Why Hitler’s launch of the Battle of the Bulge in World War II accelerated Germany’s demise? Please analyze from: strategy, tactics, and logistics support.
The Battle of the Bulge
In the late autumn of 1944, the war was approaching the German mainland from the east, west, and south, and Germany was facing a desperate situation. In order to reverse the situation, Hitler decided to concentrate his forces on the Western Front to launch an offensive that caught the Allies off guard and regained the initiative. For this reason, from the end of September, Hitler and his Supreme Command secretly began to formulate the largest positional counterattack plan on the Western Front. This plan was named "Watch am Rhein" (wacht am Rhein)! The main idea of the plan is to concentrate superior forces, quickly break through the Allied defense lines, forcefully cross the Maas River, seize Antwerp, the Allied main supply port, split the Allied forces in two, create a second Dunkirk, and then Turn around and deal with the Soviet Union. Every detail of the plan down to the timing of the bombardment was drawn up by Hitler himself. Due to the smooth progress after the Normandy landing and the fight all the way to the German border, the senior Allied commanders believed that it was impossible for the German army to launch a large-scale offensive and were preparing to rest in the winter so that they could fight again in the spring of the next year. However, Hitler chose to do so before Christmas. The attack was launched in bad weather. The counterattack was set in Belgium's Ardennes Forest. The Allies had a total of 87 divisions on the Western Front, including 25 armored divisions, but there were only 6 divisions on the Ardennes front. The Ardennes area is the junction of Hodges's U.S. 1st Army and Patton's U.S. 3rd Army. The approximately 85-mile-wide defense zone between the two armies is defended by six divisions of the 1st Army. Hitler believed that the defense lines in the area were weak and the enemy was unprepared. By launching a surprise attack in weather when enemy planes could not take off, he could count on a quick breakthrough. _
In early December, the German army assembled 20 divisions on the Western Front, commanded by Marshal Model, commander of Army Group B. On the northern flank is General Dietrich's 6th SS Panzer Army (SS is the abbreviation of the SS), which has 4 armored divisions, 5 infantry divisions, and about 640 tanks. These four fully-equipped armored divisions are all well-established units, namely the 1st SS Armored Division ("Adolf Hitler" Division), the 12th SS Armored Division ("Hitler Youth" Division), and the 2nd SS Armored Division ("Hitler Youth" Division). "Reich" Division) and the 9th SS Armored Division ("Hohenschütaufen" Division), almost all the most elite troops of the SS are here. Hitler has made a desperate move! The most noteworthy of these units is the "Hitler Youth" division. The average age of the soldiers is only 17 or 18 years old. They all wear the black leather uniforms of submarine crews and uniquely paint their girlfriends' names on the tanks. Although they were young, their fanaticism and bravery in combat surpassed that of other SS troops. In the middle is General Mantefel's 5th Armored Group, which has 3 armored divisions (including the "Armored Instructor Division") and 4 infantry divisions. Since Germany was at the end of its rope, although Hitler spent a lot of money and tried his best to piece together the tanks, the 5th Armored Army still only had two-thirds of the establishment, about 320 tanks. On the southernmost flank is the 7th Army commanded by General Brandenburg, consisting of 4 infantry divisions, responsible for covering the flanks of the 5th Armored Corps and ensuring the center attack.
At dawn on December 16, 1944, the German army’s final offensive on the Western Front, the Ardennes Counterattack, began with suffocating artillery fire preparations. At 5:30, the 250,000 German troops of the German Army Group B rushed out from the 90-mile front from Manshaw to Echternach and assaulted the Allied defense line!
That morning, the 66th Army of the Fifth Armored Group quickly broke through the Eifel Mountains defended by the US 106th Infantry Division and the 14th Cavalry Group, cutting off the main transportation route to St. Vitus. On the 17th, the 66th Army successfully surrounded two regiments of the US 106th Division with a pincer offensive, forcing 7,000 US troops to surrender. This was the most serious defeat suffered by the US military on the European battlefield. It was not until the morning of the 17th that the Allied Command confirmed that the German full-scale offensive had begun. Facing the German offensive, Eisenhower urgently mobilized the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions of Ridgway's 18th Airborne Corps to reinforce the Bastogne-St. Vitus line. At the other end of the battlefield away from the battlefield, Patton mobilized six and a half divisions from his own army group and personally commanded them to rush to Bastogne on December 19. The U.S. military must hold on to Bastogne, the strategic gateway to Antwerp, until December 23 as promised by Patton. For the German army, Bastogne, named by the Führer, must be captured as soon as possible before the weather clears up!
Due to the stubborn resistance of the US military, the battle did not go as smoothly as the Germans imagined.
Only the leading column of the 1st SS Panzer Division, the "Peiper Combat Group" led by First Class Commando Squadron Captain Jochen Peiper, made significant progress. It broke into the hinterland of the Allied forces, arrived and occupied Ma Si River Ferry. The 2nd Armored Division and the Armored Instructor Division of the Fifth Armored Army broke through as far as Salles. Selles was the culmination of the German advance, just five miles from the Meuse River. From the launch of the attack on the 16th to December 20th, the German army formed a wedge-shaped protrusion about 100 kilometers wide and 30 to 50 kilometers deep within the Allied defense lines. The Battle of the Ardennes is therefore also known as the "Battle of the Bulge" - The battle of the bulge!
On December 22, Patton led the reinforcements to launch an attack from the south. The German army also demanded that the American troops surrounded in Bastogne surrender on the same day, but they only received a two-word answer: "Ben eggs!" This is a good story in the history of World War II. Bastogne became a fortress blocking the German advance, with 18,000 American troops defending the isolated city. The Germans had no choice but to advance around Baston. On December 24, Patton's 3rd Army destroyed the barrier built by the German 7th Army to protect the central offensive. Immediately afterwards, Patton ordered General Garfield's 4th Armored Division to "run like crazy" to rescue Bastogne. In the early morning of the 26th, the 2nd Battle Group of the 4th Armored Division fought a bloody path and broke through the German siege of Bastogne. At the same time, the Allied air forces violently bombarded the 2nd Armored Division and the Armored Training Division of the German 5th Armored Army that were advancing to Salles. On Christmas Day, a fierce battle broke out between the German 2nd Armored Division and the newly arrived 2nd Armored Division of the 7th Army of the US 1st Army. By the end of the day, the German 2nd Armored Division had suffered 2,500 casualties and 1,050 prisoners. 81 tanks (original 88), as well as all 74 cannons and 405 other vehicles. The 2nd Armored Division of the US Army was nicknamed "Hell on Wheels". On the 26th, the German army began to retreat, and hopes of forcibly crossing the Maas River were lost.
On January 1, 1945, the German army dispatched more than 1,000 aircraft to conduct the most intense bombing of Allied airfields in several months. Then, German ground forces resumed the siege of Bastogne. On January 3, the Allies shifted to a counterattack, with Patton's 3rd Army attacking from Bastion to the northeast, and Hodges's 1st Army attacking from north to southeast. The German army also launched its fiercest offensive against Bastogne on this day, thus launching the fiercest battle in the Battle of the Ardennes. The two sides fought bloody battles for five days, but in the end the Germans still failed to capture this important town. On January 8, Hitler finally ordered the German troops to withdraw. On January 12, the Soviet army launched an offensive in advance on the Eastern Front to coordinate operations. Hitler had to transfer troops from the Western Front to fight on the Eastern Front, and the Allies took the opportunity to advance. On January 16, Hodges's U.S. 1st Army and Patton's U.S. 3rd Army successfully joined forces. By January 28, the German troops were driven back to their original positions.
The Battle of the Ardennes was the largest positional counterattack on the Western Front. The Germans suffered more than 80,000 casualties, losing 324 tanks and 320 aircraft. The US military suffered 77,000 casualties, lost 733 tanks and 592 aircraft. It looked like a tie, but the U.S. military could easily replace its losses, and Hitler had no reserves to replace it. The German army was no longer able to stop the Allied offensive on the Western Front, and the plan to force the US and British governments to refuse military and political cooperation with the Soviet Union completely failed.