After the Battle of Normandy and the chaotic Wehrmacht withdrawal across the Seine to the borders of the German Reich, it must have seemed to the Allies, like the war would be over before Christmas. Little did Eisenhower's planners know that some of the hardest fighting on the Western Front was yet to come. The attack by elements of the US 1st Army through the Hurtgen Forest was designed to draw the enemy away from the formidable Siegried Line defences to the north and open up the road to Aachen. It turned into an 88 day slog which tested combatants on both sides to their very limits.
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Foxholes - Ochsenkopf, Hurtgen Forest |
Nowadays this border area of Germany is a pleasant undeveloped area. The towns and villages devastated during the fighting have been rebuilt and the trenches, foxholes and bunkers that remain are shaded by trees which once again stand at their full height. In travelling down to the Ardennes from Arnhem, we drove along the Vossenack to Monschau Road stopping periodically for a spot of field walking. Places like Simonskall, where notwithstanding the disturbance caused by the building of wind turbines, many of the local Siegried Line bunkers remain - along with other evidence of the fighting - including a memorial to PFC Robert Cahow of the 311th Regiment, US 78th Infantry Division whose body was discovered 56 years after he was killed in action.
Bunker Memorial near Cahow Grave - Simonskall |
The fighting along the Kall Trail on the route from Vossenack to the village of Schmidt in November 1944 was particularly brutal. The US 28th Infantry were pushed back across the Kall Bridge after eight days of intense conflict. During the battle in the Kall Valley there were a number of short ceasefires when medics from both sides were able to treat their wounded. There is a small 'Time for Healing' memorial on the parapet of the bridge and the humanity demonstrated by those involved is memoralised in a painting of the scene which hangs in the Museum of the United States National Guard.
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Memorial to Luftwaffe Fortress Battalion XXIV - Simonskall |
The 1st Battalion, 13th US Infantry took the town of Hurtgen on the 28th November having secured the strategically important Hill 401. Paul Boesch leading Company G, US 121st Infantry Division was involved in the fighting amongst the smashed buildings of the town. "We dashed, struggled from one building to another shooting, bayoneting, clubbing ... Hand grenades roared, fires cracked, buildings burnt with acrid smoke. Dust, smoke and powder filled our lungs, making us cough and spit. Automatic weapons chattered while mortars and artillery disgorged deafening explosions. The wounded and the dead - men in the uniforms of both sides - lay in grotesque positions at every turn. From many blood still flowed" (Boesch, Forest in Hell, pp. 222-27).
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Then and Now - Hürtgen |
Nearby, in the grounds of the Hürtgen Memorial Chapel at Kleinhau we stumbled across a rather neglected tomb containing the remains of a soldier killed during the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest. A simple concrete structure topped with the figure of Christ on a crucifix, a reference to both world wars and two helmets - a German Stalhelm and an American MI. 'Ein Unbekannter Soldat Der Hurtgenwaldschlacht - An Unknown Soldier of the Hurtgen Forest Battle'. There's something particularly poignant about the nationality of the interred soldier being unknown.
The main Hurtgen Forest German Military Cemetery is near Vossenack and contains the graves of 2,334 German soldiers. An information board tells the visitor that most were low ranking soldiers (with one notable exception, more on that below) who were predominantly 23 to 25 years of age. Fifty of the interred are adolescents (under the age of 18) and thirteen of the dead were members of the SS. The cemetery was started by the 116th Panzer Division and veterans of that Division sought to install memorial to their comrades in the cemetery after the war. Permission was refused and the marker stone now sits on an adjoining piece of land.
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The Grave of Field Marshall Walter Model (Front, Left) |
On April 21, 1945, following the surrender of Germany's Army Group B, Walter Model - the Commander-in-Chief, committed suicide near Duisburg. In 1955 his remains were exhumed at the request of his family and in the presence of his son, reburied in the Vossenack Military Cemetery. The headstone is different to the rest in that it does not sit proud of the ground - presumably because of theft or vandalism. An information board nearby reminds the visitor, in German, that Model was a loyal supporter of Hitler and that he was anti-semitic, anti-democratic and a devoted follower of Hitler until the end. Furthermore, he collaborated with the death squads of the security police and SD prior to his final promotion.
With thanks to Gareth Lloyd who planned these walks.
My Flickr Album - the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest - click here.
For a great lunch stop try Cafe Kern. Their homemade cakes are delicious - click here.