How America’s Deadliest WWII Battle Crushed Germany’s Hopes Of Victory

The Battle of the Bulge marked Hitler’s last major offensive on the Western Front

By the winter of 1944, the Second World War seemed all but over. U.S. and British forces were poised to invade the Third Reich from the west, and the Soviet Red Army was steamrolling its way to Berlin from the east. Germany was outnumbered and outgunned, its armies running out of fuel and other critical supplies. No one imagined that on December 16, nine days before Christmas, Adolf Hitler would launch one last desperate attempt to win the war, leading to the deadliest U.S. battle in the Second World War.

An American patrol scouting in bed-sheet camouflage. Signal Corps Photo, Hustead/Wikimedia.

Hitler’s only hope in 1944, as he saw it, was to recreate his earlier success in 1940 during the Blitzkrieg against the Low Countries and France. He hoped to launch a surprise attack through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium, splitting the Allied lines and forcing the Americans and British to sign a separate peace with Germany that would allow Germany’s remaining troops to go east and stop the Soviets.

Though the Americans and British had a massive advantage in soldiers, guns, and supplies, they needed time to rest and regroup. The Allies had just finished a hard, several-month campaign that took them from the fiercely contested D-Day landings, to the slow slog through Normandy’s hedgerows, and finally to the bloody and inconclusive battle of the Hürtgen Forest which would cost American forces more than 34,000 casualties. The bloody fighting, along with supply issues, had slowed down the Anglo-American advance.

The Allies assumed the Nazis were beaten, and never imagined the Wehrmacht could muster enough power to ever again launch an offensive, especially through the thickly-forested Ardennes region. The Americans counted the forest as a natural defensive barrier, leaving only a few inexperienced troops to guard it.

Photograph taken from a Captured Nazi Shows German Troops Rushing Cross a Belgian Road. National Archives.

They realized their mistake on December 16, when the Germans launched a crushing artillery barrage followed by an invasion of over 400,000 troops and more than 1,000 tanks against the outnumbered and unprepared Americans. The Nazis counted on the bad, overcast weather of late December to nullify America’s overwhelming air superiority and avoid destruction from above—at least temporarily.

Over the next few weeks, Hitler’s troops would make steady gains into the American positions, creating a “bulge” in the U.S. frontline—hence the name of the battle. But though the Germans advanced, they did so at a high cost.

The 1st SS Panzer Division looks through abandoned American equipment at Hosfield, Belgium. Capture German military photo. National Archives/Wikimedia.

American soldiers resisted fiercely. At Lanzareth Ridge, a unit of only 18 soldiers managed to hold off the advance of more than 500 German troops, which later gained this unit the distinction of being “the platoon [that was] the most decorated in US Army history.”

Right from the beginning of the offensive, entrenched American defenders stopped the northernmost part of the German advance in Elsenborn Ridge. The Americans’ immense advantage in artillery and the dogged resistance of the outnumbered yet dug-in U.S. soldiers stopped the Nazi advance, which was spearheaded by an elite SS panzer division. Though the Americans suffered greatly during the assault, losing more than 5,000 men, they threw a wrench into the Third Reich’s plans. As one historian describes it: “Pre-planned routes of advance were denied or destroyed, German units became disorganized and strung out along miles of Belgian roads . . . . The enemy would never be able to acquire the roads, bridges, and routes they needed for their success. Ultimate American victory in what would be known as the Battle of the Bulge was made possible by the actions of those in the north.”

American infantry fighting in the snow near Amonines, Belgium. Department of Defense/Wikimedia.

Though the central Nazi thrust made some gains, it still did not manage to reach the first major German objective of the River Meuse, and the offensive didn’t have much better luck on the southern flank.

The Germans surrounded the town of Bastogne, which was defended by the 101^st Airborne Division and other troops who would go down in legend as the “Battered Bastards of Bastogne”. When the Germans demanded that the cut-off American troops surrender, the commanding general of the 101^st, Anthony McAuliffe, famously replied:

To the German Commander:

Nuts!

The American Commander

The surrounded men proved just as determined as their general, fighting tenaciously and defending against repeated enemy attempts to cut through the perimeter. Similar to their brothers on the northern shoulder of the bulge, the U.S. soldiers’ defense of Bastogne robbed the Germans of a crucial crossroads that they desperately needed. After a week of hard fighting in the miserably freezing December cold, General George Patton’s tanks charged in from the south, caving the southern German flank and delivering much-needed relief to the defenders of Bastogne.

Soldiers reloading while sniping snipers in Beffe, Belgium. U.S. Army, Corrado/Wikimedia.

By the end of December, the Germans lost another important advantage: the bad weather they had counted on to keep Allied planes grounded. By Christmas Day, the clouds finally cleared, and Allied planes were free to roam the skies and rain hell on German positions and supply convoys.

Over the next days and weeks, the Allies’ total air supremacy, unrelenting artillery bombardments, efficient rushing of overwhelming reinforcements to the frontline, and sheer bravery at places like Bastogne and Elsenborn Ridge, finally blunted the Nazi offensive. For their part, the Germans were severely hampered by their own chronic fuel shortages, lack of equipment, and the unrealistic ambition of Hitler’s grandiose plan.  

“We were getting our second wind now and started flattening out that bulge. We took 50,000 prisoners in December alone.” National Archives/Wikimedia.

Over the next several weeks, American forces would steadily push the weary German troops back. By late January, the bulge was eliminated, and the Wehrmacht found itself back on the lines it had originally occupied on December 16. The battle that Winston Churchill would call “the greatest American battle of the war” was over.

But it was also the bloodiest American battle. U.S. forces suffered more than 80,000 casualties, including roughly 19,000 dead and over 23,000 captured. The death toll included not just those who died in battle, but also those who fell victim to Nazi war crimes, including the infamous Malmedy Massacre in which SS troops gunned down American prisoners of war. The Battle of the Bulge was not just “the largest and bloodiest single battle fought by the United States” in the Second World War, it is also considered one of the worst battles in U.S. military history in terms of casualties.

An Army bugler plays taps in the Batle of the Bulge section of Arlington National Cemetery. U.S. Army, Elizabeth Fraser, Arlington National Cemetery.

But if America took a severe body blow, Germany received a knockout from which it could not recover. The Reich had suffered up to 100,000 casualties, and Hitler had used his last, precious reserves of tanks, fuel, and manpower—reserves he would never get back. Over the next four months following the end of the Battle of the Bulge, Allied forces would invade the territory of Germany itself and proclaim final victory over the Third Reich in May of 1945.