This event scarred my family and a lot of their friends, I felt their pain when they talked about it when I was a child
BOOK TALK
The Real Reason Hitler Launched the Battle of the Bulge
Among a new book's revelations: Crystal meth was the German army's drug of choice.
German soldiers cross a muddy road during the Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, which began December 16, 1944, and ended January 25, 1945.
PHOTOGRAPH BY U.S. ARMY, THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION, GETTY IMAGES
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 14, 2014
Winston Churchill called World War II's Battle of the Bulge "the greatest American battle of the war." Steven Spielberg engraved the 6-week ordeal on the popular imagination with Band of Brothers, which dramatized the attack on the village of Foy by three companies of the 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF RANDOM HOUSE
Now, British military historian Peter Caddick-Adams is drawing on his years spent reconstructing the epic battle in his just-published book, Snow and Steel: Battle of the Bulge 1944-45. Speaking from a British military base in Germany, he talks about Hitler's reasons for launching the offensive, why crystal meth was the drug of choice for the Wehrmacht, and what lessons the battle can teach us today.
How did the battle get its name? What was the Bulge?
To begin with, soldiers weren't sure what to call the battle. It was a German penetration into the American lines, which the Americans had then surrounded and eventually sealed off. The word for that in the First World War was "salient." But that sounded too formal, perhaps too British. An American journalist was interviewing George Patton. The journalist needed a unique, American-sounding word that could become shorthand for the battle. And the word "bulge" popped into his mind. It was adopted pretty soon after the battle, and it stuck.
Peter Caddick-Adams traces his interest in the Battle of the Bulge to a trip he made to the Ardennes as a teenager in the mid-1970s. It made "a huge impression," he says.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF RANDOM HOUSE
Your interest in the battle began with a schoolboy epiphany. Take us back in time.
I had some friends who restored secondhand military vehicles. One summer in the mid-1970s they invited me to return to the area where the Battle of the Bulge had been fought. We drove in these vehicles, and to make it look right, we put on some khaki, then drove through the little villages of the Ardennes.
I was amazed by the older generation, who came out of their houses and could remember what was by then 30 or so years earlier. You could see by their faces how much it had meant to them. Some of them burst into tears the moment they saw a U.S. jeep.
One farmer led us up a small trail to the top of a hill and showed us where the American and German lines had been. I couldn't see anything, which was somewhat of a disappointment. Then I kicked idly at a stone. It turned out not to be a stone but an entrenching tool. All of a sudden beneath the undergrowth, when I looked, there were cartridges, bits of helmet, canteens—all the debris you'd associate with a battle. When you're a teenager, that makes a huge impression.
You say Hitler's decision to launch the Ardennes offensive was more political than military. How so?
I feel I was breaking new ground by asserting that the decision by Hitler to launch the Ardennes attack—and it's his alone—is a political one rather than a military one. The traditional view is that this is an attempt to turn around the military situation as it was at the end of 1944. (See a World War II time line.)
I came to the conclusion that this is rather Hitler's attempt to reassert his personal political control over the German general staff and the entire Nazi hierarchy. It's a reaction to the von Stauffenberg bomb attempt on his life on the 20th of July, 1944. After that, he hides away. He goes into shock. He doesn't know whom to trust. His health goes downhill. The genesis of Hitler's plans to launch the Bulge is his grappling to retain control of the direction of military affairs and prove to the Third Reich that he's still the man at the top.
A fascinating section in your book explains the mythological and cultural significance of forests to the German psyche. How did the Ardennes campaign fit into this?
Again, I think I was breaking new ground here. I wondered why Hitler had specifically chosen the Ardennes. It's his plan, and everything about it had to have significance. Therefore, I wondered if there was more to the Ardennes than simply a region where the Allies were weak. I went back to Hitler's pronouncements, his beliefs, and his fascination with Wagner. In Wagner, a huge amount of the action takes place in woods and forests. This taps into the old Nordic beliefs and gods—that woods are a place of testing for human beings.
If you look at the whole Nazi creed, the false religion that Hitler and the SS created, woods and forests crop up time after time. Even the code name for the offensive, Herbstnebel—Autumn Mist—has all sorts of Wagnerian connotations. Wagner uses mist or smoke to announce the arrival of evil. So it was no accident that the attack against the Americans was launched from large forests, in heavy fog.
U.S. infantrymen with General George Patton's Third Army advance at dawn on German gun positions to relieve encircled airborne troops at Bastogne on January 7, 1945.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BETTMANN, CORBIS
Hitler had a very low opinion of the Americans as a fighting force. Why?
Hitler thought the Americans were a mongrel force made up of all sorts of different nations. But that's a blatant misreading of history. For a start, Germany itself is a mixture of all sorts of different nations. Huge numbers of Americans who went to fight in the Ardennes in 1944 had also come originally from Germany. He also overlooks that so many great American figures were originally German. Eisenhower originally came from the Saarland. Pershing, the American general in World War I, is a German name.
All Hitler's knowledge of the United States is from reading cowboy books written by a charlatan writer called Karl May, who'd never actually been to the United States. So Hitler is remarkably ill-equipped to make these sweeping generalizations about the Americans—particularly about their ability to mass manufacture, which is one of the things that bring about his downfall. The Germans are going into battle barely better equipped than they were in 1914, with upwards of 50,000 horses. By contrast, the Americans are fully mechanized.
A figure who strides out of the pages of the book is the cigar-chomping American general, Patton. In what ways did he typify the American character—and fighting tactics?
It's difficult to discuss the Bulge without referring to George Patton, with his cigars and trademark pearl-handled revolvers. He is so American, from a British point of view. What do I mean by that?
Well, he had unbounded confidence. And, I think, one thing that marks out successful captains in history is a superb confidence that almost borders on arrogance. That's something Patton has. He would always say that a perfect plan is not as good as an imperfect plan that's executed violently and immediately.
One of the key aspects of the battle is the speed with which he can reorientate his Third Army, which is to the south of the Bulge, and get them to counterattack the Germans by moving north. To turn a whole army around on its axis by 90 degrees and move north in the middle of winter at almost no notice is almost unheard of.
But Patton achieves this within a couple of days—much to the amazement of the Germans and even more to the amazement of his fellow Allies. He says he will do it. Most people don't believe he can. Yet, my goodness me, he delivers, and delivers in spades.
Patton was one of the most aggressive and able generals of World War II. He projected "a superb confidence that almost borders on arrogance," author Caddick-Smith says.
PHOTOGRAPH BY CORBIS
On the other side, one of the most compelling characters is the German Panzer commander, Joachim Peiper. He was nasty bit of work, wasn't he?
Joachim Peiper was a 28-year-old true believer in the Nazi faith. His whole life had been acted out in the shadow of Hitler and the Third Reich. He'd come to prominence early. He was a colonel in the Waffen SS and worked as an adjutant to Himmler. He was involved in a whole series of war crimes on the eastern front, where he taught his men to regard Russian lives as being worth nothing.
He and his men bring this mentality to the western front when they fight in the Bulge in 1944, and it's they who perpetrate the famous massacre just outside the town of Malmedy.
I also wanted to try and strip the gloss off Joachim Peiper as a brilliant military commander. One of the points I make in the book is that he had passed his best in a military sense. His performance wasn't nearly as good as he claimed it to be. When I went back through the records, I found he'd lied about the progress he'd made during the Battle of the Bulge.
One of the things that most surprised me was your contention that the use of crystal meth was widespread in the German army.
The Germans routinely encouraged their soldiers to take what we would now call crystal meth before battle. It would whip them up into a fury and may explain some of the excesses they committed. It's a way of motivating scared young men. And some of the Germans are very young indeed. I found lots of evidence of 16-year-olds being put into uniform and sent into battle.
So I think you're reaching for every possible technique to exaggerate your soldiers' combat performance. This wasn't just an SS thing. The German army was not below stooping to use drugs to increase its soldiers' effectiveness on the battlefield.
What are the most important lessons, militarily and personally, you took away from studying the battle?
Writing military history is fascinating because you never end up where you think you will. One of the things I took away was how much the Allies deluded themselves as to the situation of their opponents—how much they believed, because they wanted to believe, that the Germans were a spent force. The Battle of the Bulge proved exactly the opposite. And we do this time and time again. We under-appreciate the effectiveness of our opponents even today.
Personally speaking, I was fascinated and humbled by the resilience of the soldiers, particularly the Americans, I met, whether personally or through their letters and diaries. I have seen action in combat zones myself. But I could have no conception of the horrific, freezing conditions that the American soldiers coped with and overcame.
What I took away is that soldiering is not about planning. It's all about how you react when something goes wrong, when the wheel comes off—how quickly you can turn things around, how resilient and deep your resolve is. That was demonstrated in spades by the U.S. Army at the Bulge. And that is deeply humbling and very instructive.
How many Bulge veterans are alive today?
There are precious few. Of the several hundred thousand that took part in the Battle of the Bulge, only a couple of thousand are now left with us. Most of those are fading fast, which is one of the reasons I wanted to write the book for the 70th anniversary. I knew that if I left it any longer, there'd be no one left around to say, "Yes, that's how it was," or "No, the author's talking a load of rubbish." [Laughs] I wanted to write it as a tribute to those who'd fought in the campaign, while there were still some of them left alive to appreciate my comments.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the Battle of the Bulge lasted 14-months. The story has been changed to reflect the correct duration, which is 6-weeks.
68 comments
Patton did not have Pearl handle Grips on his Pistol. It was Ivory. A simple bit of research would have confirmed that. Sloppy and gives cause to question any other statement of 'fact' in the article.
'something like crystal meth' isn't the same. At any rate:
So did the allies.
Rewrite without pro-american bias C-
So did the allies.
Rewrite without pro-american bias C-
Mr. Worrell - I enjoyed the article. I just wanted to comment about Karl May though; my German relatives (the oldest family members, anyway) loved Karl May. No less a person than Albert Einstein was fascinated with his books. The fact that he described a place where he never had been in person doesn't make him a charlatan per se. I don't know that he ever actually claimed he'd traveled to the Orient or to the American West.
If that were a disqualification, there are many great writers who've written about places that they only knew second-hand. Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, William Shakespeare and many others did the same.
I have yet to see a deep examination of The Bulge's most lasting impact on history: the cold war. By choosing the west for his last counterattack/offensive Hitler opened up a substantial amount of central and eastern Germany- as well as most of Austria- Hungary to eventual Soviet control. How different would the next 50 years have played out if a mostly unified and free Germany, Slovakia and Austria been part of NATO? Instead we ended up with a more balanced division of control and decades of (eventually pointless) costly stalemate.
I have spent my whole adult life studying WWII as every male in my family, father, uncles, cousins etc participated in it. I don't doubt too much that amphetamine use occurred on BOTH SIDES. It has been documented the "Wonder Drug" amphetamine was given or made available to Allied Pilots and infantrymen at times. Medicinal "amphetamine" was very new at the time and considered a "wonder drug". I don't know about "Crystal Meth". I am somewhat skeptical of that, but would not put it past EITHER side.
Joachim "Jochen" Peiper was only convicted of ONE war crime that I know of, the Malmedy Massacre, and he was 12 miles away when it occurred. He had no knowledge of it, at the time it occurred but took FULL responsibility for it when the issue surfaced. He was accused by Burton Ellis of War Crimes on the EASTERN Front, but actually Peiper was simply doing what Commanders do and that is defeating the enemy or TRYING TO.
I must say that War Crimes Trials give me the willies. Many people call them "Victor's Vengeance". When you are conducting a WAR the idea is to KILL PEOPLE and BREAK things. The one that kills the most people and breaks the most things as a rule WINS. Of course the real truth is, when you have beaten the enemy DOWN until he no longer has the CAPACITY TO WAGE WAR and you have broken the WILL OF THE PEOPLE TO SUPPORT THEIR WAR, then victory is achieved. The Soviets had about 27 Million Combat Deaths, the Germans about 6 Million, but Germany's ability to wage WAR was crushed. This is the reason the USA never "wins" a "war" any more, they do NOT crush the enemy to the point of being totally CRIPPLED. It was the Red Army that raised the Red Flag on the Reichstag.
Just like Hitler and the Third Reich, these Wars being fought do "UNITE" a large number of Americans. Oh there are always "dissenters" but once the fighting really gets going, the people get the Flags out and Wave them, they actually believe we are in the Middle East "Fighting for Freedom", what a Crock.
Fighting for "Freedom" over THERE when they are taking away freedoms left and right OVER HERE. That is a very unfunny JOKE. But I support the TROOPS, it is this LEADERSHIP we have I do NOT support. This President and the Neo-cons are the most evil bunch of thugs I have seen in my lifetime. Yep, it is the Wolfowitz Doctrine, plain and simple.
In anybody's Military you do as you are TOLD or ELSE. As Kampfgruppe Peiper, Kampfgruppe Hansen, and Kampfgruppe Meyer spearheaded through Allied lines on the way to the Meuse, in an assault like that, it is just about impossible to "take prisoners". Where do you put them?? Who is going to Guard them when every man is utilized in the Advance?
Peiper captured Major Hal McCown of Patton's Third Army and PERSONALLY interrogated McCown an entire night in a cellar. McCown LATER testified IN FAVOR of Peiper at his Dachau War Crimes Trial. When Peiper was finally given permission from the High Command to abandon his vehicles and retreat to back behind German lines, they allowed Major McCown and the other Americans they had captured to escape.
In all, during Kampfgruppe Peiper's Advance, and then later their "Escape on Foot" Peiper himself was AWAKE 9 DAYS. So I have always figured he had to be on SOMETHING during this time. You cannot stay awake 9 days on "True Grit" as we used to say in the Trucking Racket. I did that as a young man, long haul trucking, a human cannot stay awake much over 2 days without some very strong stimulant.
But Major Hal McCown was VERY impressed with Standartefuhrer Jochen Peiper. He said Peiper was very fanatical in his belief of "National Socialism and Nazi "Ideology" but other than that, he was very impressed with Peiper. He was one of the best Commanders of the war.
This Battle of the Bulge is more commonly called the "Von Rundstedt Offensive" or the "Second Ardennes Offensive" by the Germans. I am very sure a number of battles and some of the Crazy "Hold until the last man " orders Hitler gave were to "enforce control" over the Military and the "people", or it was at least a "by product" of such orders. The von Rundstedt Offensive was NOT simply "Political" it was a DELUSIONAL Hitler believing he could actually rally and retake Antwerp which was IMPOSSIBLE, the War was already LOST. I am sure these orders were the "product" of a delusional and heavily medicated and LOSING the war Hitler. The "political" aspect of it is baked in to the cake.
The GREATEST ALLY the ALLIES had was "General Adolf Hitler". Hitler was a Politician, not a General. His playing General, and Micro-Managing the entire War, and as the German position in the war deteriorated the MORE Hitler "Micro-managed" this more than anything else cost Hitler HIS WAR. Hitlers mistakes snowballed as his "success" diminished.
Hitler would "listen" to the enormously brilliant talent he had in his officers, but as soon as they left the ROOM, he would OVER RIDE everything they said. If he had of paid attention to his people from the GET GO, he would have won the War in Europe BEFORE the USA could have even Mobilized. How it would have gone AFTER that, I cannot predict, but it is easy to see HOW, when, WHERE and WHY Hitler was defeated. It was "Herr Generalfeldmarschall HITLER" that defeated HIMSELF more than anything else.
Also HITLER said MANY times to people in his inner circle (paraphrasing) Europa is left with the dregs of the human race, All the ones that had initiative have already immigrated to the USA. Hitler had a DISDAIN for the People of Europe including the GERMANS. Hitler's Private Train was named "Amerika." Hitler had at least some 'healthy respect' for the English AND the Americans. He MAY have PREACHED that the USA is made up of "Mongrels" but he KNEW it was important to "win" his war before the Americans mobilized, and he almost did it.
Somethings never change, don't get me wrong, *I* support the troops, the USA servicemen and women of today, its just I do NOT support STUPID, SILLY, Immoral, "Wars" with no clear objective so CORPORATIONS can make MONEY. Our troops are being "HAD" and their lives that are lost and the suffering they endure is to keep the Hoodlums on Wall Street and the MIC in business.
Every one should read Two time Medal of Honor winner Marine Corps General Smeadley Butler's "WAR IS A RACKET".
As long as the Military is involved in an OFFENSIVE OPERATION, the people at home do not want to be seen as traitors that do not support their own sons in Battle. Hermann Goering said as much in one of his most Famous quotes. Google it up.
BB
I'm not sure what sort of logic the statement that a lot of Americans (including Pershing and Eisenhower) originally came from Germany is supposed to mean. It sounds a bit too much like buying into Hitler's own logic: The Americans were such good fighters because so many were German 'stock' or some such.
Also from what other historians have noted (I'm thinking of Antony Beevor in particular) the idea that the Americans were considered a questionable fighting force was not an idea unique to Hitler or the Germans. It seems that the British and even the American senior officers harbored similar fears. There also no doubt *was* some truth to these theories, as a fair number of the troops in the Ardennes were relatively recent draftees, and (much like in Vietnam 25 years later) the troops knew that the war was coming to an end, and no one wanted to be the last GI killed in a decided war. And I say this with all due respect - my grandfather participated in the battle - but the American GIs were human, after all.
Also it's worth noting that the Malmedy Massacre makes an interesting juxtaposition to Patton, because there are serious arguments that have been made that Patton was guilty of the same crime, ie encouraging the massacre of Italian POWs in Sicily in 1943.
And Hitler did love the "charlatan" Karl May (was he a charlatan? I thought he was just a dime novel author), but so did many many Germans, and they still do today (there is a Karl May festival and amusement park in Germany).
Karl May, much like the concern about American troops and the crystal meth fact, aren't really facts unique to Hitler or the Nazis.
Karl May, much like the concern about American troops and the crystal meth fact, aren't really facts unique to Hitler or the Nazis.
It is a well known fact that the german Wehrmacht used Metamphetamines ("Pervitin") to increase alertness and fighting endurance. But Western allies used it as well ("Benzedrin") for the same purpose in World War II. It was in the arsenals long after the war.
What kind of research did this author do if he thinks Patton had pearl handled revolvers? A simple google search will tell you they were ivory gripped. lol
Ok, so is there actual evidence for some of these things that he is claiming? Or is he just imagining what he would have done, and therefore it WAS done? I have heard before that the attack was mostly political, but does he have anything to support this? The part about the attack being based on Wagner/Norse beliefs just sounds silly...unless he has evidence for this. Everyone knows why they chose the Ardennes (a similar attack there during WWI). It just kind of sounds like he is making things up... Dose he have any evidence for his "crystal meth" statements?
@Scott Mikkelsen The US and UK units and the RAF, RCAF and US Army Air Cops all used a variety of "pep pills" throughout the war. Not a lot different...benzedrine
My great uncle fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He did survive, but it still killed him. He was buried alive during the battle. Somehow, someway, they managed to save him, but he just wasn't the same afterwards. He went from being a caring and loving man to a raging alcoholic who drank himself to death. Back then there was no counseling available for those who had been in battle like that.
@Cheri Ballard Dear Cheri - thanks very much for sharing your personal story. Sadly, knowledge of PTSD was much more limited in those days. People were essentially left to their own devices. I suppose the only comfort must be that your uncle made the sacrifice for a great cause.
@Cheri Ballard My Uncle Jim was also involved in the Ardennes. He was a 19 year old artist in temperament and fact. Mentally he never recovered. In fact he completely disappeared for about 20 years after the war. Even now he remains distant, solitary and reclusive. Couldn't face coming home after all he had seen and done. Out of 250 men in his unit only 8 survived. Later when some of his war memorabilia was found in a basement he adamantly refused to see them, and he demanded that all of it be thrown in the trash. It was. Great guy, post war life wasted, and now surviving in a veterans hospital on Long Island.
@Cheri Ballard Very sorry to hear about your uncle. My wife's grandfather was in Iwo Jima, only 3 men out of his entire battalion (I think that's the correct unit size) survived. He had the most horrible nightmares until the day he died.
War is a terrible, terrible thing. For both sides. There are no winners.
Our studio films documentaries so that ordinary people can preserve their story for their family and future generations. We recently did one for 90-year-old Carl Arfa, a veteran of the Battle of The Bulge:
@Randal Hergreheimer Thank you. We have a few other short trailers here:
and you can also keep in touch via our Facebook page where we post new biographies as we produce them:
@Corey W. It's important. We must try to erase the great delusion of war. Problem is, there are people from other nations that don't feel the same way. Ex vet.
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