Battle of the Bulge - How did Germany Keep the Offensive a Secret?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 พ.ย. 2022
- How did the Wehrmacht succeed in keeping the buildup a complete secret, considering the allies had air superiority for aerial recon, and ULTRA?
In December 1944, the Allies have pushed back the Third Reich to it's own borders. The Fuhrer grows desperate for a decisive victory to defeat the western Allies so he can turn his full attention to the Eastern Front. Three German Panzer Armies are secretly assembled at a quiet sector of the front, and on the 16th December 1944, the panzers launch their assault.
Bibliography
Ambrose, Stephen E. Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2017.
Beevor, Antony. Ardennes, 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble. London, UK: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2016.
Caddick-Adams, Peter. Snow & Steel: The Battle of the Bulge, 1944-45. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Cole, Hugh M. The Ardennes: The Official History of the Battle of the Bulge. St. Petersburg, FL: Red and Black Publishers, 2011.
Johnston, Wesley. Combat Interviews of the 7th Armored Division Combat Commands: St. Vith and Manhay, Belgium, December 16-23, 1944. S.l.: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014.
Jordan, David. Battle of the Bulge: The First 24 Hours. London, UK: Amber Books, 2019.
Whiting, Charles. Decision at St.-Vith: The Story of the U.S. 106th, The Division Hitler Smashed in the Battle of the Bulge. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1969.
Zaloga, Steve, Howard Gerrard, and Peter Dennis. The Battle of the Bulge: St. Vith, the Northern Shoulder and Bastogne. Minnetonka, MN: History Channel Club, 2005.
Zaloga, Steve, Peter Dennis, and Howard Gerrard. Battle of the Bulge 1944. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2004.
To give an idea of how thinly the American forces were spread in the Ardennes region:
one sector closest to the German border was not occupied at all, and depended on an hourly jeep patrol to report its status.
After the Germans had launched their attack, this jeep patrol was the first one to report enemy movement.
It reported that the area was 'crawling with Germans.'
It's easy so point out the obvious signals and how Allied intelligence somehow missed them. However, most of the time we don't consider the dozens or hundreds of other intelligence reports collected with conflicting information, often indicating the opposite conclusion. In light of this, it's not too shocking to find that Allied planners didn't see the needle in the haystack. Great video, as always.
The reports didn’t fit the narrative so rejected
Believing that the Germans would be unable to mount a successful counterattack in December of 1944 was totally reasonable. We like to put on our hindsight goggles. At that point, how long had it been since a successful German offensive?
@@personalaccount8914 the last one would have been Operation Citadel in 1943
@@personalaccount8914 not to mention, the 1944 Ardennes offensive didn’t succeed either. If anything the Allied commanders were correct, even with total surprise the Germans were still unable to undertake a successful offensive.
@@benb7883 They were correct about them being weak but they were wrong about being weak to counter attack. The fact that the western front lost ground during the offensive is a feat in its own right since the allies didn't lose a drop of ground since the d day landings.
You would think, that after Market Garden, allied officers would take any Intel about a German counter attack in the Ardennes VERY seriously
Not to worry it’s only old men and kids
Exactly. Again blinded by overconfidence. "Fool me twice, shame on me."
It's not /that/ shameful an error. German signals counter-intelligence had been the punchline to jokes for three years by this point, who would have guessed that this would be the moment they suddenly came down with a case of professionalism? Or that they'd try an offensive that they just didn't have the men, machines, or fuel to actually carry off? From what they knew at the time it was unlikely on the face of it, and the one guy who saw it coming was the one with a history of getting it wrong.
@@anananandsdsdsds3486 There is no war in which "not well supplied enough" prevented a cornered enemy from attempting an invasion... The same arrogant nonsense lead people to think Russia, today, would not attack after they prepared for an attack and said they were considering attacking.
It's an excuse. It's fake logic, and means nothing.
It's a delusion that has killed more men than any other sentence, aside perhaps, "There will be no more war".
@@anananandsdsdsds3486 any competent commander would know there's going to be a counter attack near the border. At that point they have to counter attack. This isn't the first time this type of thing has happened.
How to keep a plan secret…
“Doing precisely what we’ve done 18 times before, is exactly the last thing they’ll expect us to do this time. There is however one small problem”
“That everyone always get slaughtered in the first 10 seconds”
“That’s right and Field Marshall Hague is worried that this maybe depressing the men a tad”.
So, he's looking for a way to cheer them up!
@@SpartacusColo Well his resignation and suicide would seem the obvious answer.
It’s from Blackadder if my memory serves correctly
@@atakorkut5110 Yes. Blackadder Goes Forth is the most accurate documentary I’ve watched on military Officers and planning.
@@notmenotme614 it’s phenomenal, I was introduced to it thanks in part to my cousins they’re from UK. How much land have we taken back left tenant. Right here sir. Oh what’s the scale of the map? 1:1 sir. So how much land have we actually taken back. (Breaks out tape measure) 1sq foot sir. It’s just hilarious
love the 1-2 punch y’all are doing with operations room and intel report. the content is great from all angles
It's amazing how Bradley could get how the germans thought and still got blindsided.
No man is perfect.
All that success previously gave him a false sense of security.
“A reasonable people would have surrendered by now”
Would you have surrendered General Bradley?
Victory Fever gets everybody some time
The attack was not a rational move the German military would make. It was Hitler's idea and the German military opposed it.
Hindsight is always clearer than how it seems in the moment. The clues were there, they just got lost in the noise and blended in with everything else
And contradicted (/contra-indicated) by other clues.
Like the lack of Ultra intercepts.
And the obvious lack of sufficient supplies/fuel, which did eventually doom the operation.
@@MrNicoJac The lack of intercepts should have been a clue.
“The more I learn about Hitler, the less I like him. He seems like he was a real jerk!”
-Norm MacDonald 🇨🇦
May Norm rest in peace
Somebody is not going to see the humor in this statement and explode or melt.
I'm assuming you're young and really has no knowledge of what you just said.
@@stephenscafaria3389
I have no idea how old you are but I’m assuming that you don’t understand context.
My grandmother had an uncle who died in the battle of the bulge, he was in a Sherman tank and it was hit by artillery his remains we never found
@@Venezolano410 🤔
@@dababycar2899 he is jealous he has nothing meaningful to write like you did. Thank you for sharing
@@dababycar2899
He's just a troll trying to triggurr people by being a little 💩
🙄😒
On another note, I find it curious/weird that no remains were ever found.
Like... I'd expect that a Sherman hull would get spotted in the years after, and that even if, for instance, it completely burned out due to ammo getting hit, there'd still be _something_ inside for people to find. And I would've expected Americans to care enough about finding their own that they'd go and investigate/check when a vehicle was found.
Anyhow, your family's loss and sacrifice is the reason I got to grow up speaking my own language (and English) instead of German...!
(and never even being born, since half my grandparents hid some Jewish kids and almost got caught once already - so they probably would've run out of luck eventually).
Even if your great grand uncle does not have his own grave (yet?), we honor those who died for our freedoms by taking good care of the war cemeteries.
If you're ever able to visit Nijmegen or Arnhem or Ede, or the small towns of Overloon or Mook or Oosterbeek, to come and see for yourself, please know that you are most welcome here :)
@@MrNicoJac oh yea I know he is just trolling, yea I think the tank was just absolutely destroyed by large ordnance so nothing was left to find. Yea I had a lot of family serve in a lot of wars but he was only one who died that I know of
@@dababycar2899
Glad to hear that most survived!
That's incredibly lucky, compared to most veterans.
(Japanese, Germans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Russians then _and_ now)
I hope they're doing well, and weren't/aren't too troubled by the horrors that war tends to leave even its survivors with... 😔
Man, this channel was such a good idea. Thank you for all of the content.
I freaking love your channels, keep up the excellent work
people often blame Military Intelligence for failures. Normally it comes from people who have often ignored intelligence advice, as they want to deflect their own failures. Also most successful operations rely on intelligence and counter intelligence, yet these successes are forgotten and attributed to superiour generalship.
Most importantly most Intelligence works are covert or concealed from us all, if they didnt operate that way they would not be clever enough to work in Intelligence.
Thank you! I’m a history buff so I’ve been binging on your videos and learning a lot.
Excellent video and goes hand in hand with your other channel. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, although normally it comes way too late.
Love this channel!
"Three people can keep a secret, if all three are dead." An old KGB maxim. 😎
Its Benjamin Franklin and the quote is.
"A penny saved is a penny earned." "Honesty is the best policy." "A small leak can sink a great ship." "Eat to live, not live to eat." "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead." Benjamin Franklin's life was far more complex, creative and accomplished than can be suggested by his many clever quotations.
The irony was this amount of German force would actually work better in the Eastern front, as most USSR units are tired and regrouping after the advance of Lublin-Brest offensive. This is evidenced by the fact that an entire Soviet 3rd Tank Corp was destroyed at Battle of Radzymin, after over extending their flank north east of Warsaw.
That still would have made zero strategic difference.
The Soviets would just bring up new units.
Aka, nothing the Germans could do at this point would've changed the outcome of the war.
(just a slightly different end date, maybe the Allies and Soviets would've met slightly farther East, and different individuals would have died - but the war, that tide could not be turned)
So, strategically speaking, Hitler made the least-bad decision, given the situation.
(still, attacking Poland was dumb, as were all the decisions afterward)
11:04 In their defense, BBQ pork is really good and that does sound like fun.
The official US Army histories I've read paint a very different picture of Col. Dickson. You say he "correctly identified the threatened area." The official histories I've read state, to the contrary, that Dickson "identified an area well north of the Ardennes as the most likely point of attack, and he failed to give a probable time for the operation." Also the official accounts don't have him being ordered to Paris. It was his birthday and he went to celebrate, which, again, the official histories say that is "something he would not have done had he correctly guessed at the German battle plan." Do you have a source for your version? Koch, Strong, Dickson, and others seemed to have had an inkling something was up, but nothing concrete. Or, there was a massive cover up?
the picture in the video at 7:25 is not Dickson either, but Lt General Simpson of the Ninth Army
@@cybertronian2005 I wondered about the three stars but assumed he had had promotion :)
Earlier in October the OSS sent a liaison team to 1st Army HQ. Dickson dismissed their value and told them there was no place in his G2 for them. Dickson also is on record as under valuing reports sent from the 1st Army Corps G2. Drawn from information collected in the field.
Very learned response, I think this may be an inaccuracy in the video
Love your new channel and your animation videos. Amazing. If you can do the Bataan Death March or Battle of Peleliu in the future !
Great video thank you
When appointed in command of Operation Torch, Eisenhower was derided as a mere "staff officer" --- the implication being that he lacked the necessary aggression and fight to command large armies. But the battles of Arnhem and the Bulge show pretty convincingly that the reverse was more true; i.e., he was aggressive to the point of recklessness.
Got surprised
@@tomhenry897 It's not that simple. This comes out in his letters and dispatches. He was reckless in his dispositions and troop assignments because his sole focus was attacking across the Rhine.
And he was well liked by his allied commanders. He was trusted. A big deal in war.
@@neilwilson5785 Nope. Monty says hi.
@@MrTexasDan Monty was a fraud lol
Terrific video!
Love hearing this point of view. Awesome!
A terrific addition to the Ops Room. Your team rocks!!
A very nicely informative video
Awesome stuff
The main reason tho was Allied compliance.
- Orders for fuel to be saved - theyre just running out of it
- Lack of smaller attacks - theyre just exhausted
...
The allies overestimated the German AA capabilities during the planning of operation market garden. As a result crucial time was lost as the main force of British paratroopers landed far away and could not reach the Arnhem bridge before the Germans could respond. At the same time they underestimated the strength of the German ground forces near the drop zones.
Then they failed to notice the build up of German forces before the Ardennes offensive. They also failed to notice the build up of German aircraft that were preparing to launch operation bodenplatte.
Makes me wonder if by autumn 1944 the Germans new that their enigma codes had been cracked.
They did not, but the allies thought they did. The Germans remained convinced it was a high ranking spy, thus precautions here. They stopped using these codes, despite them being entirely real and valid.
Overconfidence, arrogance, and high level leadership - especially American and french - are entirely responsible in my opinion. It's the same problem America always has, and still has.
They did not underestimate the strength of Germans near and around Arnhem. I have copies in my possesion of the original intel reports from UK and US sources as well as about a dozen books on Market Garden. Despite what mainstream authors and supermarket tier books say, the allies knew exactly what was there and the reports were very accurate. German Officers after the war pretty much confirmed what allies initially thought. For instance, Heinz Harmel, the top field officer of the response to Nijmegan and the road to Arnhem, stated several times he only had two rifle companies in reserve between Nijmegen and Arnhem and had no idea why the allies stopped when they did.
Its really only been since the failure of the operation that allied officers and historians vastly overstate the german presence there. Market Garden was won by panzer crews with no tanks, luftwaffe personnel with no planes, and 2 heavily destroyed SS panzer divisions that barely escaped Failaise and combined barely had a brigade left amongst them and only a handful of armor left.
@@roywall5231 Nice insight. I wish I had access to some of your material if some of them can be found online.
@@maisonraider4593
A good book is "It never snows in september" beyond that was a lot of digging to find the original source material.
good work
I read a book on that offensive recently, it was called "The Tin Can Runner", short but very well written
Good video !
Only a few months earlier a failure to identify German troop concentrations in the area of Market Garden caused its failure.
Good video and your work is appreciated, but keeping the original aspect ratio of the films would be a plus.
This series of the bulge ,is the dogs do da,s ,so beautifully brings it to life , and to understand the terrain and movements of both sides .Most excellent work
8:25 dependency on ULTRA
a clear example of tunnel vision. If the general staff believed ULTRA to be infailable, it limited their gaze and thought
I should note that Colonel Dixon’s leave to Paris was for his birthday, and not necessarily a punishment by his superiors.
Thanks
Could you do a series about dday, that would be awesome
It's amazing to me that despite all the strategic and intelligence failure by the Allies, that Roosevelt and Churchill did not interfere as the scope of the attack and the pending (possible) disaster unfolded. I can't help thinking that any modern military commander who had a similar scale failure would have been fired immediately. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed and Eisenhower and his team were allowed to get their feet back under them.
🧐🧐🧐
Firing someone in the middle of dealing with a problem, only makes it worse.
Fresh eyes would need to get up to speed first, which wastes invaluable time...
Also, I presume that they showed that, although they got the situation wrong, they were responding correctly, now.
So then there would be no reason to fire them, for now.
And once they'd solved the problem, it would seem very weird for everyone around if they then suddenly got fired.
(because few people would've known they caused the problem in the first place - and telling them that would come across like lying and political maneuvering/scheming, probably).
Just imagine the morale hit it would cause if the guys who just won the Battle of the Bulge got fired for/despite winning....
@@MrNicoJac Give them another star and send them home to raise war bonds.
Hope you make vid on us ops in China in world war 2. Love your work
I love this
Market garden was allies Battle of Bulge. Ego of one leader who was loosing the lime light. The airborne concept was pushing hard after months of inactivity to be included in a big set battle since D-Day. And the armoured brigades insisting of being the cavalry riding to the rescue. Now that was a flawed plan. Emotions always seem to overide logic...
I actually was wondering about this
An old adage explains why the Allies did not see the offensive coming: "You only see what you are looking for."
However... simple fact... look at a map, the Belgian Ardennes are the gate into Germany. I live there, in the heart of the Battle of the Bulge battlefield; in our times of peace it's only an easy 20/30-minute from home to the German border (a border that I regularly cross). One would think that it was predictable that the German in late 1944 would try to defend their doorstep.
5:34 this guy
When I tell you I'm excited for this series
General Bayerlein, Rommel's companion in Africa and Normandy,
& who had fought on the Eastern front as commander of the 3rd panzer,
was also present at this conference, as commander of the reconstituted Panzer Lehr division,
(after its annihilation at Saint-Lo during Operation Cobra) reminisced that behind every officer
was an ss guard, & that trying to draw a handkerchief would be drawing one's own shroud.
5:34 Hans! Get the Flammenwerfer!
Excellent security and bad weather keeping reconnaissance flights to a minimum. Allied incompetence also was a factor.
Will this be a series?
In my opinion, had the Germans captured Antwerp, they'd still have lost the war, just would have taken longer. They didn't have the strength to capture Antwerp and destroy or for the withdrawal or surrender of the 21st Army group or the Americans.
It may have been shorter, the amount of men was way too few to hold the encirclement, the pincer would be seriously threatened at the neck
Also saw from a doc somewhere. Now that the Germans had fallen back to their own borders, they could make better use of wired communications. Radio silence may not have been possible if the front was still in France.
Intel report: could you do a short video on this "small solution" ?
As the Wehrmacht retreated to Germany they were able to switch from radio communications to mostly telephones. And the Allies had fewer signals to intercept.
Not like there were telephones in the countryside anyway
One of Dickson's leads was a Pole serving in the German armed forces who defected and said a German attack was imminent.
0:43 General Liam Neeson
Yodel, Yodel, Where's Yodel?
You would say that after Market Garden the Allied command would know better...arrogance and Ultra dependence at its worst...
Earlier than last time!
Mark Felton collab when
Every TH-cam WWII vid has to have the Tigers in review footage, related or not.
that is Lt General William Hood Simpson of the Ninth Army at 7:24, NOT Benjamin Dickson
Was it a secret? I was under the impression Bletchley Park knew about it.
General Patton's S2, Chief of Intelligence, Col. Oscar Koch, figured it out already in November (he was 98 % correct in his estimate). Patton warned the US First Army (Ardennes) and General Omar Bradley, 12th Army Group, about what they had found out about the Germans, but they didn't listen. The US Third Army (Patton) was ready to act fast with strong forces because they were prepared. Patton warned about Wehrmacht's need for counterattack before the river Rhein already in August. Operation Market Garden proved him right, but it was ignored. Patton was the only Army commander who had access to Enigma, but he understood it's weakness. There was a lot of denial in the Allied forces in the face of truth.
Drugged up power hungry ,which he had no experience ! His staff was to scared to say anything for fear of death!
Ehm, 7:23 isn't that General William Hood Simpson? He even has his lieutenant general insignia. If I look for colonel benjamin dickson, I only find a tweet talking about the colonel convincing general Simpson about something. A quick reverse image search would have cleared this up. Even better, general Simpson's wikipedia page has lots of pictures with the correct face, so bit of a stupid mistake.
Is the Ferdinand Heim quoted the lieutenant-general of that name? Because he had been captured when Boulogne surrendered. He was a POW by December 1944. He was questioned by British interrogators and may have uttered the quote then, but he had no involvement in the Bulge offensive.
Civilians in the eastern Belgium/northern Luxembourg area were often German-speaking, sometimes even had sons in the German armed forces, and were in many cases sympathetic to Germany. Some GIs noticed the German speech and were suspicious. On the other hand, intelligence from civilians who reported that they had been on the German side of the lines and saw signs of a build-up there was ignored.
Ultra info got lost in the shuffle, shoulda watched the whole video before posting :)
3 ideas
Germans probably had an inkling that their code had been compromised and went full blackout mode just to be safe.
This same Eifel region was used strategically in 1940 it was remote territory. Germans knew it, US and Brits were new to it.
Allied forces were stretched to their full extent on supplies and replacements, they were tired.
Hunting boar with thompsons from planes instead of doing recon flights....thats actually hilarious.
That's not Benjamin Dickson. That's General Simpson
I think part of the overconfidence was the knowledge that even if the German plan went off without a hitch and they really did make it to Antwerp, that the Allies would still win the war. By the end of the war, there were nearly twice as many Americans enlisted in the military alone as total casualties Germany had suffered throughout the war, civilians included. This doesn't even consider the Soviets. So deep in their minds, people like Bradley, Eisenhower, and Montgomery didn't care if the Germans launched an all-out final attack because they knew that, in the end, it was meaningless. In fact, they would probably rather have had the Germans attack, expose a large chunk of men and equipment to encirclement, be cut off, and wither them to death than attack through prepared defenses.
That seemed to be what I read in Bradley's book on the war.
America: Is that a desperate last ditch offensive in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
I'm thinking this might apply to modern Kherson contemplations? Or, perhaps Belarus/Kiev...or both at the same time?
3:29 LOL
Once again Germany decided to go to war, their opponent? The world - Norm MacDonald
They were very sneaky......
I wonder what would have happened if there had not been an Eastern front.
Probably the same thing that happened in 1940.
They didn't. SHAEF G2 warned of an attack in late November. It didn't materialize. They warned again in early December. It got postponed. Then G2 thought they were seeing ghosts and discounted their earlier assessments. It is the phenomenon known as warning fatigue. In the movie, Patton orders his staff to lan for the move north when he hears about the offensive. In reality, he ordered his staff to plan for a counterattack in November after the first warning.
11:03 hahahaha I can absolutely believe that. That has to be one of the most American things of all time. Hunting boar, with a Thomson SMG, from a low flying aircraft.
Well maybe it would have been more American if they used P-47 and P-51 50cals to hunt the boar..
What other option was there? To stay purely defensive was to be ground closer to total defeat daily.
*The landser bottom left at **05:02** is the epitome of a Germanic man*
They didn't at all, it was the allies who ignored the obvious warning signs because they knew it was too dumb of an idea.
What would've happened if the Battle of the Bulge been successful? would it accomplished what Hitler was hoping or would it be just a setback for the Allies? Has anyone ever analyzed this?
Once an army group is encircled and cut off from supply and command headquarters they usually are starved out or killed trying to get out...That would have been a huge negotiating piece for Germany, very likely could have forced the west to come to terms in place of having us uk Canadian ground force slaughtered....But with the Allied air superiority the German ground forces would have just been picked off bombed into oblivion--The alternative outcome was to get the Allies to help the Germans crush communism but America and UK loves some commies...America built the USSR economy and Chinas--the 2 largest Communist states ever
@@THINKincessantly I'd rather deal with a commie any day of the week than a Nazi, my family thought me values.
No, the army group wouldn’t have been able to hold the pocket from both sides, if you assume somehow they capture Antwerp
This isnt 1940 with ~3 million men available in the west, and a majority of troops were in Netherlands (unlike group B in 1940 which was ‘only’ 24 odd divisions)
✌
Purple Code "The SIS (Signal Intelligence Service) built its first machine that could decrypt Purple messages in late 1940. A second Purple analog was built by the SIS for the US Navy. A third was sent to England in January 1941 on HMS King George V, which had brought Ambassador Halifax to the U.S. That Purple analog was accompanied by a team of four American cryptologists, two Army, two Navy, who received information on British successes against German ciphers in exchange. This machine was subsequently sent to Singapore, and after Japanese moves south through Malaya, on to India. A fourth Purple analog was sent to the Philippines and a fifth was kept by the SIS. A sixth, originally intended for Hawaii, was sent to England for use there.[3]: p.23 The Purple intercepts proved important in the European theater due to the detailed reports on German plans sent in that cipher by the Japanese ambassador in Berlin." wiki
I praise the lord for this bountiful content.
The Luftwaffe: the Chatty Kathies of the German signals net.
They didn't Tweet it.
04:34 Hitler assassinated in alternate universe 😉
Given the amount of fuel they had left - this operation was doomed from the start.
What they might have done ....
Was to take those units dressed as Americans - and use them to find the American Supply Dumps with all that fuel. THEN - make seizing those dumps the first priority of the battle, using Paratroopers and those disguised units.
It still probably wouldn't have any that much difference but ... maybe Piper wouldn't have had to blow up his own tanks and walk back.
One of the things that happened - was there WAS a large fuel dump close to where the Germans were. But - Engineers blew up all the bridges over the river the Germans had to cross and created Road Blocks to keep the Germans from it - all while emptying that dump as fast as they could.
Of course - the BEST chance the Germans had of winning the war - was if Halifax had wanted the job ...
Still ....
The thing is ... in the first half of 1941 - the Germans were winning the war. They only had the British to fight - and had already demonstrated that they could beat them.
IF the Germans had NOT attacked the Russians - but - put a fraction of the Resources into North Africa that they put into Barbarossa - they could have taken Suez, Kirkuk (a French Oil Field) and the oil fields in Iran the British were using. That - and they would have had land access to all of Africa - with all those rare metals the RN was blockading them from getting.
But - instead ... in the last half of 1941 - the Germans CHOSE to go to war with the Soviet Union AND The United States.
After that - they were doomed no matter what they did.
.
Similar to the US being caught unprepared for the Tet offensive in Viet Nam.
Regarding millitary intelligence reports, before the russian counter-offensive at Stalingrad, romanian millitary intelligence units found out about soviet plans about a month before the offensive began. It was such a large operation that you cannot hide such a force. Throught interogation of russian POW they correctly identified almost every soviet formation that took part in the offensive. The place where tanks will be gathering, their routes, everything. On the 12 of november 1942, the millitary intelligence officers send their last report. It says the the soviet attack will take place on the 19th of november 1942. These reports were send to the germans. The germans did nothing. Mind bogling. Every available romanian soldiers was send to the front, including cooks, orderlys, but they could do nothing. The attack was too powerfull. Today you here that the russian counter-offensive was a surprise. It wasn't.
The Brits seemed to fall asleep regarding decoding Enigma .. The British intelligence were claiming they could read all enigma messages, but this was a lie as the Battle of the Bulge was totally unknown.
According to Enigma stories - the reason was that all of the plannning was done in Germany by phone & letter. They didn't use Enigma at all. So there was no information to decode. I wonder if Hitler had some idea that it was hacked or if there was a mole in the army.
In a way, the Battle of the Buldge was as inevitable from the Germans as it was for the Allies, they showed a weak spot in a region where they thought was low-risked and the Germans could only exploit the only weak spot possible for them. Just like in 39, the British and French were gathered in Luxembourg and the border was covered by the Maginot Line, their original plan was leaked thus they could only attack through the lightly defended Ardennes.
Except this time the Allies would fight tooth and nails as Germany just could not replicate the near-miracle in 39. What are they going to do at sea when they reached the sea? Meet the massive Royal and US Navy for the troops in the North dig in, every section of the supply line harrass by troops you bypassed, and the skies clear up for the Allies to start their relentless air war?
A desperate measure for desperate times.
A few corrections/nuances:
The original plan was to attack through the Ardennes, even in 1939, from the very beginning.
The German plan _was_ indeed found, and this was known to the Nazis, but the plan was not changed.
Luckily for them (and dooming the rest of the world), those plans were not believed by the French and Brits, and were acted upon way too late and way too incompetently.
So there was no "just like 1939" leak of the plan.
Also, most units in 1939 did fight tooth and nail, too.
They just had less training, _incredibly_ poor leadership, worse equipment (than the Allies brought in 1944), faced the absolute peak of Germany's military power (instead of deeply attrited units), and had no air support at all until it was too late (in contrast to the near-total air dominance of 1944).
And, most importantly, they had no trucks. So the French had to pursue the enemy and plug the holes in the front line _on foot._ Against German tank and motorized divisions...
So the 1939 units fought hard too, but just had 'weaker teeth and no nails.' Regardless of their efforts, it just didn't make any difference, because the rest of the army could not respond quickly enough. So they got out-flanked anyways.
Lastly, the Battle of the Bulge's idea was a second Dunkirk, only this time they wouldn't let the Allies escape.
The bypassed troops would quickly run out of ammo and wouldn't be much of a problem, not for long anyways - _if_ the front could've been solidified (which was of course as ridiculous a pipe dream as all the rest of the operation).
All the Nazis would have to do, is get within artillery range of the port of Antwerp, and they could deny the inflow of supplies, which would halt the Allied capacity to go on the offensive again.
(how that would have led to peace negotiations with the west, rather than the units from the south of France simply moving up and eventually encircling the encirclement and getting Antwerp back, though -- that must've been a drug-induced fantasy of Hitler's, lol)
Anyhow, definitely a plan conceived in desperation.
You see what you're looking for.
PATTON SAW IT COMING, "Brad could get himself in a lot of trouble up there." Even had 3 different battle plans just-in-case. Eisenhower didn't like Patton and wouldn't listen, but Patton saved his tushi anyway.
My two favorite Allied Generals, Patton and MacArthur. Both were egotistical peacocks but they were brilliant commanders.
The Third Army G2, Oscar Koch, suspected an attack was coming and Patton listened to him.
@@dmacarthur5356 A "brilliant" MacArthur wouldn't have lost the Philippines.
So, everyone, even the german officers, assumed they didn't have the strength to do it. So they didn't take any reports of the built-up serious, because how could there be a built up. Then the attack came, and it didn't have the strength to achieve it's goals like everyone assumed?
Pretty much, yeah.
Hitler was like: the only chance at not-losing that we have left is Plan A-O.
Nazi Generals were like: that's infeasible.
Hitler: then we lose the war anyway, so we might as well try. One last Hail Mary...
Generals: fuck yeah, rather death than Versailles v2.0!
Allied intel: hey, they seem to be doing X...
Allied generals: pfft, if they tried that, they'd never win, because of reasons A-Z.
So they won't try it, because the Nazis are exactly like us, and we wouldn't try things we can't win.
[operation market garden laughs in the background]
Allied intel: omg, did you hear that??
Allied generals: no.
inb4 all the wehraboos arrive
The best thing about calling out werhbs is any who get mad about it are literally calling themselves out