Killing Patton

By the winter of 1944, Germany appears utterly defeated. Their main ally in Europe, Mussolini’s fascist Italy, surrendered in September 1943, and their pacific ally, Imperial Japan, is now losing to the US. More significantly, Germany faces what German leaders have feared since before World War I: a war on two fronts. Following June’s successful D-Day landings, Allied forces have successfully opened a western front. This means that Germany must divide its forces between stemming Soviet advances in the east and fighting the British, American, and by Autumn, French, armies in the west. Moreover, the war seems lost economically. German Armaments Minister Albert Speer tells Hitler that Germany simply cannot compete with the vast industrial strength of the United States and the USSR. Germany cannot produce the tanks, planes, and guns required to fight the war. In particular, they cannot make the aircraft needed to replace Luftwaffe losses and challenge Allied air superiority in sufficient numbers.

Knowing this, Allied generals, commanders, and intelligence officers believe that “the Germans are too beaten down to launch a major offensive” (101). Yet the very desperation of this situation makes Germany dangerous. Hitler knows that a defensive campaign will guarantee defeat. Instead, Hitler must gamble, attacking with what little reserves he has left. He plans to repeat the tactics and strategy of his greatest victory—the Battle of France in June 1940. After invading France with total surprise through the Ardennes forest in Belgium in May 1940, Nazi forces, led by fast moving tanks, or panzers, managed to encircle and destroy the main French army and force the British towards the sea. The British army could no longer fight Germany in mainland Europe, and only avoided complete destruction via an evacuation to England from the French port of Dunkirk. Meanwhile, shortly after German troops entered Paris on June 14, France officially surrendered of on June 25—German gained total domination of the European mainland.

Now, Hitler would again attack through the Ardennes, which Allied commanders again left weakly defended, still assuming that no serious tank offensive could be made through this heavily wooded area. Like in 1940, Hitler plans to compensate for superior Allied numbers by striking quickly and forcibly at a specific point: “The Germans must destroy the Allied army before replacement troops arrive, giving the Americans a numerical advantage in soldiers and weapons” (126). These blitzkrieg tactics—literally, “lightning war”—involve hitting hard and fast with mobile units while behind Allied lines commando raids known as “Operation Grief” (107) sow panic and confusion amongst the American and British forces.

Hitler hopes to achieve a broader strategic goal: striking towards the river Meuse to capture the strategically vital port city of Antwerp, split British and American forces, and destroy several Allied armies. Hitler wants to push the US and UK to the negotiating table. Then, having “successfully sued for peace with the west” (107), he would launch a “second attack against Stalin and Russia that defeated the communists” (107).

This plan was ambitious and top Allied commanders were totally unprepared for it. According to O’Reilly, US General Omar Bradley is particularly at fault for the fact that Germans moved 13 infantry divisions, thousands of huge artillery pieces, and 700 tanks to the Ardennes sector without arousing suspicion, dithering as news of the attack swept in. Only Patton takes intelligence reports about a German build-up in the Ardennes seriously. This allows him to construct a contingency plan for his armies, strategic forethought that proves invaluable to the Allies in the coming month and will cement Patton’s status as one of the war’s greatest generals.