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Battle of the Bulge
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Germany was clearly losing the war. The Red Army was marching in on the Eastern front and the Allied Forces were decimating German occupied cities with heavy bombing on the Western front. Hitler knew that unless the Allied Forces could be stopped, the war would be over in a matter of months. He soon came up with an attack plan. Hitler sat down with Wilhelm Kertel and Alfred Jodl to give a status report on the German Army. During this meeting Hitler told Jodl to devise an attack plan that would slow down the Allied advance in Europe. Jodl was told that the attack had to be between the Aachan area and the Southern Luxembourg-France boundary, because Hitler knew there was only a single armored division and four small infantry divisions. Jodl soon returned a plan to Hitler. This plan had five possible attack routes with the final goal being Antwerp, a major port that the Allied Forces use for shipping supplies and troops. He chose to take Antwerp by going through the Ardennes Forest. Hitler decided to send his forces through the Ardennes because it was a very large forest with incredibly minimal defense. It would also allow him to conceal many thousand troops and tanks from aerial reconnaissance. One of Hitler’s biggest reasons among the many for trying to regain Antwerp was because he felt "a blow here would strike the seam between the British and Americans and lead to political as well as military disharmony between the Allies.” Some of the other major decisions were: the distance from the Ardennes to Antwerp was short, the forest allows for little maneuvering allowing for minimal decision making and if they were to regain Antwerp it would minimize the threat on the Ruhr. Around the 25th of September Hitler ordered Jodl to begin a mass examination of the plan to develop all of the small details. They knew what had to happen, but nobody was sure how exactly they were going to make it happen. The initial objectives were to capture the bridgeheads over the Meuse River between Liege and Namur. With all major bridges under German control they could begin the march to Antwerp. It was expected that an enormous battle would ensue along the north Antwerp-Liege-Bastogne line that would eventually annihilate the Canadian and British forces. An attack of this magnitude required an absolute minimum of approximately 30 divisions, 10 of which had to be armored. Nearly the entire German artillery and air support were to be on call should they be deemed necessary. With nearly all of the German forces being tossed into this attack called Wacht am Rhein (Watch on the Rhine), the entire operation was based on tactical speed and surprise. Should either speed or surprise be lost at any point in time the entire operation would have lost its initiative and the operation would almost immediately fail. When Hitler sat down with the Generals that would carry out the plan, General der Kavellerie Siegfried Westphal and General der Infanterie Hans Krebs, they were first forced to sign a secrecy agreement. If the plan leaked out for any reason, they would be shot. The plan, Hitler told his Generals, was designed to surround and destroy the British and American forces in and surrounding Antwerp. There were two phases; the first was to close in and capture all bridgeheads along the Meuse River. The second phase was to surround and capture the small port city on Antwerp.
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