Top Photo: A German Panther tank is passing anti-tank obstacles of the Westwall near Weissenburg/Bergzabern. January 6, 1945. German Federal Archives Bild 183-P0213-501

In late 1944, as Allied forces struggled to first contain and then counterattack the German offensive in the Ardennes, the many failures of German planning and logistical support quickly became evident. By December 26, the attackers had reached their culminating point, though it would take another month for the British and American forces to restore the front lines to where they were on December 16.

The especially strong defense on the northern shoulder around Monschau, Germany, left significant German forces uncommitted, including two mechanized divisions. As the US Third Army redeployed to attack the southern shoulder, the US Seventh Army, fighting in Alsace, France, stretched its forces thin to cover the Third’s vacated frontage. Aware of this shift in disposition, and with the uncommitted forces still at his disposal, Adolf Hitler revived one of the earlier options for the Battle of the Bulge—a thrust into Alsace that might cut off or surround substantial American or French forces and threaten the rear of Third Army then attacking into the Bulge. Timed to launch on January 1, 1945, to catch any New Year’s revelers off guard, the operation received the code name Nordwind, or “North Wind,” an apt designator for a battle fought in bitterly cold temperatures and deep drifting snow. 

Allied planners were not unaware of Hitler’s intentions, having picked up hints of Nordwind through ULTRA intercepts, the British codebreaking system that decrypted German radio transmissions. But the intelligence was sketchy, and the exact size and strength of the attacking German forces could not be adequately divined. Having been caught out once, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered General Jacob L. Devers, commander of the 6th Army Group composed of General Alexander Patch’s Seventh Army and General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny’s French First Army, to pull back from hard-won positions in an exposed salient in northern Alsace. This retrograde would both shorten the line, combing out troops that could then be placed in Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) reserve and occupy more defensible positions along the east-facing crest of the Vosges Mountains. Devers was not eager to hand this ground back to the Germans, knowing the effort it took to liberate it and how hard it would be to retake. The French flat out refused, sparking one of the major diplomatic crises of the war. 

When French forces liberated the symbolic city of Strasbourg along the Rhine River, in November, they fulfilled a promise Free French troops had made in the deserts of North Africa years before. In those early, dark days of the war, French patriots vowed to continue fighting until the French tricolor again flew from Strasbourg cathedral. Alsatian civilians, many of them of ethnic German ancestry, celebrated their freedom, perhaps too exuberantly for their former German masters. Unlike the rest of occupied France, Alsace and Lorraine, two former German provinces, had been reincorporated into the Third Reich, making the French citizens there subject to the same levies as the rest of Germany, especially for manpower to keep Hitler’s legions in the field. This, along with the German concentration camp at Natzweiler, which persecuted dissidents regardless of their ethnicity, made the Germans hated occupiers in Alsace. French commanders knew that German forces would exact a fearful retribution on the citizens of Strasbourg for their supposed disloyalty and argued vehemently against any withdrawal. When Eisenhower persisted in presenting his own military logic, French commanders threatened to withdraw their forces from Allied control (a bluff De Gaulle made good a little over 20 years later when France left NATO) and defend the historic city themselves. 

Devers, caught in the middle, issued orders for a partial withdrawal and shifted his lines so that the French forces containing the Colmar Pocket to the south would also be responsible for the defense of Strasbourg. This would also release the desired reserves to Eisenhower’s control. But he kept his two American corps, Lieutenant General Wade Haislip’s XV Corps west of the Vosges, facing north down the Saar Valley, and Major General Edward Brooks’s VI Corps, east of the Vosges and holding the exposed salient against the German border, as far forward as possible. This would enable both corps to hold on to as much ground as possible, until the Germans forced them to fall back. He also ordered up the infantry regiments of three newly arriving divisions—the 42nd, 63rd, and 70th—without waiting for the divisions’ full complements. He then formed these into special task forces under their assistant division commanders, recognizing that the coming battle would test his manpower reserves. Having weathered this crisis in command, Devers and his troops did their best to improve their positions and receive the expected German attack.

But the Allies were not the only ones with significant command issues. On the German side, Lieutenant General Hans von Obstfelder’s First Army would make the initial thrust south out of Germany. Unsure of whether to concentrate west of the Vosges, attacking up the Saar Valley, or in the mountains themselves, taking advantage of the rugged terrain, as they had weeks earlier in the Ardennes, the German forces hedged their bets and split their advance along both axes, diluting both. In the west, the 17th SS Panzer Division and 36th Volksgrenadier Division barely dented the lines of the American 44th and 100th Divisions near Rimling, achieving minimal gains that were easily retaken. In the mountains themselves, four more Volksgrenadier divisions hit a lightly defended sector screened by the 106th Cavalry Group, which gave ground steadily toward the town of Wingen-sur-Moder. There the reinforcing 45th Division blocked any further advance. To regain the momentum, von Obstfelder committed the 6th SS Mountain Division, just arriving from Finland, which mauled the 45th, destroying an entire battalion of the 157th Infantry. But they could not break through, and by January 5, the initial German attack had been mostly contained, without significant casualties, and without requiring any diversion or reinforcement from the Third Army’s drive into the Bulge.

Across the Rhine, SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, a political loyalist with scant military training or ability, commanded the German Army Group Oberrhein (“upper Rhine”). The group occupied the Colmar Pocket south of Strasbourg, holding the last significant forces on the river’s west bank in France. Himmler was supposed to cooperate with von Obstfelder’s attack, but he held an independent command reporting directly to Hitler, complicating coordination. This, combined with the inevitable delays in getting his forces into position, allowed Patch to shift several infantry regiments away from the Rhine’s banks to block the Germans in the Vosges near Wingen. When Himmler’s forces finally entered the battle, they achieved only limited gains north and south of Strasbourg, though the Americans to the north ceded about 10 miles around Gambsheim. 

To sustain this stalled, disjointed offensive against American units, Hitler ordered the commitment of the two mechanized divisions which had been unable to play their part in the Bulge. On January 7, the 21st Panzer and 25th Panzergrenadier divisions struck south between the Vosges and the Rhine toward the Haguenau Forest. This led to sharp fighting around the villages of Hatten and Rittershoffen before pushing the XV Corps line back to the Moder River. Here the supporting assaults of the 10th SS Panzer Division and 7th Parachute Division led to the commitment of one of SHAEF’s reserve divisions, the 101st Airborne, recently relieved in Bastogne, to help shore up the line. Again, the German forces had dented the Allied lines but failed to break through or inflict substantial casualties. Most importantly, they did nothing to affect the ongoing operations to reduce the Bulge pocket to the north.

Throughout the battle, troops on both sides fought the elements as much as each other. With temperatures below freezing in the cloudy European winter, troops struggled to get or stay warm and dry. Still lacking adequate winter clothing, Allied troops suffered in their woolen trench coats and leather boots, while the German forces—at least the ones redeployed from Finland—were better equipped and accustomed to the biting cold. Deep snow restricted movement and vehicles slid off icy tracks on the steep, forested trails. The fallen were soon covered by new snows, with some bodies not recovered until the spring thaw. Throughout the battle, Alsatian villagers suffered from constant fire and displacement from shattered homes into the same wintry conditions the soldiers faced. For all caught up in the maelstrom, the battle was as much about survival as anything else.

In the bitterly cold weeks that followed, local counterattacks attempted to straighten the lines, but the Russian January offensive in Poland meant Hitler could not commit any new forces. At the same time, Allied divisions rebuilt after their mauling in the Bulge—including the 28th Division—lent support to a French First Army effort to finally lance the boil of the Colmar Pocket and force the last Germans out of France by the end of January. In Nordwind, the attacking Germans lost over 22,000 troops while Allied casualties numbered nearly 11,000. As historian Keith Bonn has argued, overstretched and inexperienced American forces proved themselves more than up to the task of facing experienced German forces “when the odds were even.” These Americans prevented any significant loss of French territory and kept Patton’s forces focused on reducing the Bulge. In shifting forces skillfully to meet each German assault in turn, while simultaneously navigating the diplomatic minefield of Franco-American relations, Devers proved himself to be one of the better field commanders of the war. Despite his efforts his place in history is frequently overshadowed by more famous American generals. Similarly, the substantial French contribution, which held valuable miles of Allied frontage with troops from Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, and other nations in the debilitating European winter, is also often lost in the noise of the more famous Battle of the Bulge. Regardless, Nordwind was a major German offensive, having the potential to inflict an embarrassing defeat and upset the timetable for future plans and victory. Thus, the Franco-American effort in Alsace in January 1945 was an important, if unappreciated, campaign that contributed directly to the final Allied victory less than four months later.