his claim that when the situation "began to deteriorate," Eisenhower had placed him in command in the north. [citation needed], On the Eastern Front, the Soviets' Operation Bagration during the summer had destroyed much of Germany's Army Group Center (Heeresgruppe Mitte). On July 19, 1942, while the Battle of Demyansk was raging, Schairer's squadron had to engage in dive combat operation against advancing Soviet tanks, which they succeeded in doing. German paratrooperstend to one of Prahm's wounded crewmen as Prahm's Panther burns in the background. Kicked off on the morning of the 16th and within a few days fierce resistance on . Its newest and most powerful tank, the Tiger II heavy tank, consumed 2 US gallons of fuel per mile (470 litres per 100 km), and the Germans only had enough fuel for an estimated 90 to 100 miles (140 to 160km) of travel, not nearly enough to reach Antwerp.[66]. The Leibstandarte was in the vanguard of the march into Austria as part of the Anschluss, and in 1938 the unit took part in the occupation of the Sudetenland. Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}50015N 54312E / 50.00417N 5.72000E / 50.00417; 5.72000, This article is about the 1944 German offensive in World War II. [137], British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery differed from the U.S. command in how to respond to the German attack and his public statements to that effect caused tension in the American high command. The British 29th Armoured Brigade of British 11th Armoured Division, which had turned in its tanks for re-equipping, was told to take back their tanks and head to the area. The close terrain of the Ardennes would make rapid movement difficult, though open ground beyond the Meuse offered the prospect of a successful dash to the coast. [30], The Allies' efforts to destroy the French railway system prior to D-Day were successful. On December 18, 1944 , very early in the morning , the " 14th Cavalry Group " U.S. fell into an ambush of "Kampfgruppe Hansen "on the road between Post and R. Headquarters now freed up the 9th Panzer Division for Fifth Panzer Army, which was deployed at Marche. On the same day, German Army Group G (Heeresgruppe G) and Army Group Upper Rhine (Heeresgruppe Oberrhein) launched a major offensive against the thinly-stretched, 110 kilometers (70mi) line of the Seventh U.S. Army. Near the center of town, the SS Panzergrenadiers stopped and collected themselves. An Abteilung was not an ad-hoc formation like a Kampfgruppe, and it was much smaller than a dmi-brigade, too. Kampfgruppe Peiper. On December 18, 1944 , very early in the morning , the " 14th Cavalry Group " U.S. fell into an ambush of "Kampfgruppe Hansen "on the road between Post and Recht . Monitored at Bradley's HQ, this broadcast was mistaken for a BBC transmission and it was this twisted text that started the uproar. [73] Following the end of the war, soldiers and officers of Kampfgruppe Peiper, including Joachim Peiper and SS general Sepp Dietrich, were tried for the incident at the Malmedy massacre trial. This created a bottleneck in the German advance. In early February, the Allies launched an attack all along the Western front: in the north under Montgomery they fought Operation Veritable (also known as the Battle of the Reichswald); east of Aachen they fought the second phase of the Battle of Hrtgen Forest; in the center, under Hodges; and in the south, under Patton. Units of the corps which fought in the Ardennes were the 51st (Highland) and 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Divisions, the British 6th Airborne Division, the 29th and 33rd Armoured Brigades, and the 34th Tank Brigade. German historian Hermann Jung lists 67,675 casualties from 16 December 1944 to late January 1945 for the three German armies that participated in the offensive. All of the newspaper and radio talk was about the paratroopers. Casualties among American divisions (excluding attached elements, corps and army-level combat support, and rear-area personnel) totaled 62,439 from 16 December 1944 to 16 January 1945, inclusive: 6,238 killed, 32,712 wounded, and 23,399 missing. Following this, 60 grenadiers advanced forward but were stopped by concentrated American defensive fire. The converse was equally damaging; daytime movement of German forces was rapidly noticed, and interdiction of supplies combined with the bombing of the Romanian oil fields starved Germany of oil and gasoline. At 4:30 a.m. on 17 December 1944, the 1st SS Panzer Division was approximately 16 hours behind schedule when the convoys departed the village of Lanzerath enroute west to the town of Honsfeld. The American TD gunners attempted to fire off more rounds at the Panthers but were soon overrun by SS Panzergrenadiers slowly moving up the road and into the village. The struggle for the villages and American strong points, plus transport confusion on the German side, slowed the attack sufficiently to allow the 101st Airborne Division (reinforced by elements from the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions) to reach Bastogne by truck on the morning of 19 December. Von der Heydte ended up with a total of around 300 troops. [124], Winston Churchill, addressing the House of Commons following the Battle of the Bulge said, "This is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever-famous American victory. Patton and Eisenhower both felt this was a misrepresentation of the relative share of the fighting played by the British and Americans in the Ardennes (for every British soldier there were thirty to forty Americans in the fight), and that it belittled the part played by Bradley, Patton and other American commanders. SS). Pressed for time, Peiper ordered his rear-guard units to eliminate the Americans in Stavelot and follow his advance, an order that would eventually seal his fate. The Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 - 25 January 1945) was a major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. For the video game, see, German supporting efforts across the Western Front. In a personal conversation on 13 December between Walter Model and Friedrich von der Heydte, who was put in charge of Operation Stsser, von der Heydte gave Operation Stsser less than a 10% chance of succeeding. [111], By 21 December the Germans had surrounded Bastogne, which was defended by the 101st Airborne Division, the all African American 969th Artillery Battalion, and Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division. As for Peiper and his men, on the night of the 18th and into the early hours of the 19th, his Kampfgruppe paused just outside the small town of Stoumont. Panthers of Kampfgruppe Peiper move towards Stoumont under cover of smoke. As the battle ensued, on the northern shoulder of the offensive, Dietrich stopped the armored assault on the twin villages after two days and changed the axis of their advance southward through the hamlet of Domne Btgenbach. After the war Hasso von Manteuffel, who commanded the 5th Panzer Army in the Ardennes, was imprisoned awaiting trial for war crimes. Operation Stsser was a paratroop drop into the American rear in the High Fens (French: Hautes Fagnes; German: Hohes Venn; Dutch: Hoge Venen) area. They destroyed a number of American armored units and vehicles, and took several dozen prisoners who were subsequently murdered. Stab (fully motorized): ----staff with 115 men. What crewmen survived poured out of the burning tank and ran for cover. The Kampfgruppe was stationed at Falaise, some distance to the south of Caen on D-Day and was only able to put in a counter-attack against the Allied bridgehead late in the afternoon. As squadron commander, it was his job to inspect the battlefield and the aftermath of the attack afterwards, which he did at low altitude. And came out of their positions nearby village of Roua Stryker brigade combat teams 120. 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