Military historian Anthony Tucker-Jones offers a brief snapshot of exactly what readers can expect, ahead of the release of his highly anticipated new book, Rhineland: Hitler’s Last Defence 1944–45.

Why Rhineland?  Well because the Rhine is where the Second World War started and where it ended. Hitler first saw the river in 1914 and claimed he loved it so much he visited the region annually. He sowed the seeds for the Second World War when he remilitarized the Rhineland on 7 March 1936. He did this to move Germany’s air defences west to help protect the vital weapon factories of the neighbouring Ruhr. He had already taken back control of the Saarland and the Ruhr. There followed a tense 48 hours to see whether France and Britain would react to his defiance of the Treaty of Versailles – they did not. Hitler subsequently declared, ‘All Germany’s territorial ambitions have now been satisfied.’ This of course was a massive lie as he had his eye on Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Russia.

Rhineland: Hitler’s Last Defence 1944–45 forms the final part of a trilogy, along with The Devil’s Bridge: The German Victory at Arnhem, 1944 and Hitler’s Winter: The German Battle of the Bulge, examining the final stages of the war on the Western Front from a German perspective. Historians always focus on Field Marshal Montgomery’s Rhine crossing and the fall of Berlin to the Red Army as the key events of the end of the Second World War. Prior to this study, the Germans tough defence of the Rhineland has been  treated as an inconvenient footnote. For Hitler the last months of the war became a race against time trying to stave off the inevitable. 

Hold the Rhine
Hitler was right about the strategic importance of the Rhineland given that, as the war progressed, its cities and those of the Ruhr came under increasing air attack. The Allies 1943 Casablanca Directive made Germany’s weapons factories primary targets, which sparked the aerial Battle of the Ruhr. This encompassed the industrial cities of both the Ruhr and Rhine. Crucially, Hitler’s insistence on conducting his Ardennes offensive in winter of 1944 left no reserves to help hold the Rhine, the Vistula or the Oder. After his failure in the Ardennes, he insisted that the Rhineland be  secured at all costs. This sacrificed the last of his armies west of the Rhine. Some 55 wholly inadequate German divisions faced 85 well-equipped Allied divisions. The battle for the Rhineland became a battle for the forests, principally the Hürtgen, Reichswald, Hochwald and Monschau where the Germans dug in.

Hitler hoped the Westwall or Siegfried Line west of the Rhine would hold or slow the Allies and buy him time while he prepared to counterattack. Once the Americans were over the river at Cologne, Nierstein and Remagen holding Field Marshal Montgomery at bay between Rees and Wesel became impossible and pointless. Once Field Marshal Model’s Army Group B was trapped in the Ruhr, it was all over for the Germans on the Western Front.

The German high command in 1944 always thought the D-Day landings would be in the Somme-Calais area, as it was nearest to the Rhine and Ruhr. Field Marshals von Rundstedt and Model, after their defeat in Normandy, had to hold the German cities of Aachen and Saarbrucken to protect the Rhine crossings at Cologne, Bonn, Koblenz and Remagen. Model’s only fall-back east of the Rhine was the Ruhr river and Teutoburg Forest. The latter lay between the Rhine and the Weser and protected the road to Berlin, Bremen and Hanover.

Aachen and Colmar
Hitler, following Montgomery’s defeat at Arnhem, feared that the Allies would strike further south. Notably the German city of Aachen formed part of the Westwall and was vital for the defence of the Rhine crossings at Dusseldorf and Cologne. It was sandwiched between two belts of Westwall defences. The evacuation of Aachen’s civilian population proved a shambolic and the garrison was weak. US forces on 10 October 1944 called on them to surrender but they refused. By 21 October the garrison had been overcome and the first German city was lost. However, Aachen had tied up three entire US Corps and distracted the Allies while Hitler prepared for his Ardennes offensive. 

After the loss of Aachen, the Germans held on in the Hürtgen Forest, an 80km square area dominated by two ridges. Its eastern boundary was formed by the Roer, another stop line before the Rhine. The Hurtgen proved a terrible place to fight and became a meat grinder – it took a week for two US regiments to cover 1km at cost 1,000 casualties. This was a taste of things to come. General Omar Bradley’s attempts to break through were thwarted because the Germans clung on in the Monschau forest, obstructing the Americans getting to the Roer dams. By mid-December 1944 the 90 day battle for the Hürtgen had cost the Americans over 30,000 losses.

Way to the south, Germans clung on to the west bank of Upper Rhine in the Colmar Pocket, which was surrounded by American and French troops. This had been formed following the retreat of Army Group G from the South of France with the junction of General George Patton’s US 3rd & Patch’s US 7th armies. The Germans escaped through the Belfort Gap but held Colmar with eight divisions. The pocket was used as a springboard for Hitler’s ill-fated winter Alsace counteroffensive. Although the defence of Colmar was overcome by 9 February 1945, the US 7th Army did not cross the Rhine until late March.

To the north, Montgomery had to push through the heavily defended Reichswald and Hochwald held by German 1st Parachute Army, reinforced by troops from the Netherlands. Montgomery’s Operation Veritable cleared the ground between the Mass and Rhine taking Kleeve and Goch. The Reichswald and surrounding flooded Rhineland though was not suitable for armoured warfare – Montgomery used amphibious Buffaloes supported by Crocodile flamethrowers and Kangaroo armoured personnel carriers to drive out the Germans. Goch was taken on 20 February 1945 and by March the Hochwald Gap had been forced, opening the way to Wesel on the Rhine.

Battle of the Bridgeheads
Hitler futilely clung on to bridgeheads west of the Rhine at Duisburg, Homburg and Wesel – these were lost by end first week of March 1945. Wesel at one point contained 50,000 troops but most were successfully evacuated. Although the Germans flooded the Roer valley by late February the Americans were over the Roer threatening Duisburg, Düsseldorf  and Cologne. The Americans almost reached Oberkassel but the bridge was destroyed, saving Düsseldorf. 

The Hohenzollern was the key bridge at Cologne, which had been flattened by Allied bombers and only the cathedral and railway station were still standing in city centre. Cologne was poorly defended and vulnerable to attack across the Cologne plain. On 5 March 1945, the garrison blew Cologne bridges leaving the only remaining bridge at Remagen south of Bonn. The city was taken shortly after.

The Germans were caught by surprise at Remagen and the bridge was captured intact by the US 9th Armored Division on 7 March 1945. In response, a furious Hitler sacked von Rundstedt and replaced him with Field Marshal Albert Kesselring. Hitler became obsessed with retaking Remagen. Although the battered bridge collapsed ten days later, the Americans built pontoon bridges and four US divisions tied down nine German divisions on the east bank. By this stage, since the Reichswald, the Germans had lost 350,000 men killed in action, wounded and captured. Hitler on the Eastern Front launched Operation Spring Awakening in Hungary on 7 March with the 6th SS Panzer Army. The attack lasted less than ten days before the Red Army counterattacked and drove the Germans back.

Kesselring was concerned that Army Group G would become trapped in the Saar Palatinate, which Hitler refused to give up. General Alexander Patch cleared Alsace and pushed toward Patton. Hitler left it too late to evacuate the Sarr Palatinate. The German withdrawal soon turned into a mad disorganised dash for the Rhine. Patton soon overran the region capturing large numbers of prisoners. He rapidly cleared the west bank of the Rhine from Koblenz to Mannheim. He then crossed between Nierstein and Oppenheim on 22 March 1945 beating Montgomery.

By 10 March 45, Montgomery had eliminated all German forces west of the Rhine.Just three weak German parachute divisions were holding the east bank opposite him. Only two weak panzer divisions were in reserve to stop Montgomery and they were reliant on assault and self-propelled guns rather than tanks. On 17 March, General von Luttwitz, commander of 47th Panzer Corps, prophetically told his men to prepare to conduct a tactical exercise on 23 March to repel airborne attack.

Defeat in the Ruhr
Allied air attacks heralded Montgomery’s assault across the Rhine between Wesel and Rees launched on the night 23/24 March. Rees was a diversion. His main thrust was at Wesel and toward the northern edge of the Ruhr. General Simpson’s US 9th Army crossed south of Wesel. Allied airborne landings behind Model’s lines meant he was unable to send reinforcements to hold the river. Patton went over the Rhine again on 25 and 26 March south of Koblenz. Patch also went over at Worms on 26 March. The French 1st Army crossed on 31 March at Germersheim and Speyer then drove on to Stuttgart.

Model’s Army Group B was trapped in the Ruhr pocket on 1 April with the junction of US 9th and 1st armies. The pocket was cut in two on 14 April; resistance faded over the next few days and 320,000 men surrendered. Model committed suicide rather than surrender and be handed over to the Russians to face charges of war crimes. The Western Front had completely collapsed and the Red Army was in Berlin with the end of the war just a matter of weeks away.