Battle of the Bulge 80th Anniversary

Rob Citino, PhD and Mike Bell, PhD discuss Battle of the Bulge, 80 years later. 

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Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Today marks the 80th anniversaryof the Battle of Bulge,
one of the most significant, deadliestevents for the Americans in World War Two.
I'm doctor Mike Bell, executive directorof the Jenny Craig Institute
for the Study of War and Democracyat the National World War II Museum.
Today, I'm interviewing doctor Rob Citino,the former
executive director here at the museumand a distinguished fellow,

(00:24):
also a honored military historianand the author of 11 books.
So, Rob, thanks for joining us today.
Mike, it's always great to be with you,even if digitally.
I miss New Orleans on occasion.
Rainy, cold day here in Cleveland.
Well, you know, speaking of rainy, colddays, let's let's dive
right into the battle of the bulge.

(00:45):
You know, December 1944.
You know, Rob, kind of help uskind of set the stage here, particularly
from the German perspective of, you know.
What.What is Hitler hoping to achieve here?
We can talk a bit about what you know,
how this plays into the allies assumptionsabout how the war is going to go.
Yeah.
So I think probably to begin
discussing the bulge,you have to go back to the D-Day landing.

(01:08):
You know, Hitler had told anyonewho would listen
that our last chance of winningthis war is to stop the allies
and their landing in Western Europe.
And it happened in June 6th.
The Atlantic Wall got punctured innumerous places within the first 24 hours.
There was tough fighting for weeksin Normandy,
but eventually a massive Allied breakout.
The German armies inNormandy were destroyed.
The remnants of them, Hightailing it,we might say, back to Germany

(01:31):
at top speed, one of the great pursuitmarches of all time.
General Patton’sthird Army across northern France.
And things looked great for the allies,and things couldn't have looked more dire
for the Germans.
But, you know, sometime rightat the end of the summer or early
September, it was clearthat the allies were running out of gas.
You know, I mean that figuratively,but I also mean it literally.
And that the Germans were getting that,you know, that classic second

(01:54):
wind that so often happensin, in campaigns.
Well,one side seemed to have it all their way
and then their momentum [?]and the, the adversary
kind of falls back on his supply basesand begins to reestablish himself.
That had happened in Septemberand October, right
along the German border,so-called Siegfried Line.

(02:14):
You know,the allies still were feeling pretty good.
They had some dreams, maybe,of ending this war by Christmas.
The Germans, you know, feeling pretty bad.
They'd taken their lumps.
And normally we should never underestimatethe depths of that defeat.
But somehow they'd managed to coalesceand at least their feet were under
them again.
It was Hitler, really?
But. But his staff as well,

(02:35):
you know, reminding each other
that, look, no one ever wins a warsuccessfully defending in place.
You're going to have to launch some kindof offensive blow against our adversaries.
They had to.
They had a western and eastern front.
They decided to go with the West,thinking a victory
there would splinterthe Anglo-American alliance.
At the very least,the Western allies would have to fall back

(02:56):
and give them a breathing spaceto turn and deal in some indefinite way
with the, with the Soviet Union.
So for many years of my career,I couldn't understand this.
What did the Germans think they were doingby wasting their last, reserves?
Really, in this great offensiveagainst largely the Americans.
But I don't know. I've come around.
The more I think about it,they were going to have to do something.

(03:18):
Surrender was out of the questionthat because Hitler would not allow that.
And frankly, no one in the army wasarguing for it, either, at that point.
But you don't win warsby sitting successfully on the defensive.
You lose them more slowly. I suppose.
But the Germans are typically,as is the history of the Prussian German
army went for a big solution.

(03:38):
They were going to launchone last great offensive.
You know, Mike, I put it this way.
If you don't think
the Germans
are going to launch onelast great offensive, you haven't really
been paying attention to the history,their military history over the last few
centuries, really.
Now you can you can see it that way
because I on one level,we know how the battle turns out.
We have 100--We have 100%, you know, after the fact,

(03:59):
ex post facto,everything looks explainable and obvious.
I'm concerned that in our discussionsabout World War Two, not the two of us,
but generally people see moreand more to be along the lines of,
oh, this-- it all worked out...
Inevitably, None-- nothing was inevitableabout World War Two.
Not one single occurrence,not one single day.

(04:20):
Could you say, “inevitability...
Took place.”Maybe after Hitler shot himself.
Then things are inevitablethat the Third Reich had lost the war.
But I can't talk.
I can't say I'm a Clausewitz-ian,that I follow the teachings of Clausewitz
and that it's that,you know, war is the is the domain of fog
and friction and unpredictability
and then, you know, turn around and claimthat World War Two was inevitable,

(04:43):
or that then indeed, German defeatin the battle of the bulge was inevitable.
Didn't look that way the first few days.
No. And, you know, certainlyit has its share of fog and friction.
Briefly,though, let me let me kind of unpack
even the allied assumptions,because, as you mentioned,
you know, many of the allies thought, hey,the war's going to be over by Christmas.
You know, the Germans have had it.
The Intel assessments at every level, said, you know, the Germans

(05:07):
no longer have the capacity for anythingother than local counter-attacks.
Despite evidence to the contrary.
You know, you see German forcebuild up six Panzer Army, for instance.
You know, the assumption is thesewould just be for local counter-attacks.
And so it's interesting how
the German deception plan playsinto the Allied preconceptions.
Every single intelligence officeris kind of

(05:28):
echoingevery other single intelligence officer.
And there is an a consensusthat is coming across Eisenhower's desk
that the Germans are throughwhen it comes to major offensives.
We now know todaythat there were some reports
and there were some perceptive folksin the intelligence community.
I'm not.I wouldn't be so quick to say that.
But do you want to be the one that bringsthat contrary report to Eisenhower's

(05:50):
desk, when everybody else is certainthat the Germans are kind of toast?
I think, you know, I've neverI've never been in a staff meeting, Mike.
You know, I'll say that outright, but
but I know enough about human natureto know that when there's a consensus,
standing up against the consensus, saying,you know, I think you might,
everyone in this room might be wrong,and you're bringing bad news to the boss.
I know that can be very, very difficult.

(06:12):
And I think it's an intelligence issue.
I think it's alsoan issue of human nature.
Hopes had been
raised so high by the eventsat the end of the summer of 1944.
It looked likethe war was going to be over by Christmas.
You know, that classic formulation.
And now, you know, it's Decemberand the weather's horrible and it's cold

(06:33):
and you're shivering out in some trenchor some foxhole
somewhere on the front linealong the along the Siegfried Line.
And, you know, morale is pretty low.
And I think it's just very, very difficultto make it any lower by, by saying,
you know what?I think we're really in trouble here.
And as you know, that's one reason,I think, why no one said that.

(06:54):
Even some of thosewho thought it might be true.
Yeah.
And and I think to add to that, you know,as, as the, the remnants of the German
force, you know, fall into Germanyand the re mobilizing, you know, these,
these new Volksgrenadier divisions and,you know, assembling Panzer tanks,
you no longer need, your ultra, your ultra communications

(07:16):
that the allies had really bankso much on about German intentions.
You know,they're no longer radioing their units.
They're just calling them on the telephoneor sending a runner.
And and so the absence of, of reportingin that case
wasn't seen as a challenge,but just to confirm their perspectives.
And so, you know, and to your point about,you know,

(07:40):
many of these units are ground out,you know, the, the 28th
Division, that's really going to be rightalong the road to Bastogne.
They're coming out of the Hurtgen forest,and they need 6000 replacements.
I mean, talk about some serious combat.
The fourth Infantry Division,you know, major, you know, combat,
you know, since Utah Beach and and,you know, the idea is we're going
to put them in this quiet sector and, youknow, bring in, you know, replacements.

(08:04):
So not only arewe not expecting a major German attack,
but we certainly aren't expecting itin the Ardennes.
Yeah. So there's there's two differentkinds of surprise there, Mike.
I guess strategic is the one.
Are they going to attack or aren't they?
Well, no one thinks they will and they do.
And the other oneis the more tactical side.
It was like, well, where will they attack?
Well, they certainly won't attack here.
And of course they do.
I think a couple of phrasesshould probably be banned

(08:27):
from the military lexicon.
We're going to be home by Christmas.
Any time your officers tell you thatyou should all run the other way.
And the other one would be,this is a quiet sector of the front.
Because modern war being what
it is, a quiet sector of the frontcan erupt into fire at any moment.
And that is precisely what happened tosome of those divisions in the Ardennes.
Yes, it'sit is an unlikely place that because

(08:49):
all militaries try to achieve surpriseon their adversary.
If they're not,they're really missing the boat.
And it's just a there's a there's a few.
Someday you and I can sit down.
We'll put together the list of thingsyou should never say your troops in war,
but one of them, you know, don't worry,guys, this is a quiet sector of the front.
Nothing is ever going to happenhere. Might be one of them.
Yeah.
And then, you know, as the 106thDivision comes into the line, you know,

(09:12):
does a relation place with the secondInfantry Division, you know, so they,
they hear some, you know, German vehiclemovement and oh don't worry about that.
You know, you're new you know, that'sthat's just normal.
And so...
Those poor guys you mentioned 106thand they get a lot of you know
they're targets of the opening invasion.
They get they get hit pretty hard.
But these guys had just arrivedin the theater.

(09:34):
They had just arrived in Francea couple of weeks
before as my understanding,and had been rushed up to the front.
You know, we're just really kindof shaking themselves out
into what you might considera battle array. And you're right.
Someone said, well, what is that crazynoise we're hearing all night?
It sounds like heavy,heavy equipment being moved, which
of course it was artillery and tanksand and that's exactly what you just said.

(09:56):
People said, oh, you just got here.
You'll get used to it.
It's everybody's spookedtheir first few days in the line.
And of course, those guys were, you know,
they were hearing what they were hearingas as everyone would soon find out.
Well,and and their conditions are pretty dire.
You know, they they're soakingwet as they move up through France.
They come into line, secondInfantry Division, which is moving north

(10:18):
for the Ruhr campaign.
You know, they do a relief in place, but,
you know,they take their stoves with them.
You know, the 106 isn't necessarily,
you know, kitted out for winter,winter weather.
And the second Infantry Division didn'teven, you know, bury their common wire.
You know, it showed you very much.
No one had expected anything in this,in this sector.

(10:39):
That's fascinating.You know, it's amazing.
We can talk all you want about hightechnology, talk all we want about tanks,
modern artillery, and of course, air powerreigned supreme in World War two.
But, if your troops are shiveringand wet and unsure of themselves.
All the technology in the worldprobably isn't going to help.
And I think that, too.
You know,these are very basic explanations.
Alexander the Great would have understoodthat explanation.

(11:02):
Julius Caesar, Napoleon,all the all the way up to the
from the past to the present.
It's interesting to me.
And again, as a historian of WorldWar Two, I tend to get tech happy.
I tend to want to talk about tanks,but but basic, basic care for infantrymen,
an infantry column coming up, or,as you say, doing what is - always pretty,
complex - So
relief in place is not the easiest thingin the world to to handle or to admin.

(11:26):
But boy, those those that admin,the level of admin you have often
has all goes a long way toward determiningthe success you're going to have.
Well, and, you know, two sides of thisI think are fascinating.
One is this incredibly optimisticand aggressive, German timetable.
But the the allies respond withis largely individual

(11:46):
soldiers, small units,making do with what they have.
So it's not about the most,advanced technology or in most cases
about the decisions of the senior leadersor the officers above them.
It's really a pretty tenacious fight.
So what do you know?
Tell us, if you would, would yousketch out the German, offensive itself?

(12:07):
I know we leaped alreadyinto some of the American divisions,
but kind of just set the stage for for, the audience.
Yeah.
So there's three German armieswhich are assembled in the Ardennes.
The weight of the assaultis going to be on two of them.
You mentioned the sixth Panzer Army.
Often going by the sobriquetthe six SS Panzer Army,
since they tend to be based aroundSS units, I often think that, you know,

(12:29):
all the intelligence failuresthe allies had in World
War Two and this one in the bulge.
If only they could have stuck a GPS inSepp Dietrich's pocket, because wherever
he was is probably where Hitler was goingto be trying something dramatic.
And it'll be it's been earlier than this.
It's now in the bulge. It'sgoing to be in Hungary.
There's a second army that's going to bearthe burden of the, assault.

(12:50):
And that's the fifth Panzer Armyunder one of the most aggressive German
armored commanders of the war,von Manteuffel, great old Prussian family.
You know, I'm a historian of Prussia,and I'm constantly struck by the
by the families that are leadingGerman armies in both world wars.
They are not Johnny come lately,and they were serving the Prussian kings

(13:10):
a long time before they were servingthe Kaiser or serving Adolf Hitler.
So these roots run deep.
And Manteuffelknows his way around a panzer assault,
knows how to erase forces,knows how to hit with maximum impact.
And in fact,his army will be the one that hits
with maximum impactin the course of the battle.
So sixth Panzerand then, sixth SS Panzer in the north,

(13:31):
fifth Panzer in the center.
And then there's a, kind of a defensivescreening army in the South
that's supposed to keep pacewith the main assaults.
That's the seventh.
And then sort of extend a
a defensive screen to protect the flankof the two attacking armies.
You know, you throw in some commandounits, you throw in some,

(13:52):
German troops who are trainedin the idioms of American English to,
to break through the lines and sort of sowconfusion behind,
behind the American linesand in the, rear echelons.
You have a small parachute dropand the von der Heydte
battalion, of which the Germanshaven't done it really, since Crete.

(14:14):
There's been some tiny ones,but they haven't really done a para-drop
since Crete.
It's about as much of a package
as the Wehrmacht could assembleby this point in the war.
This is an armythat's taking its lumps, and it's
continuing to take its lumpson the eastern front.
Of course, while all this is happening.
So what really does,
I don't want to say wastes itself,but it really empties the cupboard.

(14:34):
It empties the cupboard.
In order to launch this assault.
One thing it really doesn't have.
And if you just let me say this too, Mike,because he said what they do have,
they don't have airpower.
This this
attack is not going to, you know, lead offwith thousands of German planes
in the sky sowing terrorin the, in the American ranks.

(14:56):
And and this is deliberate.
Hitler has said he said itto more than a few people in the fall.
We have to be like the Soviets.
We have to do what they did in 41.
We had airpower and they didn't.
So they waited for bad weather.
It's really amazing.
The Germans, of course, used to bethe supreme military force in Europe.
And are now admittingwe're just going to have to,
you know, roll over and play deadand do what the Soviets did and just

(15:19):
kind of hang on during the good weatherand wait for bad weather.
Of course, bad weather doesn't meanthey get an advantage in the air.
Bad weather just means nobody flies.
And so it's-- there is no there's no
real air cover overGerman, units in the battle of the bulge.
But then again, the alliescan't fly for the first week or so either.
And so that's seen by the Germans in 1944as an advantage.

(15:42):
And I think it says something
about the wasting away of their strengthin the previous couple of years.
Yeah.
You know, related to that,you know, even, you know, they assemble
about a thousand tanksfor the elite echelons in this,
which is an incredible numberif you think, you know, relatively.
But but they're also, you know, the,the German Volksgrenadier divisions,

(16:03):
you know, arguably are, are, you know, they're they're, you know,
veteran officers and noncommissionedofficers, but but largely,
you know,folks scraped maybe from Luftwaffe or,
anti-aircraft units or, you know, newconscripts, with a heavy reliance
on, you know, automatic weapons,you know, rather than trained riflemen.

(16:26):
You know, I'd be interestedin your thoughts about that.
Yeah.
The, the, the Volksgrenadier divisionshave always been a fascinating phenomenon
to me.
And frankly,a lot of other people as well.
The regular German army,you know, had been pretty much crushed
in the Soviet Union.Think about Stalingrad.
You know, you lose an entire field armykind of senselessly,
300,000 men, a little under at the timethat the encirclement was first made.

(16:49):
And the battleshave been bloody ever since. So.
So what the Germans are doing in44 is coming out the rear echelons.
Now, that can mean
administrative personnel supply meant menworking in supply columns.
You mentioned,you know, brand new conscripts.
Maybe maybe get rid of, millions of men who just are lounging
around on the Luftwaffe
as the Luftwaffe is now lacking planes,but certainly has a lot of men.

(17:12):
And so they're used as well.
So this the manpower is uneven.
They're even lightly woundedmen combed out of the hospital.
But let us admit, lightly woundedcould be a very plastic definition
In fall and, early winter of 1944,you could be missing a limb.
In fact,
as some troops in the Volksgrenadierdivisions were.

(17:35):
So you mentioned one thing.
I think that a couple thingsthat hold them together
and one is, you know, veteran officers,
there's no replacementfor veteran officers
and noncommissioned officersin, in getting even raw recruits
up to snuff,you know, to give up accounting
for themselves on the battlefieldthat veteran officers crucial.
But secondly, these are troops who,you know, who are not experienced
and they're going to need some help.

(17:55):
And there's a there'sa larger percentage of automatic weapons
of machine pistols and machine gunsin these Volksgrenadier divisions.
So you don't knowwhat to expect out of them.
And that's somethingI'd like to address in the actual battle.
But they they may they make a goodaccounting of themselves on the defense.
They may melt away.
They may launch a local counterattackwith with real elan.

(18:17):
And you'd swearthey've been in the field for
for five years, orthey might just sit there and do nothing.
And I think we see thethe Volksgrenadier experience.
They're the spearhead.
But along with the tanks, you've got tohave infantry accompanying the tanks.
This is not you know,this is not the first Infantry Division.
You might say that justthey all have high numbers
and that's usually assigned to in Germanythat that's something,

(18:40):
you know, that is amiss, but that they're,that they're lacking something.
They're not reallythe front echelon troops,
but they're going to have to keep pacewith the tanks.
And if they don't,then the entire assault is doomed.
And, you know,without foreshadowing too much here,
they give as good an accountingof themselves as you might expect,
and that is to say, not quite good enoughconsistently across the field.

(19:03):
So there are some local,the 106th Division, US,
is largely, you know, encircledby Volksgrenadier divisions.
There are some--
there are tanks certainly in this assaultand don't don't want to ignore that.
But they give a pretty good accountingfor themselves
and that sector of the frontin the opening days, 106th,
the regiments of the 106th US

(19:24):
Division were probably not deployedas carefully as they might be.
Of course, not expecting the assaultthey got, but I think in general
you have Volksgrenadier divisions
who give up, you know, justwhat about what you'd expect?
And that is to say that, you know,
they're not the elite troops of the GermanArmy, the elite troops of the German
Army are dead, probablyin the Soviet Union, probably a year ago.

(19:46):
As as a matter of fact, I it's we have toI know this is happening in the West,
but if you're a
you're in the staff of Germangeneral staff,
you know where the real action has beenfor the last couple of years.
And of course, it's been on the Easternfront.
Yeah.
You certainly, you know, Montgomery's,you know, going to have,
you know, concernsabout the lack of infantry
and American divisions, you know, as,as you try to continue this campaign.

(20:10):
And I think in many respectsthat's going to be
one of the reasons why,not to reach too far ahead.
You know, why the decision is just
to push the bulge backrather than try to cut it off
because of that shortage of of infantry.
And of course, the U.S.
Army's going to do a similar thingas you described, come the rear areas.
There's going to be an opportunity

(20:30):
for African American soldiersto become fifth platoons,
really, as a sign of the shortageof of experienced train infantrymen.
And, you know, the combat, casualtyrates, you know, for an infantry regiment
by this stage of the war,90 days in combat, an infantry regiment,
you know, might average 100% casualties,killed, wounded or missing.
And, you know, the Hurtgen Forest--couple weeks of combat.

(20:53):
The division need 6000 replacements.
You know, this is really the euphoria.
The post Normandy one side.
Suddenly you're up against some seriouslosses and some serious experience.
Those of us who have ever taughtthis material in undergraduate
classes know thatwhen you say there was over 100% casualty,
some bright student raisesand is usually and say, how can that be?

(21:15):
What does that mean?
I've seen it
and you say, well,
look, you get 40 replacementsand then they're all killed and you get 40
more, 400 more replacementsand they're all killed.
And soon, you know,
you you've drawn more replacementsthan your original complement of men,
you know, Mike,you're on to something here.
And that's something elseI'd like to say about the bulge.
There's been a a reductionist tendencyto talk about the U.S.

(21:36):
Army's experience in World War Two,both in Europe and the Pacific,
and attribute its considerable successas just a massive waves of firepower
and massive supply.
So it's the great scene
in the movie battle of the bulge,in which the Germans capture a U.S.
supply column, and every manand every forward deployed U.S.
soldier is getting his own Bostoncream pie for Christmas.
And the German officer said somethinglike,

(21:58):
well, this is why we're losing the war.
But, you know, there were plenty of timesand there will always be
plenty of times when your troops areleft to their own devices.
It's badwhether you cut off from headquarters.
There's it can be almostit can be almost anything.
And this this is the US Army fighting
not from its traditional strengths,which, let's face it, massive firepower.

(22:21):
No shame there. That's the armyI want to be in.
I want to be in the armywith the massive firepower.
I want to be in the army. That'swell supplied.
But it's not either one of those thingsin this particular battle,
and especially those opening two weeks,I think of some it's not so much the army.
I think of the Marines on Guadalcanalin the Pacific.
You know,they weren't fighting from prosperity.
They weren't fighting out of abundanceup on Guadalcanal, either.

(22:44):
So there are plenty of times when U.S.
fighting men in World War Two had to,you know, had to do it on their own.
And chances are better than not thatthey got the job done.
And to me,this is what I like about the bulge.
You're cut off, the weather's horrible.
You're here. Supply are running low.
You've got no-- You know, you have noanti-tank weapons at the moment.

(23:05):
And you're looking at a Panzer 4or 5 rolling at you.
And what to do.
And you know, just enough U.S.
soldiers figured out what to do.
A couple of tough defensive stands.
You got two big German armies.
We always say three,but I've already explained
one of them is a defensive screen,
you got two big German armieshurtling at you, and they.
What looks like all the armorin the world.
You mentioned a thousand tanks.You know, in the Ardeness.

(23:27):
That looks like every tank in the world.
If you see it coming at youon some narrow trail,
you can dimly perceive it in the forestopposite the river you're on.
That's a lot of tanks.
And the Germans are coming at you.
And just enough US troops, you know,made some very tough defensive stands.
If I can get back to the Germanbattle array, the sixth Panzer,
for all you know--People love the Waffen SS.

(23:49):
I hate to say that, but buffs of World
War Two are just obsessedwith the Waffen SS.
These elite troops,maybe some of them were elite.
Some of them weren't so elite.
They had a pretty horrible recordof atrocity in combat.
But we can talk about that.
I hope we will as well.
But they certainly didn't look very elite.
The battle of the bulge.
They created one of the greatest trafficjams,
going forward against the Elsenborn Ridgethat anyone's ever seen.

(24:12):
Matter of fact, they're probably stillsorting it out there in the yard,
trying to figure out whowho gets to get across this bridge first.
And that has a lot to do with admin.
SS troops were taught to attack.Attack, attack.
Well, let's let's first of all figure outexactly how we're all going to get going
to deploy this considerable strengthand make sure that it's it's
not trapped on a back road30 miles behind.
So it was a it was a fiasco, and it wasalmost a solid hub to hub line of U.S.

(24:36):
artillery.
And so they didn’t go anywhere the,
the the screening force in the South,they made some progress.
Fifth Panzer under Manteuffelmade the most progress, you know, actually
broke free for a time, you might say,broke through the crust of U.S.
defenders.
Then they came--you know, [?] and Bastogne.
You need these towns.
There'snot that many crossroads in the in the,

(24:58):
are then you have to have these townsand U.S.
troops understood that and hung toughat a couple of places and blunted, you
know, as it's been said a thousand times,I can't take credit for this one.
And I wouldn't. Blunting the blitzkrieg.
In the Ardennes and and doingso in some of the toughest defensive
fighting thatthat anyone experienced in World War two.

(25:19):
So thanks for letting me say that.
I study the German army.
People are enamored of it's,you know, it's mechanized forces
that much of the German army strength towith some very, very tenacious infantry.
And I think we can losetrack of what World War Two is all about.
If all we do is talk about tanks.
Yeah.
No, I, I, you know,
and you talking about the,you know, the first SS Panzer and [?]

(25:42):
and you know, despite, you know, people's,attraction to them, they,
you know, in additionto the admin route control
and managing that, you know,they really don't conduct,
much reconnaissance,you know, as they literally are running
into American engineers and forcesand looking,

(26:02):
you know, so I said, you know,they don't do maintenance.
The tanks, invariably are broken down.
They don't do flank security, logistics,kind of resupply, all these
what we would call these operating systemsthat collectively,
you know,you know, the American Army at least
is attempting to bring all these together,in that process.

(26:23):
And, you know,
ultimately they're going to abandonall their tanks and break out on foot.
You know, that that doesn'tsound like an armored spearhead.
You know that-- It's a good German word.
The [speaking German],
and it means like, you know, like,guy who's just hell bent for leather.
He's going to do. He's going to driveforward as fast as possible.
And that's I would say that's very muchthe SS is self image.

(26:46):
Reconnaissance. That's for weaklings.
You know, supply will figure it out alongthe way.
Administration who needs administration?
It just slows us down.That's how the allies fight.
But I think World War Two and frankly,the study of any war
carefully will tell youthat what happens at the cutting edge
is, is huge, obviously, that no one'sgoing to say it's not important.

(27:08):
But what happens at the cutting edgeis often
determinedby what's happened in the rear echelons.
But you know how goodyour intelligence is.
I'll give you an example
Kampfgruppe Piper, the first SS PanzerDivision, Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.
It's the Adolf Hitler bodyguard division.
You know, they're they're miles from thebiggest allied supply depot in Belgium.
At Stavelot.

(27:28):
They could have.
They could have, fuel themselves.
And to the English, you know, to the,to the channel coast, if they had managed
to break through that fire with the gasand they were sitting just miles from.
And it's so interesting to methat nobody had kind of spied that out.
Nobody had really put an X on a mapand say, hey, when you get the stop,

(27:49):
you know, take your time because you'regoing to want to look at what's there.
This, of course, gets us back to somethingI said earlier.
The Germans are operating without aircover and they didn't really do a lot--
They couldn't do aerial reconnaissancebecause that would give away the surprise
on which this entire campaign, depended
not going to not going to get to Antwerpif the allies know you're coming in.
So they hadn't really done the kind of I'msure that a few reconnaissance

(28:12):
like thatsaid, boy, there's a lot of activity up,
vehicular activity
around this small Belgian town.
It indicates thatthere might be fuel there or something.
I don't, but but that never happened.
And again, it's because the the,the primary weakness of the German
military array by 44-45 is that
the allies don't just have airsuperiority, they have air supremacy.

(28:35):
They they can fly wherever they wantand bomb whatever they want.
And no matter what you do,how much surprise you achieve,
you're going to have a hard timeovercoming that.
But I think it has a lot to do withthere is no reconnaissance.
Germans traditionally under recon.
And in this case,they couldn't do any more than that
because they lacked the aerial assetsto do so. Yeah.
And then I just think it's interestingfor the commanders on the battlefield.

(28:56):
Don't, try to make up for that absenceof of, tactical intelligence.
It's funny, the Prussian tradition
going back a long way is that, you know,the king would ride forward.
I mean, men,
when Frederick the Great rides forwardon a personal reconnaissance.
What he's telling every every officer inhis army is you better be doing this, too.
If if I can do it,

(29:18):
you know, if I can take the time to do it,you better all know what's ahead of you.
And, But I think that had kind of been lost.
And I do think the WaffenSS in particular, I think we can say this
had distilled some good lessons from war.
Let's, you know, get a move on,be moving forward at all times.
No lateral moves here.
Let's make sure we're let's make surewe're throwing down the field.
If this were a football metaphor,that's important.

(29:39):
But there's a lot of other lessonsthat the Waffen SS
either didn't learn or completely rejectedabout this sort of cautious
administration reconnaissance preparationyou should do
before you risk a single man in combat.
Let me let me kind of set the stage for,you know, as they attack, you know, the
the sixth SS Panzer is fortunate,if you will.

(30:00):
You know,they attack through the little time gap
kind of on the flank between two U.S.
corps on the edge of, you know, the 106
Division,they're really spread out in this sector.
So, you know, you could it
wouldn't even have what we might considera doctrinal frontage,
you know, and as you know, Rob,as you said, you know, the Volksgrenadier

(30:20):
divisions will infiltrate and then,you know, surround two of the regiments,
the 99th Division on the north bankis pushed north toward Elsenborn Ridge.
And, you know, frankly, thenwith the other American infantry up there,
the first Division and othersreally cut off those routes.
So very quickly, the German routes,
you know, you take awayabout four of them, with that defense.

(30:41):
And then, south of 106th is the 28th,you know, the Pennsylvania Guard Division
coming out of the Hurtgen,
you know, but they've got a regimenton the road to Bastogne.
Amazingly, you know,that regiment is going to have like,
over 2700 casualties out of a,regiment of, you know, 3200 soldiers.

(31:03):
I mean, it's effectively destroyed.
And the challenge there, though, is that,
you know,you add days to the German timetable.
I think that, you know, the weather's bad,the trains terrible, all those things.
But, you know,the tenacity of these units,
even the 106th Division holding out,

(31:23):
you know, those regiments held out longerthan the German planners had assumed.
Then, you know, it's certainly not a,foreordained, you know, peace there.
I just thought that was,pretty fascinating.
And then real quick, let me getI think there's a couple
big decisions that Eisenhower makes,you know,
that influence the battleas we kind of see it unfold.

(31:44):
And without these,it could be a very different outcome,
you know, against your earlierpoint about, you know, with hindsight,
you know, on the on the evening.
So the Germans attack on the 16thand plenty of confusion,
you know, throughout the Allied ranks,what's going on?
What are the reports?
But that evening he's going to,make his first decision.
He takes the seventh Armored Division,which is up in Simpson's Ninth Army

(32:08):
and dedicated South,and he takes the 10th Armored Division
from Patton'sThird Army and dedicated, dedicated North.
Those two are really fundamental
and bothwhat's going to happen at Bastogne.
And then at St.
Vith, which,you know, without that extra armor.
It's difficult to see how this campaign
would have been as successfulfor the for the, the allies.

(32:32):
And then the next day, Eisenhower,and largely by his intuition, because
I believe Bradley's much more cautiousand sees this as a much more local attack.
He's going to commit his last reserve,which, you know, for a commander
to commit his last remaining reserve,
the 18th Airborne Corps,with the 82nd, 101st,
you know, the 101st race,you know, in route, it's

(32:54):
going to kind of diverted into Bastogne,and the 82nd will go north,
really to hold these twokind of key intersections and flanks.
And I think it's interesting,without those two decisions,
you could have hada very different outcome.
And I'd, you know, I'd, I'd welcomekind of your thoughts on that, Rob.
So, you know, here at the NationalWorld War two Museum, we like

(33:17):
Ike. We are fans
of Dwight David Eisenhowerand I certainly am.
Look, you have to.
We've already--I hope I've paid some tribute to the poor
bloody infantry,you know, on the, out there in the field.
But you also have to give a nodand a wink to Eisenhower.
Everybody had told himthis was impossible.

(33:37):
And, you know,instead of flying into a rage
and firing every single officerhe had, which, let us be honest,
some commanders in militaryhistory would have done exactly that.
Eisenhower takes a look aroundand he intuits something
that a lot of people were tellinghim was wrong.
Many people are saying, well,now the Germans-- All our Intel.

(33:58):
Just no way this can be a major offensive.
This is a local counterattack.
They're trying to straightenout their line or, you know, pick off
a weak Allied division or whateverit might be.
Eisenhower intuited some-- No,this is the deal.
This is the real deal.
Something has to be donealmost alone amongst his fellow officers
and the staff and all of thatarmy of advisers he has around them,

(34:21):
really all telling him one thing,and he said, no, I just feel this.
I feel it in my bones.
I suppose a commanderhas a kind of a sixth sense that
the Germans call the fingerspitzengefuhl,which,
you know,my students have loved over the years.
I means that that little tingly sensationyou get in your fingertips
when something exciting is happened.Something big is happening.
And he rushesa couple of armored divisions forward.

(34:43):
And then the next day, Mike right on thetheater reserve, you know, the
the last uncommitted troopsin his battle array.
I mean, it's really quite something.
18th Airborne Corps, a couple of, a couple of airborne divisions on 101st,
of course, probably making themselvesmost immortal of all the fighters in
in the in the battle of the bulge,the the stirring defense of Bastogne.

(35:04):
But we often saythis about Eisenhower, Mike.
And I know you've heard people say it.
Well, not much of a tactical commander,not much of a battle guy.
Mainly good for making sure thatthe British and American officers on him
didn't kill. They didn't kill each other.
Mainlygetting between Patton and Montgomery.
You know,that's how people see Eisenhower.

(35:25):
But this is one of those caseswhere I just beg to differ.
And it's it's it's inexplicable,except to say that
Eisenhower was a great commanderand he did what great commanders
are able to do size things upwith a single glance of his eye.
Napoleon's, you know, coup d’oeil,as he said, the
a single glance of your eye,a blow of your eye.
You look at this
battle situation and immediatelyyou figure out what is happening

(35:47):
and how you need to react towhat is happening.
And, you know, 100% kudos to Eisenhowerbecause he he flew against the advice
of every intelligence officeron his staff, most of his colleagues.
You said, Bradley,I think there were there
probably some others we could name,as well as saying, I don't think so.
I, I don't know, that seems that seemsrisky, that they didn't think anything
necessarily horrible was going to happenby rushing the 18th airborne.

(36:09):
They just thought Eisenhower wasgoing to [?] and he sort of overreacted.
He got a little jumpy.
He got, you know,
he said he had happy feet in the pocket,to use another football metaphor.
Right.
And that would have been embarrassingfor him.
And he was willing to risk that as well.
You know, your reputation, your dignity,your gravitas
is a huge coin of the realmif you're an army commander.

(36:30):
He was willing to do that.
And of course, like all great commanders,history proved Eisenhower right.
So I just, you know, a word for that.
I, I do think that U.S.
Infantry, and, you know, individualtankers really showed their stuff
in the battle of the bulge,but so too did the Supreme Commander.
I think it's one of his greatest,certainly
one of his greatest battlefield moments.

(36:52):
Well, I agree with you.
You know, a lot of his
his contribution is holding the alliancetogether at the political level.
And in this case, it's really,you know, what?
It's the army. You know, the algebraic.
You know, in the blink of an eye,he he senses this has to be done.
And and the other one, I would add,you know, you had infantry and armor,

(37:13):
the engineers, the the the seven
engineer battalions in thisthat are committed early.
They're like the last thing that Middletonhas, the engineers,
you know, fighting his infantryin good engineer fashion.
I think really, thosethose are some incredible,
inspiring stories as you lookat these engineer squads and teams and,

(37:36):
you know, company strong points and, and,in many cases, you know, really,
way above their weight class, you know,
you know, the Germans had hope for,you know, 6 to 1 advantage
in many of these attacks and in some casesmartial even more than that
against some of these small Americanunits.
And, you know, I canyou can see their anger when, you know,

(37:56):
when the Americans, you know, eithersurrender or finally withdraw off, that.
The Germans had once inserted virtuallyevery engineer, pioneer battalion
they had in their entire array,and that was in Stalingrad,
you know, to fight the lastfew hundred meters to the Volga.
And and they failed them.
They think they they they died in droves.
It was quite the bloody battle.

(38:16):
Just, you know, that's another area wherethe Germans, you know, they they don't
they don't get a bridge down as quicklyas they used to in the old days.
They don't make crossings.
They don't, they don't remove obstaclesas quickly as they do.
They they've been outclassedand all those sort of other support
functions, you know, they throwingevery last man they can find,
including some who had been lyingin a hospital into the infantry.

(38:39):
And that's great.
You know, you're going tothey're they're great.
They give an accounting of themselves,there's no doubt.
But it's those support functionsthat the Germans have completely,
failed, that they lost themin the fighting in the East,
and they've never been ableto replace them.
And it's good because
it's easy to look at a map and say,oh, two German armies
and one has SS next to it..That must really be something.

(38:59):
And they were something.
They gave.They gave an accounting for themselves.
But there's they're also lackingin that support function,
the thingsthat don't really show up on a map.
But I know professional officersstudy very, very deeply.
Yeah.
You know, andand you know, you're talking about the,
the low level, you know, the infantrysoldiers and others.
You know, one,I think testament to this campaign,

(39:19):
the United States will have 32Medal of Honor recipients,
both from the Ardennesand the associated Alsace campaign.
And if you think of that, you know, what an incredible,
incredible number of, you know,individual actions that produced that.
There's another number,of course, and it's 81,000.
And that's the number of total casualtiestaken by the US Army

(39:40):
in the battle of the bulge. Right.
You know, the biggest battlein the history of the U.S. Army.
And it's going to usher in a very,very bloody,
very short year of 19, 1945.
And it's almost a perfect curtain raiseron that horrible year.
Mike,if I can pile on one thing you said there,
and I would like to join you in it,you mentioned the big battles in Alsace.

(40:00):
OperationNordwind, for the Germans: Northern Wind.
It was a supposed to be a, companionpiece to Operation Wacht am Rhein.
This great offensive in the,in the Ardennes.
And together they would, you know,
sweep the Americans out of,you know, out of their positions.
And, again, hopefully smash the Western
Alliance,the, the, the total of those twin defeats.

(40:23):
But Nordwind was another one.
Our US troops were caught by surpriseand with their French allies as well,
free French fighting alongside.
And the Germansmanaged to make some great progress.
And just a handful of U.S.
forces taking some very toughdefensive stands, managed to
sort of break the momentum of the Germans,and they aren't really feeding

(40:45):
from the rear.
The Germans pretty much put everythingthey had into the front line.
They don't really have any reservesanymore.
And American troops, again,
in some heroic actions,managed to defeat Operation Nordwind.
And it's funny, battle of the bulge.
Everyone knows it.
You know, my my,
my grandmother of sainted memoryand every-- and me and everyone
in between knows the battle of the bulge.
But a handful of people know anythingabout Operation Nordwind.

(41:08):
In a book I wrote in 2017,when I got first got to the museum,
the very last stand, and I wroteabout Operation Wacht am Rhein.
I wrote about the bulge in detailfrom the German perspective,
but also wrote a, you know, big,
meaty chapter on Operation Nordwindand it's amazing.
I've gotten a lot of commentary
from veterans and veterans familiesthat my dad was in that,

(41:28):
and he said nobody even knew about itor people who didn't know about it.
And didn't give a damn.
But here's to the twin U.S.
victories in late 1944 and early 1945,in the Ardennes and and all that.
Yeah.
I mean, if you think of that campaignin Northwind, you know, the United States
is going to commitnearly 230,000 troops into that battle,

(41:50):
plus the 610,000 in the Ardennes.
You know, it's crazy.
It's the last theater reserved.
Plus, you know, every
I mean, if the Germans were giving iteverything they got, you have to say so
were the Americans by this,by this point in the war,
there's there's a reason Americanswill be remembering these battles for
I hope as long as there'sthe United States of America

(42:11):
and not only the menwho were badly wounded and who died,
but just thethe entire heroism of the effort,
you know, at the beginning of WorldWar Two,
there were a lot of peoplein the United States,
even in the US Army, who said, Americanboys, they'll never make fighting men.
All they care about is going out on datesand playing with their cars.
And, you know, you heard thesethese tropes of American youth was soft

(42:33):
and weak.
George Patton, sort of, you know,that was his whole profane
with that speech he gave that profanespeech he'd give to the new recruits,
you know, saying the F-word every twoseconds and SOB this and SOB that.
It's trying to let them know, you know,they're not home with mommy anymore.
But I'm neverI was never sure that that was necessary.
I think if if the causeis explained to American troops,

(42:54):
I think then and frankly, I thinknow explain to the American people,
I think the Americans will,you know, will defend the colors.
I, I've worked with young people,a year of my life is very dear to me.
2009 2010 academic year.
I was a visiting professor at West Point,and I met the young cadets.
And people say, well, Americanyouth are soft

(43:16):
and don't want to defendthe country anymore.
I beg to differ there too, because I,I certainly met some of the finest
young people in my entire lifeduring my years at West Point.
I think back a lot because that was,you know, a lot of them graduated
and went off to various warsin various places that America has been
fighting in the in the 21st century,and even some casualties there as well.

(43:37):
So again, I just don't I don'tI don't want to wave the flag
too egregiously here,but I, I think this trope about,
you know, Americans being soft,I never believed it wasn't true then.
It's not true now.
Yeah. No.
Well, certainlyI think, you know, give give
an endorsement, you know, about thethe young West Pointers.
Since my daughter’s now you know, a recentgraduate in the 82nd Airborne Division.

(44:01):
But-- I set you up for that, Mike.
You did,
you did the, but but, you know,there's kind of two parts of that one was,
you know, everybody, you know, ImperialJapan, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy,
all go to war against the United Statesin December 41st, believing
that trope you described, the Americans,
you know, too much jazz.

(44:23):
They're corrupt.
They're gangsters.They'll never amount to much.
The potential is gone.
And and I think what as you see,this, it's very inspiring.
It's know.
Holy cow.
In two and a half years,not only do build an army,
but but you build an armythat ultimately is effective
in this major battle.

(44:43):
I think the other one is that, you know,you remember the Why We Fight series,
you know, that's what you do.
The War Department, you know, and but theythey also did a survey of folks
who hadn't seen itand 90% of those soldiers, over 90%,
you know, could explainwhat would happen to freedom of religion,
freedom of speech,if Nazi Germany won and so,

(45:05):
you know, to your pointthat the American soldiers
do know what they're fighting forand actually,
have a degree of tenacity and resiliencethat was surprising to the enemies.
It does seem that, you know,some of the German units as they go into
the Ardennes are expectingthe American units to crumble immediately
and and are genuinely shocked by,you know, what?

(45:27):
The resistancethey face, in that process.
Now, that kind of leads me into,you know, we talked about,
Kampfgruppe Peiper.
And, you know, let's talka bit about their their atrocities.
You know, the 300 American P.O.W.’s,not just the 80 some at Malmedy,
but the others that they shootin addition to the,

(45:48):
you know, well over 100 Belgian civilians
who are just, you know, murdered as well.
How do you see that?
You know, I, I've already saida few things about the Waffen SS, and,
you know, I study the Eastern Frontprimarily in my own career.
And this they
they're nothing if not consistent.
Murdering of civilians is partand parcel of their ethos.

(46:11):
They're they're outlaw types.
They've got a knife in their teethand and,
you know, skull,a skull and crossbones on on their cap.
And that's very muchhow they see themselves,
their bred -I don't mean this in the generic sense.
I mean in the training sense.
- They're bred to be brutal.
They're bred to get as far, as far forwardas possible, as rapidly as possible.

(46:36):
And you know what that meansfor taking prisoners?
Because somebody'sgot to care for prisoners
and they've got to be herdedback and blah, blah, blah.
And it takes a lot of time.
Of course, civilized people take prisonersand, you know, feed them
and make sure they're out of harm's way.
And they do the things that thatthe Geneva Convention tells us to do.
But thousands of years beforethere was a Geneva Convention,

(46:56):
human beings still cared for prisonersin combat.
Waffen SS just,you know, took all the bad examples
from the past and,and sort of hoisted it on their flag.
So even I mentioned the Eastern front,but even in the, in the Western Front,
soon after the Normandylanding at the Abbey Ardenne, it was
it was the massacre of the Canadiansthere.
It's a place that anyone who visitsNormandy should, should visit.

(47:19):
A place where young SS troopersreally, you know,
besmirched the profession of arms.
I, I would say for,for lack of a better term
and of course, of doing the same thingin this campaign.
And the excuses are always the same,that, you know what?
We're told to get a move on and we can't
we can't dally around hereand process these, these 80 Americans.
And so let's just let's take careof the problem in, you know, 2.5 minutes,

(47:40):
which probably is how long it tookto shoot 80 Americans at Malmedy
and some of the others,that other atrocities that you've named.
You know, I sure let's get a move on.
I understand that, but I also thinkthere's there's no explanation.
It's just cruelty.
The Waffen SS prided itself on being able
to do things that lesser men wouldshrink from, including

(48:02):
you know, murdering defenseless prisonersand murdering defenseless civilians.
They they're an interestingcrew in that, you know, they
they covered their
battle is, the battle flags,all sorts of honors.
You know, there's all kinds of thingsyou could talk about
in the Eastern Front with the WaffenSS seem to have saved the day.
And likewise, they fought very hardon the Western Front as well.

(48:23):
No Germans would have gotten outof the Falaise pocket at all?
If it hadn't been for some heroic actionsby the Waffen SS.
But, you know, at the same timeyou you more than make up for that,
you know, you more than get rid of thator help us forget that by the atrocities
you've carried out.
And so I just say,you know what happened in the Ardennes?
Why were there atrocities?
And my answer isit's it's more of the same.

(48:45):
You put Kampfgruppe Pieper anywhere.
And if they're civilians nearby or
takes prisoners, you know, similarthings are going to happen.
And Pieper wasn't the only one who'sjust kind of become the most famous
or notorious onebecause it affected Americans.
Yeah.
No, I, you know,very much strikes me, you know, this is
very much a Nazi ethos.

(49:05):
You know, the Hitler expresses, you know,cruelty and presence, you know, and,
and that there's a value ofjust being cruel,
which on the battlefield actually,you know, can boomerang on you,
you know, now, when your units,you know, our second quarter, you know.
Yeah.
So, you know, of course, ityou might say the Waffen SS does this

(49:26):
because then it prevents any other Germansof surrendering for the rest of the war.
And, you know, let's be honest, we'rewe're here amongst friends, that U.S.
troops shot their share of prisonersas well.
Some of them, probablymost after what happened at Malmedy
he became known,but some before Malmedy. You.
There's you take a million menand you put weapons into their hands and

(49:47):
you put them under military discipline.
Most, most of them will follow the rulesas they're explained.
There will always be some renegades.
And certainly the U.S.
military force has hadtheir share as well.
But nowhere in there-- never in U.S.
military history was cruelty enshrined.
This, I think, is a differenceand something we need to carry.

(50:07):
We need to bring out,nowhere was cruelty enshrined.
And then even if we look at, likethe Volksgrenadier divisions attacking,
you know, the 28th,
there are some incidents therewhere, where prisoners are shot.
But typically, it seems thatthese are inexperienced troops
that have been up in in close quarterscombat with another group

(50:28):
and, and the,you know, the immediate tensions and, and,
anxieties are high and in,in a number of cases,
the officers then immediatelystep in and stop more than a few people.
And so this is a very different,though than the first SS Panzer
where this is, say,
you're not in direct combat.
You know, you'veyou've actually separated yourself.

(50:48):
You can't say it's the heat of the moment.
This is a calculated,brutality rather than,
you know, the the, the, the,the the challenge in combat
as you're transitioning from close combatinto someone
surrenders and,you know, inexperienced troops.
You know.
I always explain this to my students, thisbecause this is in World War One.

(51:09):
And frankly, in every warthat's ever been fought, you know,
some some lone machine gunner continuesto pepper your lines with machine guns.
And, you know, you're
you see five of your buddieskilled in the last 30 seconds
then he suddenly throws up his hands,says, I'm a prisoner now.
I'm ready to surrender.
And in, you know,
in the heat of the moment, oftenthat guy who tries to surrender is killed.
I think we have to be honest about that.

(51:30):
It's been every warthat's ever been fought.
But but there's that that there's a worldthat separates
that from the Waffen SSand the the level above.
And that's that's the level of atrocity
of many Wehrmact units as well,but particularly the Waffen SS.
I, I try not to use the SSas the excuse for the nation.
Well, I mean, everybody else was fine.
It just it was just SS
troops gave us the-- because alot of people did a lot of bad things

(51:53):
cooperating with the Hitler regimein some way or taking part in it
meant compromising your moral principleson some level.
And some folkstook it further than others did.
But there's, I don't you know,I never want to.
I sometimes hear peopletry to give explanations for why--
Kampfgruppe Pieper killed the Americansat Malmedy and frankly, I leave the room.

(52:14):
I just don't see any point in it.
And I don't see any sense in it either.
I just think it's it's impossibleto rationale.
And in the end, I think it completelyboomerangs the, now, you know,
to hit your point earlier about, you know,is it also a message to German soldiers?
You know,you look at the number of Germans
who are are killed, you know,because they're not,

(52:37):
resoluteenough in the final months of the war,
but ultimately killed by, you know, thethe party members, the Wehrmacht’s
final retreat path from the,
you know, across the Rhineinto central Germany
and then across the Oder into Germany,from west to east.
The Wehrmacht’s final retreatpath is littered with gallows poles,
troops, the corpses of troops hanging

(52:59):
from lamppostswho have been shot or hanged, or sometimes
both, by by their own troops,or by roving squads of SS man.
Look,trying to surrender as a German at the
in the last year of the waris is a delicate operation.
If you didn't do it quickly enough,the Americans would just, you know,
vaporize your villagewith with artillery fire.

(53:20):
But especially calling itthey call it massive airstrikes.
So if you didn't do it quicklyenough, you fell foul of the Americans,
who by late in the war, no one wants to bethe last person killed in World War Two.
American troops are just,you know, shoot first
and ask questions later, which frankly,I think is pretty wise.
But if you did it, too early
and then some of the Americans didn'tquite launch the assault at the time,

(53:41):
you thought they were going to launch
assault,and now there's an SS squad in your town.
You and your familyand everyone in your neighborhood
is about to be shot in the head.
And it's an
impossible situation world--you know, Max Hastings.
So great World War Two historian.
We've had him at the museum many times.
He wrote about the last year, WorldWar Two, and called it Armageddon.
I I'm not I try to beware of, you know,

(54:04):
especially biblical, metaphorsfor what happened in World War two.
I'm not sure they're appropriate,but Armageddon, it was it just
it seemed, in many cases,
as if all our civilizational restraintshad been thrown off.
And we're going a little, I guess, a fieldof the battle of the bulge right now.
But it's where that discussionof Kampfgruppe
Pieper and the Malmedy massacre leads me.

(54:26):
It's a bloodbath for the last
five months in Europe,a bloodbath where everyone concerned.
Yeah.
You know, typically we like to think, in many ways, that the battle of the bulge
is kind of the,the, the, the high point of the violence.
And then it just kind of peters out
and, you know, the spring happensand the birds come out and the war's over,
when in fact, thethe violence continues to escalate

(54:51):
as, as the war continuesuntil till it ends.
Then, of course,not just violence, but the casualties.
And so-- You know, that's
January, the bulge finally,
I guess you could say we flatten the bulgeby January, January, February,
see some of the toughestfighting in the history of the U.S.
Army in the German Rhineland.
It's that kind of gritty urbanfighting that historians
usually love, but for some reasonare pretty much ignored here.

(55:14):
Then there's the Crossingthe Rhine in March.
First at Remagenand then this gigantic airdrop
plunder varsityacross the northern Rhine in March.
And and then, you know, there's there'sthis on into the heart of Germany
and even, you know,western Czechoslovakia, the Czech have it
by the end of the war,the the Soviets break out of the Vistula
bridgeheads in January, conquerthe eastern provinces of Germany.

(55:38):
They've been German for 800 years, pretty
much drive the civilian population out,
get to the Oder and then launch,you know, the big drive
into Berlin, one of the bloodiest battlesin the history of mankind.
So World War two, the casualtiesalways blow my mind in 1945.

(55:58):
It's a short war.
But, but, but let's justtalk about Europe for a month. We could.
We could extend this to Asia.
About 30% of all German battle casualties.
Military casualtieshappen in from January 1st
to to April 30th, 1945.
Through four months,
30% of the casualties.
You know, by by definition,the Germans are in the war since 39.

(56:19):
So they that's 34or 7 campaigning seasons.
Right.
And but 30% happening in thatthat one period.
Likewise, the Soviets take about 20%of all their battle casualties in World
War two,which are prodigious, as everyone knows,
in the four months of 1945.
So there's a I can now

(56:40):
safely make a second referenceto Clausewitz, who notes, you know,
and he fought in the Napoleonic Warsvirtually his entire life.
And those wars just kept getting biggerand better, bigger and better.
The battles,you know, by the Battle of Leipzig,
it was the biggest battlehuman beings had ever seen.
And he posited that this is probablytypical of of big wars, of great wars,

(57:00):
that they don't just kind of climaxand then denouement and then peter out
and they just keep roaringuntil one side is literally smashed.
And he would not have been,I guess, surprised at all
about how World War Two ended with this,this gigantic plot.
Yeah. Yeah, certainly.
You know, the theoretical isthat the wars are going to,

(57:22):
take that path towards total war.
And, and I think, you know,
that's an important kind of piece is,
you know, theif we look at American combat casualties
in the bulge, not to mention,you know, frostbite and weather
and sickness, it's about 10% of the combatcasualties.
Just in that month,

(57:43):
you know, so you still have,
you know, a long way to go before it also,I think, underscores
that there's this, this, sense abouthow does this war end,
you know, we've been,you know, surprised here in the bulge and,
you know, what is it that we have to doultimately to finally
destroy the German war making machine,liberate these oppressed peoples,

(58:07):
set the conditions for the postwar.
You know, it's
interesting to me, Mike, about,
we're talking about these lastfive months,
but if I can just go back in time a bit,I think the way the war ends.
Clausewitz was--But of course, Clausewitz wasn't there.
You know,
both sides have a strategy.
And, Roosevelt enunciated Allied strategy
that after the Casablanca Conferencewould be unconditional surrender

(58:30):
and Goebbels announces the German strategyright after the battle--
I mean, after the final demise of sixthArmy, February 1943.
Totalen krieg.
He called it, total war.
Well, never surrender. Fight to the end.
Every last man,woman and child in Germany.
So they said.
And so you have an irresistible force.
That's the allies,a gigantic military force.

(58:51):
And they're they're not going to stop.
No negotiations, no quarter.
And the Germans are saying, no surrender.
We're going to fight to the last man.
And so what you see in 1945,besides the immense human tragedy,
is the fascinatingtheoretical interplay of two,
diametrically opposed strategies.
Given those two strategies,it's impossible

(59:12):
to see how thingscould have gone any different,
some less bloody resolutionto a World War two.
If-- One last thingabout those strategies, both
enunciatedat almost exactly the same moment,
the end of the CasablancaConference was January, and Goebbels
gives his famous Total War speechat the Sportpalast in February.
At the time, neither partythought they were really winning the war.

(59:34):
The Germans had just senselesslysacrificed an entire field
army at Stalingrad.
The allies were stuck in Tunisiaa long way from Germany, and there
merchant
marine was being shredded by U-boats.
It's as if from the depths of that,both sides decided
to make an extreme statement about whatthey were fighting for in this war.

(59:56):
Of course, the allies managed to prevail,but it's a it's a it's a horrible ending
to the war.
Well, and even,you know, you talk horrible,
you know, Goebbels the,the mobilization of the Volksstrum,
you know, all the teenage boys, you know,you know, the casualty rates among them.
They got chewed up.
I always say Hans and Opain the same battalion,

(01:00:17):
you know, I know there's a little boyand his grandfather in the same battalion
had given rudimentary training,handed a Panzerfaust,
one shot anti-tank weaponand sent out to go hunt T30 fours.
I mean, Hitler did,a lot of immoral things in his life.
Clearly,he's the architect of the Holocaust.
We could stop there.
But one of the many immoral thingsthere was, was, was mobilize children

(01:00:41):
and throw them into the line.
They were chewed up.
And frankly, we'll never know thecasualties that the German Wehrmacht took.
By the end of the war,the records were lost.
They're partial in many ways.Partial estimates.
Some very good historians have devotedtheir lives to bringing some precision.
And, you know, progress has been made.
But I don't think we'll ever know how manykids died in the defense of Pomerania.

(01:01:03):
Yeah, you know that as they're defending
their their towns,of course, they're not in uniform.
So their shot as partizans or,you know, run over or
or or even, shot by the SSbecause they weren't stout enough.
You know,you see photos at the end of the war
and as American troops, you know,look well-fed, husky, or Soviet troops,

(01:01:24):
likewise.
And they've got they've captured some,you know, Hitler Youth and
and almost invariablythese boys are crying.
Almost invariably, it strikes mehow often I see that same photo.
You know, shed been unable to process whatthey've just been through emotionally.
How could they they’re children.
Well, and you know,we're talking about casualties.
You know, you said,
you know, the Americans have over80,000 casualties in the bulge.

(01:01:46):
I think the German numbers are,you know, somewhere between 80
and 103,000 are the numbers I see as well.
So it's not like, you know, there'ssome incredible ratio of difference.
You know, in this case, it's, it's it's
really, incredibly,
casualty producing for both sides.

(01:02:07):
I think, you know, Mike, you have thiskind of very close range battle.
You're in the forest in 1940,the German panzers
just drove through the are downagainst negligible opposition.
Handful of Belgian defenders this timeto try to fight their way through.
And after a shaky beginningfor the Americans,
the Americans rushed enoughreinforcements.

(01:02:27):
There'd been a big battle in the Ardennesin World War One as well,
and the big, gigantic close range battlemultiple field armies on all sides.
And it was a casualty producer.
I think one thing about forest battle,these kind of it's kind of battles, a
artillery round goes off in the forest,and who knows how many people
that it kills as the splinters you know,get, get shot, hither and yonder.

(01:02:48):
So it's just a-- The dark,the dark Ardennes has taken its toll of
many, many, many field armies headinggoing all the way back to the Romans.
Romans were terrified of the Ardennes.
They thought the the.
You know, it's kind of a ghost for us.
You you can hear the whispers of the pastsoldiers who died in the Ardennes.
And, you know, we don't we don't reallybelieve those sorts of things anymore.

(01:03:11):
You know,we have a scientific view of reality.
But in a way, the Romans were right.
Yeah.
You know, you're talking aboutthe intuition and the field, you know.
Do you have that feel? Yeah. That's right.
So so WinstonChurchill called the battle of the bulge,
you know, quote, the greatest Americanbattle of the war, unquote.
What do you think of that? Sure.
I'll give Sir Winston that one.
I think he's right on the money.

(01:03:31):
A lot of great battles.
If your loved oneor your buddy died in another,
you might say, well,why are we forgetting that one?
I know there's a-- working at the museum.
People always want to say what waswhat was the biggest,
how many numbers, what is the best?
What was the most decisive?
But, but, but certainly the Americans

(01:03:52):
answered a lot of questionsat the battle of the bulge.
Even a lot of perhapsput to rest a lot of self-doubts
about whether they really ratedas a top notch fighting force.
And I don't I don't think, frankly,I think
by the time we get to the hour,then I think the question is silly.
I think they've proven it many times over.

(01:04:13):
But nevertheless,those those allegations still arise and
and certainly well after December,you know, after after the end of 1944,
no one could ever saythe Americans can't fight modern war.
You you attack them at your own risk.
You catch them flat footed.
Maybe you get a few days of advantageonce they get their feet under them,
and then they call upon not only thethe immense tenacity of their infantry,

(01:04:36):
but the immense levelsof firepower on land and in the air.
You're toast.
Or at the very least, you're inbig trouble fighting the Americans.
I think the Germans learn thatand look at the American performance
going forward, out of the bulge,across the Rhine into Germany.
As I say, this is not easy.
Fighting the Rhineland is one of the mostdensely populated regions on Earth.

(01:04:58):
It's it's, it's built
its combat in a built up area or whateverthe current phrase is.
But it's, you know, it's combatin a built up area on steroids.
It's one urban area after the other.
The Americans, you know, get through ita con brio.
They they blast their way across a river.
They drive, not only across Germany and seal off

(01:05:18):
separate northern from southern Germany.
They actually drive into Bohemia,
that is, into the Czechregions of Czechoslovakia.
Prague, you know, it's really something.
I you know, I think related to that, youknow, you know, certainly their ability
to the infantry, the armor, the artillery,the integration of tactical air,
you know, all those come together, the ability of the logistics to keep pace

(01:05:40):
with the speed of the attack,casualties, aid stations,
all those are are pretty incredible as youas you think through those.
And, you know,that's an aspect that, in many ways, it
it shows how mature the American armyhad to come.
You know, if you take its pathfrom Kasserine, it had a lot to learn.

(01:06:01):
But ultimately, the force in many ways
is getting better despite the casualties,which is interesting.
You know, the German units, you know,they're empty units
are less effective than they were,say, in 1940 or 41.
I think arguably, the American units are, as, as a general
rule, are are increasingly muchmore effective than they were,

(01:06:24):
you know, when they first enter combatin, in North Africa.
I don't think there's any doubt.
You know,I think Kasserine needs to be looked
at pretty carefully overdisastrous opening, and nobody can.
I don't care how people explain it away.
The opening of Kasserine was disastrousto the Americans.
They righted themselves and Rommel,even was pretty impressed by the end.
But, you know, yeah, absolutely.
The fighting qualities of the U.S.,small units, in particular

(01:06:45):
the their ability to to combine arms,between infantry and artillery
and to call in the air strikeat just the right moment.
It's really, really quite impressive,with the armor support as well.
But, you know,
all the way up the chain of command,American corps commanders
were a lot better in the campaignin Germany than they've been anywhere.
One thing I think we have failedto mention yet, the encirclement

(01:07:08):
of an entire German army groupand the Ruhr under Field Marshal Modal.
That is big attacking pincer in the northand a big attacking pincer
in the south, linking up behind,taking 350,000 prisoners or something.
Who knows exactlyhow many Germans were on the.
We're in the Ruhr Pocket in 1945,but that kind of thing
coordinated drivesheading towards one another.

(01:07:32):
You know, potential for blue on blue fire
are all the reasons that American troopstend not to encircle their adversary.
They're, they're they're really firepowerintensive units.
And they take thisvery delicate operation.
But they certainly did it in stylein the Ruhr.
And that, to me is something else.
You got Eisenhower,you got the men in the trenches.
But the those middle level,those operational level commanders,

(01:07:55):
I think, really gave a good accountingfor themselves in the German campaign.
And that's, I think, lessonsthat were also learned in the bulge.
Yeah,I think that's that's a great insight.
And you mentioned prisoners, you know,23,000, Americans will become P.O.W.
is in the bulge.
But in contrast, you know, very quickly,you're taking hundreds
of thousands of German prisoners,you know, and, and, the scale,

(01:08:18):
you know, you think about,you know, the greatest battle of the war.
Sometimes we think of D-Day,you know, 170,000
Allied troops land in 24 hours.
You know, fast forward to the bulge.
It's, over 600,000 in combat.
You know, 20 infantry divisions,ten armored divisions, three

(01:08:38):
airborne divisions.
I mean, it pales, even the D-Day piece.
How do you even sustain those andkeep them in the field and supplied and,
medical support?
I mean,just that alone is an incredible feat.
You know, if I may call,you said 20 some thousand
prisoners, some, you know,
probably the most famous one or young guynamed Kurt Vonnegut, who would go on

(01:09:03):
to become a very famous author and wroteantiwar novel Slaughterhouse-Five.
He, he was inhe was taken as a prisoner to Dresden,
kind of witnessedthe firebombing of Dresden and then was
one of those us was detailedto carry corpses out of buildings,
which must have completely changedthe course of his life.
And images that were with himtill his last dying breath, I'm certain.

(01:09:25):
But the Slaughterhouse Five slaughterhouseonce was a real place.
It seems like you're reading a fantasyand of course,
Billy Pilgrim is coming unstuck in time.
And he's he's he's moving from placeto place and time to time.
It is a science fiction novel,but parts of it are all too real.
Yeah. He was.
He's one of the infantry soldiersin the 106th Division,
in those two regiments on the [?]that are ultimately surrounded

(01:09:49):
and will surrender.Right? Right. So this is a
I remember, like millions of
other people reading Slaughterhouse-Fiveand being particularly affected by it.
And there's this said, what is the impactof the battle of the bulge?
And one of the one of the soldiersthat was taken
prisoner in the latercame home and wrote a great.
And so these horrible things go, I camehome, wrote a novel, Slaughterhouse Five.
And so you're still readingabout the battle of the bulge,

(01:10:10):
even if you don't know you are.
When you read slaughterhouse. Well,so it's a good point.
You know, 80 years on, you know, why doesthe battle of the bulge still matter?
You know, you know, how do we reflectand learn from World War Two?
But, you know, there's there's aspects youmentioned, like Slaughterhouse
Five that so resonate, even if we don'tnecessarily understand the context.

(01:10:31):
Yeah.
Let me I'll just say somethingand maybe with a bit of an eye towards
current events, you know, in Americaand World War Two, Americans from all over
the country were thrown togetherinto this gigantic military machine.
There were country boys and city boys.
There'sCatholics and Protestants and Jews and
the black and
white and brown and every possible permutation of America.

(01:10:53):
And those Americans in that military forcelearned to trust one
another, knew they had each other's backno matter what was happening.
And I you know, I don't I always geta little nervous about World War Two.
The country was united
and we were all togetherand, well, we're a fractious place.
There were a lot of peoplewho had disagreements
on strategy, on wagesand living conditions and World War two.

(01:11:15):
And so let's just stipulatewe're a fractious people.
But I think WorldWar Two is an inspiring example
of what happens when Americans,you know, do pull together.
And, you know, we live in fractious,
maybe even hyper fractious times todayit seems,
but when when I travel around the countryand talk to many people,
but the bottom at the bottom,we're all Americans, no matter

(01:11:37):
where we came from, your citizen,you pay your taxes, you obey the laws.
You're as goodan American as as anyone else.
And I think a lot of people learn thatin World War Two.
A lot of people, you know,
northern northerners and southernersjust hadn't really been mixing much.
They still had all kinds of ideasabout one another from the Civil War.
I'm certain.
My dad, you know, was came from Italianimmigrant Cleveland, Ohio.

(01:12:00):
And then, you know, he had I remember himsaying that the southern, you know,
the southern, sergeants in boot camp,you know, just wanted to murder.
But he said graduallyhe learned to realize that
the kind of things they poundedinto his head, his non soldierly head.
Really helped keep him alivein the course of World War two.
So that's, you know,those are lessons that we can all learn

(01:12:21):
and we're all, all Americans
and get out and talk to your fellowAmericans, socialize with them,
because millions of millions of soldiershad to do just that in World War Two.
And they learned to do it,and it made the country a better place.
Yeah.
So it didn't matter
if it was regular Army or National GuardDivision by this stage of the war,
all their replacementsjust come from America.
And and so yeah, that's right.

(01:12:41):
You know, you might have started as athey know Bedford, Virginia.
You know...
My dad was in the American division.
There you go.
In the south in the South-- 23rdInfantry Division.
And he mixed with a lot of people.
That he met - a lot from a lot of placesthat he,
you know, that he'd never met beforein a lot of places he'd never been.
And a lot of places maybe never would be.
But I think Americans got a sense of whattheir country was, that

(01:13:03):
it wasn't just your little local.
It's not just your town or your cityor your neighborhood in a big city,
but it was this gigantic sea to shiningsea kind of thing that
that really could be a hope to mankind.
Now, there are some inspiring wordsthat American leaders
have spoken over the years.
We haven't always lived up to them,but I think by
and large, in World War Twowe did live up to them.
One of the reasonsI loved working at the museum so much,

(01:13:25):
I got to sort of talk about World War IIto to ordinary people
who didn't often know that much about itmight go, I think, if we're not to
insult our audience,but I think it's true.
They often would say,but I had no idea that was true.
And I always feltthat we were really doing
good work at the museum and sort ofreminding people of what had happened.
Now, some 80 years ago.
Yeah,I think the achievement, you know, one,

(01:13:47):
the casualties are so incredibly hugethat it's difficult to understand,
but it's also difficult to understandeven the achievement, you know,
of putting togetherthese forces, training them,
deploying them, making them effective.
It, and then, frankly, the actionsof everyday Americans, small unit leaders,

(01:14:09):
you know, there's incredible inspirationin that
where you see,you know, here's everyday people,
not just,you know, thrust in to meet people
they haven't met from different partsof the country, but they actually,
you know, step up and, and, really achieve
some things that are incrediblyall inspiring for me as you go. Wow.
How how is that possible?

(01:14:30):
Let alone, you know, one, it'syou're fighting, you know, not just the
the Nazi war machine,but you're also fighting the elements
at the same time,you know, in the comfort of of an office.
It doesn't always you don't alwaysthink about, you know, the Siberian low
and the, the temperaturesthat they're enduring as well.
You know, that that really would sapyour strength and your tenacity

(01:14:51):
to see what America and Americans can do,I think is really quite incredible.
You know, for the Army, this is thelargest single battle in their history,
you know, so many unitshave, links to this.
You know, I think it's even,you know, today, as we think about,
you know, transitioning our military or,you know, lessons there,

(01:15:14):
there's lessons, you know,from what Americans did 80 years ago
that I think, can can really serveas a, touchstone for us as well.
Yeah.
Mike,I think, you know, you're there's history,
you know, what happened,but there's also heritage.
You know whythese things mean something to us today.
And I think the battle of the bulgeis a wash in a lot of both.
Rob, you know,it's always great to, engage with you

(01:15:36):
and, and, really benefitfrom your incredible insights.
Thank you for joining us todayto to talk about the bulge and
and really to share, your wisdom.
Mike, it's always great tobe with you. Call me anytime
you.