Operation Market-Garden: behind the enemy lines

1. Introduction
2. The german situation in France in june 1944
3. The II° SS Panzerkorps
4. The Kampfgruppe von Tettau
5. The battle of Holland
6. The Epilogue
7. Final commentaries
9. Bibliography

1. Arnhem's Battle, or since like also it is known, the Operation Market-Garden, it was probably the major and last defeat of the allies in Europe. Market-Garden, thinked for the Marshall Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, was foreseeing the conquest of Holland occupying and protecting her bridges, by means of a massive airborn assault, the forces Garden, while the armoured vehicles of the British XXX Army Corps, the forces Market, these bridges were spinning one after other one up to coming to Arnhem's city, in the north Holland. From there, Montgomery was trying to turn eastward and burst in the industrial zone of the Ruhr, giving of this form a mortal blow to the German Reich.

   This gigantic airborn operation had two principal characteristics: first, it was the parachutists' operation and troops transported in gliders bigger that is realized in the History, and second, the landing of such force was going to be realized in broad daylight, something that had never been tried before. Nevertheless, the faults of the allied intelligence and the successive lacks of esteem of reports provenientes of the occupied zone, specially from the Dutch Resistance, which they were informing about the presence in the zone of at least two german panzer divisions, provoked that the assault turns into a slaughter.

   The existing information brings over of the preparations and the assault allied is abundant and of very good quality. Nevertheless, little or nothing is known on what was happening "behind the enemy lines ", this is, brings over of the exhausted German troops that had been moved from the front of battle to the rear in the north of Holland, a place, they were saying, calm and adapted for the rest.

2. INTRODUCTION

   To understand better the battle for Holland, from the German point of view, we have to obliged carry ourselves back in the time approximately four months before, to the days before the invasion of Normandy. The situation of the German army in France at the end of May and beginning of June it was totally precarious and unstable. The best German troops were commited to the eastern front, fighting against a Russian army who was becoming increasingly powerful. The doublings troops were increasingly habitual and the Russian cities were falling one after other one.

   The immense industrial Soviet device after the mounts Urals, supported by the allied supplies, was producing more tanks T-38 of that the Germans could destroy. Meanwhile, in France, the theory of the field marshall Erwin Rommel, who was affirming that the allies had to be destroyed during the landing, it was facing that of the marshall Gerd von Rundsted who was insisting on a complete retreat towards the Northwest of France, to regroup the forces and to face the enemy in the wide plains of the Galia. Rommel was dissenting harshly from this thesis. If the allies were landing and consolidating they beachead, he was thinking, the immense industrial structure of the United States would take charge supplying it continues and abundant to his troops and allies, something that Germany was not, for distant view, in conditions to do. The time and the facts would give him the reason. Constant, day after day, the allied aviation, Americans in the daytime) and British by night, were demolish the heavy German industry and sowing the terror in the civil population. The German cities were being reduced to ashes, even those that the Germans had declared " free cities ", since it was the saddest episode of the slaughter of Dresden.

   The Germans were having in France, in June, 1944, approximately 50 divisions that only existed like such in the maps of situation of the Oberbefehlshaber West (Headquarter of the Western Front). Of these 50 divisions, only 2 were in complete preparation for the battle,2° Waffen SS "Das Reich", 12 ° Waffen SS "Hitlerjügend", 17 ° Waffen SS "Götz von Berlichingen", the XV Armee of the general Gustav von Zangen, and some other units panzer of the German army. The rest they were formations with elements recruited rapidly and in the main they were lacking military instruction and up to even guns.

   On the invasion having been produced on June 6, these hurriedly formed units fell down in panic, and if commanders had not intervened with great experience in the managing troop in combat, the disbandment had been a general. To have an idea of the commanding situation in France those days, it is advisable to mention the same chiefs who contained these terrified men. It is the case of the general Kurt Meyer, chief of 12°Waffen SS Hitlerjügend, who was saying:

   " I had made one short inspection for the rear, when before me, for Caén-Falaisse's highway, in untid riot, the soldiers of 89° Division appeared, prey of the panic. I realized that it was necessary to do something in order that they were returning to the first line and were fighting. I ignited a cigar,I peeped stood firm in the middle of the highway and in voice in shout, asked them if they were going to make me alone in order that I was fixing them up with the enemy. On having seen a chief of division going to them in those terms, they stopped, hesitated a moment and returned to them positions ".

   The landing in Normandy had been of such a violence, which only moderate well men and with wide experience in battle there might resist the furious knock of the allied forces and of his aviation hammering everything what moving in land. The statement of the SS Untersturmführer Herbert Walther, during the battle of Caen, it gives a complete idea of the terrible clashes in the occupied France:

   " My driver was burning as a torch. A bullet had crossed the arm, I came to the routes of the railroad, and began to run. Down below, in a terrace, they began to shoot me. A bullet reached me in the leg, I traversed approximately hundred meters, and then it was as if they had given me a blow in the nape. It had entered a bullet below the ear and had gone out for the cheek. The blood was suffocating me. I saw two Americans who were speaking of finishing off me… "

   But Walther was not finished off. On the contrary, a North American soldier bandaged the leg to him and transported it on gelded from a jeep to a hospital of campaign. From his injured body the surgeons extracted 13 bullets.

   Statements like this sound abundant, in both decrees. Once landed, the allied troops continued them advance for France almost without interruption. The excessive confidence in the victory had increased. Between the official allied high places, more that in the soldiers of the trenches, the unusual idea of that them forces were invincible. One began to scorn valuable reports of the chiefs of the local Resistances and one started thinking that the Germans were disorganized, in retired and that already had lost the war. The facts of September, 1944 would demonstrate the opposite.

3. THE GERMAN SITUATION IN FRANCE IN JUNE 1944

4. THE II° SS PANZERKORPS

The principal German forces that they were finding in the zone "Market-Garden", were fitted in the IInd SS Panzerkorp, supervised by the Obergruppenführer (SS Lieutenant General) Wilhem Bittrich, and there was constituted by 9 ° Panzerdivision SS "Hohenstauffen" and by 10 ° Panzerdivision "Frundsberg", both of finished experience in combat, specially achieved in the Russian front.

On the contrary, to what commonly a lot of Historiers thinks, the units SS were not created to operate on neither fields of concentration or anything similar. Still when SS's quantity assigned to these fields (SS totenkopfverbande) was exiguous, some commanders were criticizing openly the orders that were giving the orders to destine part of the troops soldiers to monitor prisoners' fields, when these soldiers had been trained specifically for the combat.

They were men recruited by the Nazi party, formed politically and endowed with a such military training that there were extracting expressions of amazement of their enemies. The units SS that they were finding in the so called fields of concentration, only were taking charge of the external alertness of the same ones, and little they had to see with the Waffen called SS, or, units of combat organized as an army parallel to the German army in strict sense. Their divisions men were integrating it of more than 20 nationalities and etnias different, from Spanish up to even Ottoman, and from Finns to Hindues. These units were so aroused fanaticism and so well organized, that were the last men who would give up themselves in Berlin, after a tenacious resistance against the red army who had triumphed with the German capital.

Both units SS that took part in the Battle for Arnhem's bridge were coming fighting from soon after the invasion in Normandy, and after suffering serious losses, they were withdrawn from the front and parked in the sure rear, without knowing, certainly, that this sure rear was going to turn soon into a bloody field of battle.

9 ° Waffen SS "Hohenstauffen", supervised by the colonel Walter Harzer, was transferred from the front of the East to France by the middle of June, 1944, entering really action on the 29th. Formidable in it constitution, it was spread 170 tanks, 21 self-propelled antitank cannons StuG III, 287 vehicles semicaterpillars for transport of troops (Panzergrenadiere: Armored Grenadiers), 16 armored vehicles of several types, 18 pieces of armored artillery, 3670 vehicles of support and a whole of 18.000 men.

This division owed her name to Hohenstauffen of Suabia's historical house, one of which relating maximums was Friedrich II von Hohenstauffen, king who took part in the capture of Jerusalem, during the Crusades.

The division was opened in the surroundings to Chambray, without receiving either reinforcements or reprovisioning, for more of two months, supporting bloody combats with the invaders, air bombardments and actions of sabotage and ambushes of the French Resistance.

Finally, it was withdrawn slowly from the front towards Arnhem, Holland, where it arrived on September 6, only 3.500 men having still had it reduced. Since it’s reprovisioning had been foreseen in men and vehicles in Germany, many of these elements were transferred to the Frundsberg, in order not to lose them, since many commanders were not sure of returning to see to their units again, since the division could be transferred to any part after their provisioning. For September 17, 1944, the division Hohenstauffen had been reduced practically to a light brigade, with 2500 men approximately, divided in 19 groups of action and prepared for an eventual airborn action, not because the Germans were suspecting something, but because the Hohenstauffen like and Frundsberg hads received military instruction to be opposed to a virtual assault airlifted in any front.

10 ° Division Panzer SS "Frundsberg" was fighting in Kowel's surroundings, Russia, for June 11, 1944, when an important operation was cancelled and an order was dealed in order that this division was transferred to France. On the 16th, the Führer himself, from Rastenburg's headquarters, in the Eastern Prussia, ordered that 10 ° Waffen SS "Frundsberg" was adding to the battle in the north of France, which defenses were being annihilated.

Newly on June 23, 1944, the commander of the II SS Panzerkorps, General Paul Hausser, informs to the Field marshall Erwin Rommel, that the division is operative in France, coming to the zone between Caen and Villers-Bocage, in Normandy, June 25, 1944, opening about 13.500 man and taking part of counterattacks against the VIII Corps of British army.

During the so called Operation "Epsom", the division face up to 2° British Army unites in furious combats for the possession of the strategic hill 122, suffering strong losses.

For July 15, 1944, the Frundsberg was attacking against 15 ° Scotch Guards Division, to the north of Evrecy's settlement, for the possession of the heights of the hill 113, while tanks Tiger and Panzergrenadiere's battalion were making move back to the British. Nevertheless, the losses of 10 ° Waffen SS, belonged to approximately 2000 men.

On August 2, the division destroyed approximately 200 English armoured vehicles in the battle for the possession of the hill 188, but because of the successive counterattacks of the British infantry and of the intensive use of the allied aviation, almost absolute owner of the French sky, the division was withdrawn on August 6 to the north of Chenedolle, in order to attack to the British forces that they were finding there. Nevertheless, it was again a retreat towards Mortain to face to the North American troops, reinforcing to the XLVIIth Panzerkorps in Argentan's defense.

After diverse combats against the invading forces in Domfront and Fromentel, on August 19 the division is pushed inside so called Falaise's pocket, from where it can escape almost destroyed. For August 22, 1944, the remains of the division "Frundsberg", they are regrouped and sent to the north, for it recovery. A report of the B Army Group was saying that for this date, 10° Waffen SS was having only four battalions of infantry and absolutely no tank. Among 22 and on August 27, the division is withdrawn to the northwest of the Seine river, and from there to the north towards the river Somme where it begins defensive combats against the British advanced troopers that were fighting to reach the Belgian border.

Finally, on September 12, 1944, the Kampfgruppe "Frundsberg" is put under the control of the General Heinz Harmel, and parked in Aachen's surroundings, in Holland, one of the points that was appearing like near to the zones of landing of the allied parachutists.

This division owes it name to Georg von Frundsberg (1473-1528), german general to the service of spanish king Charles V, organizer and commander of the Landsknechte, famous mercenary infantry in the wars of Italy.