division.įew American units at the Battle of the Bulge felt the force of the German advance more severely than the 106th Golden Lions Division. A bad phone connection helped lead to catastrophe for one U.S. As a result, when the German offensive finally began, the region was thinly defended by only a few exhausted and green U.S. Many have since claimed the Allies were blinded by their recent battlefield successes-they’d had the Germans on the defensive since D-Day-but the American high command also considered the inhospitable terrain of the Ardennes an unlikely site for a counterattack. Some American commanders also dismissed reports of increased German activity near the Ardennes, while others brushed off enemy prisoners who claimed that a major attack was in the offing. Allied commanders often moved on intelligence gleaned by “Ultra,” a British unit that decrypted Nazi radio transmissions, but the Germans operated under a veil of secrecy and typically communicated by phone when within their own borders. The Allies missed several early warning signs of an offensive.Įarly German gains in the Battle of the Bulge were largely due to the attack catching the Allies completely by surprise.
Shortly before the attack began, Model confided to subordinates that Hitler’s plan “hasn’t got a damned leg to stand on” and “has no more than a ten percent chance of success.”Ģ. German Field Marshals Gerd von Rundstedt and Walther Model both cautioned against such an unreasonable timetable, and the pair later offered several written protests and alternative strategies, to no avail. Hitler’s proposed plan (dubbed “Operation Watch on the Rhine”) hinged on an ambitious schedule that required his commanders to thrust through the Allies lines and cross the Meuse River in the span of only a few days before seizing the vital deep water port at Antwerp. Many historians have argued that the Nazi attack on the Ardennes was doomed before it started, and it appears that several of Adolf Hitler’s most trusted lieutenants would have agreed. Hitler’s generals advised against the attack.
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