Bridge At Remagen, 7 March 1945

DavidRamsay99

The Ludendorff Bridge was constructed in 1918 to transport German troops over the Rhine to the Western Front battlefields of World War I. As the Nazis retreated in 1945 following the defeat in the Battle of the Bulge and collapse of the Siegfried Line the bridge still stood while other bridges over the Rhine had been blown up by Allied air attack or German high explosive. Meanwhile in the East the Red Army who had rolled through Poland and East Prussia during the winter by March 7 were on the Oder and within striking distance of Berlin.

The German officers tasked with defending Remagen were under orders to blow the bridge to prevent the Allies crossing the Rhine on pain of court martial but were also under threat of court martial if they blew the bridge too soon. The confusion surrounding their orders meant that the officers decided to keep the bridge open long enough to allow the German forces cut off on the west bank of the Rhine to retreat back into the Reich. The local commanders defended the town of Remagen and the bridge with a mix of stragglers from retreating German units, the Volksturm militia, disabled veterans and Hitler Youth fanatics.

When elements of the 9th Armoured Division arrived on the heights overlooking the bridge were astonished to see German troops, civilians and even livestock crossing the bridge over the Reich. When word came up the chain of command to General Eisenhower he immediately ordered the bridge to be taken and redrew his plans for the invasion of Germany. Eisenhower saw the strategic opportunity immedaitely - if Montgomery's forces could cross the Rhine to the north and the Americans could cross to the south both forces could join hands behind the Ruhr seizing the industrial heartland of the Reich and seizing hundreds of thousands of Hitler's best remaining troops.



Lieutenant Karl Timmermann whose grandfather was German and who was born in Germany when his father served in the army of occupation following World War I was the 22 year old recently promoted commander of his company after his predecessor was wounded. His men had fought in the Battle of the Bulge and had fought their way through the Siegfried Line with heavy losses.
The young men were battle hardened and weary and more concerned with returning home alive to their families than dying so close to the end of the war.
Timmermann's superior Major Deever asked him "Do you think you can get your company across the bridge?"
"Well, we can try it, sir," Timmermann replied.
"Go ahead."
"What if the bridge blows up in our face?"
Deever said nothing and left.
Timmermann was right to be apprehensive since the bridge was rigged to blow except not with military grade explosive but industrial explosive.
Before the Americans launched their assault the German's blew a crater in the approach ramp of the bridge but struggle to blow the western section of the span.
Half of the American company charged across the bridge under withering machine gun fire while the other half fired in support.
Sgt Drabik and his squad ran the entire length of the bridge without losing a single man and dived into shell and bomb craters and held off the Germans.
A tremendous explosion rocked the eastern end of the bridge but when the smoke cleared the damaged bridge still miraculously stood.
When engineers and tanks arrived to reinforce Timmermann, the young officer and the rest of his men crossed the bridge and began cleaning out the Germans on the opposite side as others began cutting wires and throwing explosives into the water.
The Germans and many civilians retreated into the railway tunnel at the other end and prepared to hold out.
If the Americans began firing their tank guns into the mouth there was sure to be a massacre.
Two boys defied the German commanders and one was shot dead for his act of mutiny. The other boy however pleaded with the Americans to ceasefire.
The German commander soon surrendered to Timmermann and the tunnel was taken.
Overjoyed by the spectacular victory General Eisenhower and General Bradley sent thousands of men and as much artillery and armor as possible across the the bridge in the next 24 hours while engineers tried to repair the bridge and build additional pontoon bridges before it collapsed into the Rhine.
Hitler was outraged and five officers were executed for failing to blow the bridge and he ordered air attacks and V2 rocket bombardments to try and destroy it before the Remagen bridgehead expanded further.
All in vain.
By 21 April 1945 the Ruhr had been captured by British and American troops, Field Marshall Model had shot himself while 300,000 Germans had surrendered. American troops joined hands with Soviet troops at Torgau on the River Elbe April 25, on April 30 Hitler also shot himself in his bunker in Berlin as Red Army troops closed in and on May 8 the war in Europe came to an end.

Meanwhile the Ludendorff bridge had collapsed into the Rhine ten days after its capture drowning teams of US engineers working to save it.

After the war Timmermann returned to wife and his family in Nebraska but returned to the US Army to fight in the Korean War but died of cancer in 1951. He and Drabik had both been decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross and their unit were given the US Army Presidential Unit Citation.

In 1968 their exploits were immortalized in the blockbuster war movie The Bridge At Remagen which told a fictionalized version of the famous battle. A character based on Timmerman was played by George Segal while a character based on Drabik was played by Ben Gazzara. Robert Vaughn played a sympathetic German officer tasked with blowing the bridge representing the men who were executed for their failure on the orders of Hitler.

Today only the towers of the bridge remain and the museum at Remagen is highly popular with tourists who tour the World War 2 battlefields.

beauf

Thks for the reminder. The bridge is a very evocative image of that part of the war. As was the movie.

DavidRamsay99

beauf wrote: »

Thks for the reminder. The bridge is a very evocative image of that part of the war. As was the movie.

The long slog through the winter of 1944-1945 just might have been avoided if XXX Corps had succeeded in reaching John Frost of the British Airborne at Arnhem Bridge in the autumn of 1944 and Allied forces had got over the Rhine.

beauf

I read somewhere that the slog could have tackled differently. There was no need to throw men into the grinder like they did. It might have been about "Metz and the Hurtgen Forest" here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Soldiers

donaghs

DavidRamsay99 wrote: »

The long slog through the winter of 1944-1945 just might have been avoided if XXX Corps had succeeded in reaching John Frost of the British Airborne at Arnhem Bridge in the autumn of 1944 and Allied forces had got over the Rhine.

Should the focus all along have been Antwerp and its approaches (Scheldt)? To end the war quicker. Even if Market Garden had succeeded, it wouldn't have caused a German military collapse, and wasn't there re-supply issues all along the broad front?

Only with hindsight though.

Stovepipe

I read somewhere that the Schelde's infrastructure was so badly damaged by deliberate German destruction that it was regarded as essentially unusable for mass transit of troops and equipment and that a better alternative had to be found.