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The death throes of the Third Reich were not pretty and took many lives.
Key Point: Berlin was doomed, yet they continued to resist. Here is how Nazi Germany finally came to its brutal end.
In January 12, 1945, Hitler received the news he had been dreading the Soviet Red Army had launched its winter offensive. He wasted no time. Within four days Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, commander in chief West, received the following order: “CinC West is to withdraw the following formations from operations [they were still involved in the Battle of the Bulge] immediately and refit them: I SS Panzer Corps with 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte and 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend; II SS Panzer Corps with 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich and 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen. Last day of refitting is 30th January. Reinforcements will be provided under the authority of the SS Supreme Operations Office.”
Hitler s Bodyguards Tried to Take Bastogne and Failed
The division had been ordered to fight through unsuitable terrain, starved of essential supplies, and denied the air support this type of operation demanded.
The story of Hitler’s Bodyguard, the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte (LAH), in the battle for Bastogne does not begin until after the siege of that city had been raised by the U.S. 4th Armored Division, part of General George Patton’s Third Army, on December 26, 1944. By then the American Bastogne salient posed such a threat to the flank and rear of German Army Group B that it could no longer be ignored in fact, by then Bastogne was becoming the center of gravity of the whole Battle of the Bulge.