Gents,

This is in response to all the references (and more) that have been made about the ardennes offensive 1944. Everybody is always talking (and understandably) about the main thrust through the ardennes top Antwerp (hence the name). But is anyone aware that this offensive had a secondary attack in the north? German forces in Holland attacking and pushing towards Antwerpen, which is a considerably shorther distance. Fall Braun???

Alas, this efforts failed (as well), but isn't this attack and aim an overlooked aspect of the offensive? And what are your opinions about Fall Braun?

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"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson

From what I know about the attempt on Antwerp (which is little) is that succeeding would have been a serious, but temporary setback for the Allies, as the Germans would still have been pushed back at likely the same speed as they were. I would be interested to know more about it though...

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"If your gonna buy the angel s**t, you might as well go for the zombie package as well."
-George Carlin

The Ardennes offensive by the Germans was a huge gamble. The original plan was for 5th and 6th, Panzerarmee, supported by the 7th Army, to break through the Ardennes and then Sepp Dietrich and the 6th would head for Antwerp and Manteuffel and the 5th would head for Brussels. This was the plan proposed by Hitler, Kietel and Model.

Von Rundstedt was against it from the beginning. He knew he couldn't go against Hitler so he proposed an alternaive plan which would have been a major raid against the allies. He knew that they ahd overstretched their supply lines so he proposed attacking in strength, destroying
as many allied divisions as possible and then withdrawing back to the original starting points. Only if the situation was right did he propose going on to Antwerp.

Of course Hitler rejected this plan outright. German soldiers never retreated he said, they would smash the allied armies and drive them back into the sea.

In the end, it was the Germans who overstretched themselves. They had no reserves, no fuel, and no aircover. When the skies cleared over the battlefield, the allied fighters pounced on the German armour and decimated it.

So they had to retreat anyway.

It was a major momentary shock for the allies because they thought the germans were incapable of offensive action, but it probably helped to shorten the war due to the number of troops and weapons lost in the failed attack by the German Army.

If they had not attacked, and just fortified, the allies would have had a much tougher time cracking open the german defenses.

This is getting better every time...learning more and more.

Ok, I checked the net, and it seems that fall braun had two different meanings.

1. In the page for german code names is the 1940 version:

Fall Braun (Case Brown)
Plan to attack with Army Group C on the western front in June 1940 (see Fall Grün) to relieve Army Group A and B, if necessary.
Heeresgruppe C (von Leeb) was the army to execute this plan. Actually, in 1940 the Heeresgruppe C was far too weak to do anything but hold their position (some 19 divisions, most of them second class, for the whole southern front, including the Swiss border, against 37 French divisions and the Maginot line - some of their best among them). When Army Group C finally attacked for real, they were unexpectedly successful since the French no longer expected offensive action from them.

2. in 1944 fall Braun was more like an attack of its own by this site, and as the battle of bulge was about to start the forces were moved to support the ardennes attack:

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/70...fall_braun.htm

have a nice weekend. See ya!

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This is interesting. What forces would fall Braun have run into in 1944? Does anyone know?

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"Capital! We're nearly out of ammunition! Now we can get at them with the bayonet!" General Paddy Gough, 1st Sikh War

"Wacht am Rhein" is a fine plan, in paper. Unexperienced commanders like Keitel, Jodl and Hitler, overestimating the SS Panzers thought it was possible to succeed. But a very, very experienced and professional commander such as GFM Von Runstedt, who controlled EVERY aspect of his forces; logistics, strenght, tactics, strategy, reserves, etc. perfectly knew it was impossible. He said: "It would be a miracle if we reach the Meuse... Antwerp, ha!" But he was not listened and as a fine soldier obeyed and did it the best he could. He is such an admirable man.

And those 19 divisions in Army Group C under GO Von Leeb were not 2nd class at all! Those were just REGULAR infantry divisions. How could 19 2nd class divisions smash the strongest divisions in the French army?! Please!

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Well, The 1944 version of Fall Braun was to be carried out by Gen. Student and his Fallschirmjager army. At the time (late '44/early '45)there were no less than 6 Fallschirmjager divisions in Holland. Allied HQ knew something was brewing and 'guessed' correctly that Antwerp would be the target. However, they thought it was going to be an airborne operation which they thought the Germans coul never carry through.

Student's fallschirmjager were supposed to start their push (over land) for Antwerp 8 days after the attack in the ardennes had begun. Their start line were the maas and waal rivers in western Holland. After the attack in the ardennes, Montgomery depleted his resources in this area, bringing 2 divisions more south to stem the attackin the south. The 49th British Inf. Div. (not sure on this one, am at work, can't verify) and the Polish 1st Arm. Div. Had to bear the brunt of this attack. The 1st Polish had to cover a front line of no less than 52 Kilometers!!! After the 51st British Div. pulled out to be held in reserve further south...

The Fallschirmjagers crossed the river(s) in order to hold bridgeheads on the southisde in order to have jump off positions on the south side. Bitter fighting over these bridgeheads was the result. No attack on Antwerp was ever made, but the fighting for Bridgehead Kapelsche Veer between the Fallschirmjager and the Polish 1st Arm. div. (and later the canadians - div. unkonow at this point)has passed into history as some of the fiercest on the western front, according to vets who were there....but alas, little known...

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"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson

Jumbo--they would have had to smash through 1st Army--then Pattons 3rd Army--then hit Simpsons 9th Army.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Carl, I think it was Canadian 1st army and British 2nd Army they would have run into. Both had divisions withdrawn to counter the German bid for the Maas (Meuse) river. The Polish 1st Arm. Div. would certainly have born the brunt of the initial assault. 47 or 41 Royal Marine Commando and the Canadian Lincoln and Welland Regiment was in Corps reserve at that time in that area.

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"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson

That too my friend and Simpsons Army--or most of it, was briefly given to Monty during the battle.

Lets just say that the Germans couldnt do them all in.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Or, have I been on the Eastern Front too long? [img]smile.gif[/img]

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Some Skorzeny´s kommandos did create some chaos behind the lines-maybe some 8-9 guys, I think. Here´s a pic of some of these guys being caught and shot at the spot!

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Certainly not on the spot.

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Also spricht der Narr: 'der Umgang mit Menschen verdirbt den Charakter, sonderlich wenn man keinen hat.'

Ehhh..Timo, well I don´t think they made any big courts before execution either.They were spies and "on the way to kill Eisenhower", you know. I don´t have knowledge of all the details but here´s some. Even two US soldiers were shot as German soldiers...

"Of course not even his Kampfgruppen commanders were aware of their actual mission. In view of Skorzeny’s past exploits, perhaps it should’ve come as no surprise when one young lieutenant offered his intimate knowledge of Paris, "because we are going to dash across France through the American Army and capture (Gen. Dwight "Ike") Eisenhower’s headquarters."
"Don’t mention it to anyone," Skorzeny deadpanned. "When the time comes I’ll call on you." The proliferation of such rumors was to his advantage. What did bother him was the likelihood that by fighting in enemy uniform his men would risk being shot as spies. German lawyers maintained it was all legal as long as they doffed their uniforms before opening fire, but Skorzeny knew from combat experience just how difficult that might prove.
Panzerbrigade 150 moved up to the front on the night of December 14th, joining up with SS General Josef "Sepp" Dietrich’s Sixth Panzer Army. 24 hours later the commando teams crossed the lines to begin their deadly work. At 0600 the next morning Dietrich’s army hurled itself on American positions still quaking from a half-hour artillery bombardment. 140,000 Germans with all their tanks, trucks and equipment tried to squeeze through the Losheim Gap at once, creating not a breakthrough but a bottleneck. Dietrich’s spearhead, Lt. Col. Joachim Peiper, shouldered his Kampfgruppe through the traffic jam (and later that day, through a minefield) in a savage effort to maintain the initiative. But a mine killed the commander of Kampfgruppe X, and Skorzeny found the way so impassable that he had to abandon his jeep and walk nine kilometers. Specifically forbidden by Hitler to cross the lines himself, he could do little but hope Peiper succeeded in creating the breakthrough he needed.
But the confusion on the German side of the line was nothing compared to that on the American, where Skorzeny’s commandos were busily at work. Since December 1944 stories of their exploits have taken on mythological proportions: German infiltrators preventing the demolition of the bridge over the Amblève River at Stavelot, allowing Kampfgruppe Peiper to cross; armored columns and dug-in defenders sent running by "panic-stricken," ersatz Americans "fleeing" the German juggernaut; an entire U.S. Army regiment, 3,000 strong, dispatched in the wrong direction by a German team leader; road signs changed, roads incorrectly marked as mined, communications cut. There was at least one instance of a German commando surrendering to an MP, only to discover his captor was also German. (To avoid such blunders Skorzeny’s men had worked a system of recognition signals, marking their vehicles with small yellow triangles and keeping their tanks’ guns pointed at nine o’clock. By day the men wore pink or blue scarves; at night they flashed red or blue lights.) Several teams reached the Meuse and one actually crossed it near Amay -- the high water mark of the German offensive -- before returning to the German lines.
But inevitably flaws in their disguises showed through. The hard-pressed Germans, to whom transportation was a scarce resource, completely underestimated the abundance of the ubiquitous American jeep, any one of which rarely carried more than two riders (regulations in fact forbade more than three); once the alert was raised alert observers could easily spot Skorzeny’s three- and four-man teams. One group gave themselves away by requesting "petrol" for their jeep instead of "gasoline." These were captured, but another team which commandeered some American self-propelled guns abandoned by the American 14th Cavalry ran into the 7th Armored Division near Poteau and claimed to be members of "E Company." American cavalry was organized into troops, not companies; the real Americans opened fire, killing all the Germans.

The greatest damage, however, was done by a team which couldn’t give the correct password and was arrested at Aywaille, just 12 miles from the Meuse. The soldiers -- "Charles Lawrence, George Sensenbach and Clarence van der Wert" -- turned out to be Officer-Cadet Günter Billing, Corporal Wilhelm Schmidt and Lance Corporal Manfred Pernass of Panzerbrigade 150. Before they were shot as spies (as were 15 more of Skorzeny’s men) Schmidt dusted off the old Eisenhower story and immediately the word went out, gathering steam as it went: Otto Skorzeny, the Most Dangerous Man in Europe, was out to get Ike, and maybe other top Allied brass too! He and 200 Germans, no, 300 disguised German paratroopers were to rendezvous at the Café de la Paix before launching a suicide attack on Ike’s headquarters!
The American rear was very nearly paralyzed with suspicion. At least two American soldiers were shot by mistake. British troops moving in from the north to bolster the line were arrested if they lacked expertise on Americana. No one was above suspicion. An MP arrested Gen. Bruce Clarke, telling him, "I was told to look out for a kraut posing as a one-star general." He asked Clarke in which league the Chicago Cubs played baseball, and when Clarke answered the American the MP threw away the key: "Only a kraut would make a mistake like that."
Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley noted "half a million G.I.s...playing cat and mouse with each other every time they met." He found a simple trip to see one of his subordinates entailed a life-or-death quiz game at every roadblock: What’s the capital of Massachusetts? (Bradley’s interrogator insisted on Chicago.) Where’s the guard on an offensive line of scrimmage? Who’s married to Betty Grable?
Eisenhower had to give up his villa outside Paris; it had formerly been German Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt’s and Ike’s security men feared the Germans were too familiar with it. For the next few days he was practically imprisoned in his Versailles headquarters while a look-alike colonel was driven about Paris in plain view as an invitation to attack. By the time it was reported the Germans were gathering at the Café de la Paix Ike’d had enough. "Hell’s fire," he told his secretary, "I’m going for a walk. If anyone wants to shoot me he can go right ahead. I’ve got to get out!"

On his side of the line Skorzeny knew little of this. After the first 48 hours it had become plain to him there would be no breakthrough; "Operation Greif" was moot, and on the night of the 17th he persuaded Dietrich to use Panzerbrigade 150 as a conventional unit. He was assigned the capture of Malmédy, which would allow the Germans to outflank the stubbornly defended Elsenborn Ridge and at the same time support Peiper’s stalled advance. One of Skorzeny’s commando teams had reconnoitered the town on the 17th and found it lightly defended, but while Panzerbrigade 150 reorganized for the attack the Americans moved in. Furthermore a captured German alerted them to the impending attack.


Early on the 21st Skorzeny launched a two-pronged assault. Kampfgruppe Y advanced from one side and Kampfgruppe X, with five Panthers disguised as American M-10 tank destroyers, from the other. The former was soon driven back by artillery, but the latter, covered by fog, succeeded in reaching the bridge over the Warche River, where the fighting swirled for several hours. One by one the phony Panthers were put out of action. Only one gained the other side of the river, and it was immediately stopped by a bazooka round in the engine; most of the crew was cut down as they fled back across the bridge. The Americans intensified their artillery barrage, putting down 3,000 rounds (including new proximity-fused shells), under which the Germans retreated. That evening Skorzeny himself was struck in the head by a piece of shrapnel and nearly lost an eye.


The next morning Kampfgruppe Y were again repulsed, and that afternoon American engineers dropped the crucial bridges into the river. (Horribly, through miscommunications the Americans believed Malmédy lost, and went on to bomb it three times by mistake, killing 300 civilians and an unknown number of American infantrymen.) On Dec. 28th Panzerbrigade 150, having taken 15% losses all told, went to the rear. Within a month the survivors were back with their original units.

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Two things:

1. My reply "certainly not on the spot" was not about the overall actions and reactions of Americans towards real or supposed "Skorzeny-männer" but about this specific remark by you:
...These three "Skorzeny-männer" are known by name and were not excecuted on the spot. They were imprisoned and (swiftly, true, but still) tried by a military court and convicted to dead for spying in allied uniforms. As is clear in all photos, these men are wearing prison uniforms. I doubt they were caught in these cloths.

2.Your reply is nice and probabely a quote of some sort. Be so kind to give me the source of this story that is riddled with errors, lies and sheer fantasy.

Regards,
Timo

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Also spricht der Narr: 'der Umgang mit Menschen verdirbt den Charakter, sonderlich wenn man keinen hat.'

The story of these three Skorzeny-men was investigated by Winston Ramsey in a very early issue of 'After The Battle', No. 4.

There they are said to be Wilhelm Schmidt, Gunther Billing and Manfred Parnass, captured near Aywaille on December 17th and executed at Henri-Chapelle on December 23rd, 1944.

Although saying this, there may well have been subsequent research to change this... ?

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Wilhelm Schmidt, Gunther Billing and Manfred Parnass is correct, however there have been new investigations indeed.

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Also spricht der Narr: 'der Umgang mit Menschen verdirbt den Charakter, sonderlich wenn man keinen hat.'

No problemo Timo,
like I tend to say the truth is all that matters. Guess one has read the same line so many times it sounds like the truth...Sometimes I wonder how much we really know about these things and how much we are let to know? Hopefully more than tossing the coin which is 50-50.Anyway I have not heard any remarkable changes to the story ( that I copied here ) for a long time but that doesn´t mean it could not be different. No, I am totally all ears to hear if there´s more to it or other investigations´results. The floor is yours, Timo!

Oh yes, and here´s the site I used for this precise example:

http://www.donhollway.com/writing/sk.../skorzeny.html

[img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 25. November 2002, 03:36 PM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]

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I know it sounds lame, but I can't give any details. It would hurt the feelings of a fellow researcher who is about to publish about all this.

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Also spricht der Narr: 'der Umgang mit Menschen verdirbt den Charakter, sonderlich wenn man keinen hat.'

Ok Timo,

But when is it due and perhaps the name of author and book, please, so we know what to wait for...!

[img]smile.gif[/img]

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