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The second chapter looks at the German forces involved in this battle. As the Allies advanced into Germany, gaps began to appear in the German lines, including on the Weser. We see the impressive Germany ability to improvise forces at work here, along with the fragmentation of their war effort. The main unit involved in these battles was 2.Marine-Infantrie-Division, one of five similar units formed early in 1945 by the German Navy. In other countries the men used here would probably have filled existing army units instead, taking advantage of the existing structures, but that wasn’t the German way – instead these five entirely new divisions were formed, equipped and sent into battle. As a result you get infantry units commanded by Admirals, naval aviators and U-boat commanders. In this case the division only reached the Weser in the first week of April, so had no time to prepare. A second major force was the training unit for 12. SS Panzerdivision ‘Hitlerjugend’, which was already in the area. This was a smaller unit, but was at least undergoing infantry training before being called into action.
On the allied side the focus is on VIII and XII Corps. Although this makes it feel like the Germans would have been massively outnumbered, VIII Corps had only recently been re-activated and was build around 11th Armoured Division and 6th Airborne Division while XII Corps was built around 7th Armoured Division and 53th Welsh Division. Both contained other independent units, so the Germans were outnumbered, just not by as much as one might expect for a battle between one newly formed infantry division and two full army corps.
After the three chapters setting the scene we move onto the detailed combat accounts. In most cases we see a generally competent British army overcoming determined but outnumbered German defenders. River crosses still emerge as risky, with occasional German counterattacks that briefly threatened particular bridgeheads. However the dilapidated nature of the German army by this point is often made clear, in particular by the small numbers of Panthers and Tigers available to them – individual tanks become crucial assets instead of part of a larger formation. We also get a clear idea of the benefit of being on the defensive, with many examples of advancing British troops only discovering where the Germans were when they opened fire.
The British army comes across as generally effective by this point in the war – perhaps no longer quite at its best, but still capable of organising combined arms attacks, while the Royal Artillery was one of the most powerful weapons on the battlefield. The main blot on the record was the two day long battle for Rethem, which saw the British make a series of costly frontal assaults against a well dug in enemy.
My only quibble with this book is a tendency to exaggerate the scale of the German resistance. Although there is no doubt that the battles described here were hard fought and bitter, they were also short, with the fighting on the Weser starting on 5 April and the breakthrough on the Aller coming less than two weeks later. Individual defensive actions tended to only last a day or two, although coming this late in the war even these short battles were very unwelcome to the attacking allies.
An excellent study of some of the last battles during the Allied invasion of Germany.
Chapters
1 – From Pillar to Post: 23 March-4 April 1945
2 – The Rock of Resistance: German forces on the Weser and Aller
3 – Forward on Wings of Flames: Second Army April 1945
4 – Stukas, Tigers and Panthers: VIII Corps’ Battles for Weser Bridgeheads 5-6 April 1945
5 – Fat Cars, Chateau Lafite and the Steel-eyed Boys: 7-9 April 1945
6 – ‘Men Who Enjoyed Dying’: XII Corps across the Weser: 5-10 April 1945
7 – ‘A Little Bit of Burma’: The Battle for the Aller Bridgehead at Easel 10-12 April
8 – ‘One of the Hardest Days’: The battles on the roads to Ostenholz and Winsen 13-14 April 1945
9 – A Most Decisive Victory: The Battle for Rethem, 12-12 April 1945
10 –Belt-fed Bzaookas: 53 Division across the Aller 11-14 April 1945
11 – Through the Crust: The Collapse of the Aller Line and XII Corps’ Breakout 14-17 April
12 – Die Stunde Null: 15 April-8 May
Author: John Russell
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 502
Publisher: Helion
Year: 2021