Hitler’s Operation Northwind, the attack in Alsace starting January 1, hit Lieutenant General Alexander Patch’s US Seventh Army. Eventually fifteen US divisions with 250,000 men were involved in the fighting, along a front that ran from Saarbriicken in the north to the west bank of the Rhine, south of Strasbourg. This was a natural salient along the bend of the Rhine.
Behind the salient, the Alsatian plain stretched westward to the foothills of the Vosges Mountains. The textbook response to Northwind would have been to fall back on the rough country and leave the plain to the Germans. That was what Eisenhower wanted to do, but politics intervened. De Gaulle told the Supreme Commander that as the French leader he absolutely could not accept abandoning Strasbourg, not only for reasons of national pride but because of the fearful reprisals the Gestapo was sure to take on its citizens. Eisenhower reluctantly agreed, and the order went out to Seventh Army: hold your ground.
Colonel Hans von Luck’s 125th Regiment, 21st Panzer Division, had the mission of breaking through the American lines on the northwestern base of the salient, cutting across the eastern foothills of the Vosges, and thus severing the American supply line to Strasbourg. That required breaking through the Maginot Line. It ran east-west in this area, following the Rhine River bend. The Line had seen no fighting to speak of in 1940-the Germans went around it-but in January 1945 it showed what a superb fortification it was.
On January 7 von Luck approached the Line south of Wissembourg, at Rittershoffen. “Suddenly we could make out the first bunker, which received us with heavy fire,” he said. The Americans utilized the firing points, trenches, retractable cannon, and other features of the Line to stop the Germans cold.
Over the next two days the Germans reinforced the attack with the 25th Panzer Division. At one point they managed to get close enough to throw grenades into the embrasures, but they were immediately driven back by heavy artillery fire.
Still the Germans came on. At times the battle raged inside the bunkers, a nerve-shattering experience made worse by the ear-shattering noise of explosives. Eventually von Luck got through. On January 10 he moved his regiment forward for an attack on Rittershoffen, preparatory to assaulting another part of the Maginot Line from the rear, to widen the breach. That night he got into the village but was not able to drive the Americans out. They held one end: von Luck’s men held the other. There then developed a two-week-long battle that von Luck, a veteran of Poland, France, Russia, North Africa, and Normandy, characterized as “one of the hardest and most costly battles that ever raged.”
Both sides used their artillery nonstop, firing 10,000 rounds per day. The lines were never more than one street apart, and sometimes on the same side of the street, occasionally in the same house. Private Pat Reilly of the 79th recalled, “It was a weird battle. One time you were surrounded, the next you weren’t. Often we took refuge in houses where the Germans were upstairs. We heard them and could see them and vice versa. If they didn’t make a move we left and if we didn’t make a move they left.” Flamethrowers were used to set houses afire. Adding to the horror, the population of women, children, and old folks huddled in the cellars. The soldiers on both sides did what they could to feed and care for the civilians.
Individual movement by day was dangerous. At night trucks rolled up, bringing ammunition and food, carrying out wounded. The dead, including some 100 civilians, lay in the streets. There was hand-to-hand fighting with knives, room-to-room fighting with pistols, rifles, and bazookas. Attacks and counterattacks.
On January 21 the much depleted 79th and 14th Armoured divisions abandoned the Maginot Line and fell back along the Moder River. Von Luck only realized they had gone in the morning. He walked around the village, unbelieving. At the church he crawled through the wreckage to the altar, which lay in ruins. But behind the altar the organ was undamaged. Von Luck directed one of his men to tread the bellows, then sat down at the keyboard and played Bach’s chorale Danket Alle Gott. The sound resounded through the village. Soldiers and civilians gathered, knelt, prayed, sang.