Remagen Bridge: 9th Armored Division (Battleground Europe - Crossing the Rhine)

Rating:
Summary: Was it Luck...or Treason?
Review: Throughout most of the Second World War, the German army enjoyed an enviable reputation for thorough planning and tactical excellence; it was a rare occasion when the Germans performed miserably on the battlefield. The loss of the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River on 7 March 1945 was one of those rare occasions where the Germans performed miserably. For years, the only real source material available on the dramatic seizure of the Remagen Bridge came from a single source - US historian Ken Hechler - who wrote both a monograph for the official history and the mass-market "Bridge at Remagen." Andrew Rawson bases much of his volume on Remagen on Hechler's work but succeeds in bringing a fresh perspective in this volume by covering the battle for the bridgehead as well as the seizure of the bridge.


In the Second World War, the Remagen Bridge was an important escape route across the Rhine for shattered German units retreating from the Allied offensives in early 1945. By the time the war approached sleepy Remagen, the defenses of the town consisted of only 36 third-rate troops under two war-weary reserve officers: Captain Bratge and Captain Friesenhahn. Hitler had decreed that no bridges over the Rhine would be captured intact by the Allies and preparations were made to destroy the bridge to prevent capture, but the preparations were unusually slipshod. On the other side of the hill, Rawson describes the relentless advance of the US 9th Armored Division to the Rhine during Operation "Lumberjack" on 1-7 March 1945. Rawson clearly highlights the chaos and confusion in the German chain of command following the collapse of the front on the western bank of the Rhine, with commanders and units changing rapidly. The standard view - which Rawson abides with - is that the tiny bridge security company was lost in the shuffle and the German 67th Corps commander did not realize how threadbare the defenses were at this critical point. However, this version of Remagen - which essentially views the failure to blow the bridge from the perspective of three frustrated company grade officers at Remagen and an oblivious higher headquarters at Bonn - ignores the role of all the German troops crossing over the bridge.


Rawson mentions that over 20 German tanks crossed the Remagen Bridge the day before the Americans arrived - yet why was not a single tank anywhere to be seen when the Americans arrived hours later? Both a battalion of the German 3rd Airborne Division and an anti-aircraft unit set up in Remagen but then withdrew without orders. Clearly, German units and officers were putting personal safety ahead of their duty to protect a key crossing over the Rhine River. Moreover, the German army didn't only cross the Rhine at Remagen, but failed to establish any kind of defenses on the east side of the river. Unfortunately, Rawson fails to mention the disagreements between local German commanders: while many Germans believed that the American main effort would be made at Bonn, the 15th Army Commander believed that the Americans might try for Remagen and he told the 67th Corps Commander (General Hitzfeld) that the bridge was his responsibility. In a pathetic minimal attempt at compliance, Hitzfeld sent Major Scheller and eight soldiers to the bridge. Therefore the overall command failure on the German side clearly falls on General Hitzfeld, as well as the commanders of the 3rd Airborne, 272nd and 277th Volksgrenadier divisions who had troops in the area of the bridge.


Aside from the German command failures that led to such inadequate resources for the defense of the bridge, the greatest "mystery" about Remagen remains about why most of the explosives on the bridge did not detonate. Rawson suggests sabotage by Polish workers or shrapnel damage to the electrical wires as possible explanations, but these just don't ring true. It is very hard to believe that a German military engineer could not make 600 pounds of explosives detonate even under fire; time and again, other German engineers had blown up Rhine bridges in the faces of US troops. There is another possibility that Rawson and Hechler never suggest, but which bears consideration: treason. By March 1945, most Germans were war-weary and an Allied victory was in sight. The only result of fighting on further was to cause more death and destruction in Germany. Is it not possible that two junior German reserve officers, operating with minimal supervision from above and surrounded by chaos, decided not to destroy the bridge? They might have surmised that a quick Allied crossing of the Rhine would spare Remagen further fighting and end the war more quickly. Of course, when Major Scheller showed up from corps - three hours before the American tanks - Bratge and Friesenhahn had to put on a show of resistance so perhaps they detonated only a small charge, enough to cause some superficial damage. There are two indicators that Bratge and Friesenhahn had no intention to destroy the bridge. First, they had only 36 troops available but they sent almost all of them to an observation position (and apparently without communication gear, since the NCO had to run back to the bridge to warn of approaching tanks) almost one kilometer from the bridge; thus, the bulk of the bridge security detail was left out of the battle. Second, Bratge and Friesenhahn seem to have made virtually no effort to install obstacles on the bridge. While they did detonate a cratering charge on the causeway leading to the bridge that held up US tanks, they failed to put up any serious anti-infantry obstacles. Even with the limited time and resources available, Bratge and Friesenhahn could have strung some barbed wire across the bridge and blocked foot traffic with a few wrecked vehicles (preferably on fire). Finally, Bratge and Friesenhahn took no part in actually opposing the American crossing - they were skulking in the rail tunnel - and they quickly surrendered to the first US troops across.