104 The Battle For Cologne, After the Battle, After the Battle(1)
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//-->battleafter the£3.10BATTLE FOR COLOGNENumber 104NUMBER 104Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. RamseyEditor: Karel MargryPublished byBattle of Britain International Ltd.,Church House, Church Street,London E15 3JA, EnglandTelephone: 0181-534 8833Fax: 0181-555 7567E-mail: afterthebattle@mcmail.comWeb site:Printed in Great Britain byTrafford Print Colour Ltd.,Shaw Wood Way, Doncaster DN2 5TB.© Copyright 1999After the Battleis published quarterly onthe 15th of February, May, August andNovember.United Kingdom Newsagent Distribution:Seymour Press Ltd., Windsor House, 1270 LondonRoad, Norbury, London SW16 4DH.Telephone: 0181-679 1899United States Distribution and Subscriptions:RZM Imports, PO Box 995, Southbury, CT, 06488Telephone: 1-203-264-0774Canadian Distribution and Subscriptions:Vanwell Publishing Ltd., 1 Northrup Crescent,St. Catharines, Ontario L2M 6P5.Telephone: (905) 937 3100 Fax: (905) 937 1760Australian Subscriptions and Back Issues:Technical Book and Magazine Company, Pty, Ltd.,295 Swanston Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3000.Telephone: 03 9 663 3951 Fax: 03 9 663 2094New Zealand Distribution:Dal McGuirk’s “MILITARY ARCHIVE”, P.O. Box 24486,Royal Oak, Auckland 1030 New Zealand.Telephone: 021 627 870 Fax: 9-6252817Italian Distribution:Tuttostoria, Casella Postale 395, 1-43100 Parma.Telephone: 0521 292 733, Telex 532274 EDIALB IDutch Language Edition:Quo Vadis, Postbus 3121, 3760 DC Soest.Telephone: 035 6018641Cologne, the great Rhineland city with a history dating back to Roman times, sufferedbadly in the Second World War. Three years of continuous and heavy Allied bomberattacks had reduced large tracts of the city to ruins and caused some 90 per cent of its450,000 inhabitants to flee the city. Though by 1945 the city was really not much morethan an empty shell, its capture was seen as an event of major importance by theWestern Allies. After Aachen (seeAfter the BattleNo. 42) it was the second historicGerman city to be assaulted by the US First Army.Right:This aerial shot was taken onApril 24, 1945, after the battle for the city was over. Amid a sea of ruins, the famousDom cathedral rises majestically. On the left is the bomb-shattered Cologne Haupt-bahnhof (central railway station) and lying destroyed in the Rhine are (L-R) the Hohen-zollern road and rail bridge, the Hindenburg suspension bridge, and (in the distanceupstream) the Köln-Süd rail bridge (seeAfter the BattleNo. 73). (USNA)CONTENTSTHE BATTLE FOR COLOGNEREADERS INVESTIGATIONSGuards VC: Blitzkrieg 1940IT HAPPENED HERESonia’s DubokWRECK RECOVERYTeesside Dornier: January 19422384651To combat rebellious actions by foreign workers, and also to scare the city populationinto holding on, on October 25, 1944, the Cologne Gestapo publicly hanged 11 foreignslave labourers in Hütten-Strasse. On November 10, 13 others, some of them teenagersarrested for anti-Nazi resistance activities, were hanged on the same spot. (HASK)Front Cover:Top:Cologne, March 6, 1945: aSherman of the US 3rd Armored Division is hitby a shell fired by a Panther tank from thecathedral square further down the street in thefinal stages of the battle for the city. (IWM)Bottom:The same spot in Komödien-Strassetoday. (Karel Margry)Centre Pages:Comparison in colour.Left:TwoAmerican radio commentators, CesarSearchinger of NBC and Quincy Howe of CBS,inspect the Panther tank knocked out in frontof the Cologne cathedral (see pages 22-26)during their tour of the Western Front, April10, 1945. (USNA)Right:Cologne, March 1999.(Karel Margry)Back Cover:Tribute to a former enemy by theRoyal British Legion as the remains of Oberfeld-webel Heinrich Richter are laid to rest in a Britishcemetery in October 1998. (S. McMillan)Acknowledgements:The Editor would like tothank Dr Manfred Huiskes and BrigitteHolzhauser of the Historisches Archiv derStadt Köln, and Mikael Levin (son of war cor-respondent Meyer ‘Mitre’ Levin) for help withthe Cologne story.Photo Credits:HASK — Historisches Archiv der Stadt KölnIWM — Imperial War Museum, LondonUSNA — US National ArchivesThe gallows were set up in front of the workshops underneath the railway embank-ment. Today, a memorial plaque, unveiled in May 1972, records where the executionstook place. In 1982, the street was renamed Bartholomäus-Schink-Strasse after oneof the young resisters executed (Schink was 16 years old when he died).2THE BATTLE FOR COLOGNECologne, the great and historic Rhine city,in the fifth year of the Second World Warwas only a dark shadow of its former self.Germany’s fourth-largest city, capital of theRhineland, world-famous for its Gothic Domcathedral, a modern town and great indus-trial centre, was by the beginning of 1945 adesolate and depressing place. Five years ofaerial attacks by British and Americanbombers had turned the once-lively metro-polis into a wasteland of ruins, a wideexpanse of debris almost empty of people.The first raid on the city — by the RAF onthe night of May 15/16, 1940 — had been fol-lowed by countless more. One of the worstattacks had been that of the night of May30/31, 1942, when — in what was BomberCommand’s first ‘1,000-bomber raid’ —some 1,047 aircraft had dropped 1,455 tonsof incendiaries and high-explosive on thecity, which destroyed or damaged nearly13,000 buildings, killed 469 people, injured5,027 and made some 45,000 homeless. It wasestimated that between 135,000 and 150,000of Cologne’s population of 700,000 fled thecity after this raid.After the US Eighth Air Force joined theair offensive in August 1942 (their first mis-sion to a target in Germany occurring in Jan-uary 1943), the Americans bombed the cityby day and the British by night. The worstraid of the whole war was that of June 28/29,1943, when bombs from 608 RAF aircraftdestroyed or damaged some 21,000 build-ings, killed 4,377 persons, injured another10,000 and made 230,000 homeless. Two par-ticularly heavy day attacks on October 14-15,1944 (one of which destroyed the city’s Mül-heimer Bridge) led the NSDAP authoritiesto order all those not absolutely essential forthe war industry to evacuate the city. In thissecond mass exodus the population shrankfrom 445,000 to 225,000. As the relentlessbombing continued, more people fled deathand destruction. By March 1945, only some40,000 remained in the devastated city.With whole areas reduced to rubble, aghostly atmosphere hung in the city. Supplyof gas, water and electricity had virtuallystopped. To get water, people had to queueup at municipal water pumps or water carts.Most shops had closed, and the few still opensupplied only the most essential of rationedfoodstuffs. Telephone lines were erratic ordead, trams had stopped running. Theatresand cinemas were shut, pubs had closeddown. Nights were spent in cellars or air raidbunkers. Small sections of the city’s warindustries still operated, but most factorieshad been bombed out of production. Theirforced labourers — mostly Russians, Polesand Frenchmen — were now mainly used toclear up the street rubble.Cologne’s endless areas of bombed-outblocks hid a strange and unexpected varietyof clandestine fugitives: Wehrmacht soldiersdeserted from the front, escaped PoWs andslave labourers, German teenagers shyingfrom Flak duty, enlistment in the Volkssturm(the Reich’s last-ditch levy of old men andHitler Youths) or trench-digging work. Indi-vidually or in groups these fugitives subsistedin the ruins, trying to hold out until war’s end.Among those hiding in the rubble was even aloosely-organised resistance cell of teenagersoperating under the name of ‘Edelweiss-Piraten’ who made attempts on the life ofhigh-placed Nazis. Among those assassinatedwas an NSDAP-Ortsgruppenleiter (Naziparty town district chief). The city Gestapo,helped by police units and Hitler Youth,organised large-scale man-hunts to weed outthe ‘looters’ and ‘terrorist gangs’. On severaloccasions there erupted outright gun-battlesBy Karel Margrybetween them and armed groups of fugitives.On November 26, 1944, the chief of theCologne State Police, SS-SturmbannführerMax Hoffmann, was killed in one such gun-fight in the suburb of Klettenberg. Inanother, in the Grosser Griechenmarkt, theGestapo used demolitions to smoke out agroup of deserted Wehrmacht soldiers.To scare the population into submission,the Gestapo, on orders of Reichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler, organised public hang-ings: on October 25, 11 slave workers (fiveRussians, one Croation and five men ofunknown nationality) were hanged in Hüt-ten-Strasse (in the district of Ehrenfeld),and on November 10 another 13 arrestedyouths met the same fate in the same street.Some 300 others, arrested and sentenced todeath by a People’s Court, were beheadedin the Klingelpütz Gestapo prison on Gere-onswall.Through it all, Nazi propaganda tried touphold the morale of the local population.Top Nazi officials — like Gauleiter (NSDAPregion chief) Josef Grohé and Kreisleiter(local chief) Richard Schaller — made callsfor soldiers and civilians to defend the city tothe last man. On October 4, 1944, Propa-ganda Minister (and newly-appointed ReichPlenipotentiary for Total War) JosephGoebbels visited ‘Frontstadt Köln’ to delivera fanatical ‘hold-on’ speech that was broad-cast nationwide. Although there were stillmany persons ready to die for the Führer,most citizens of Cologne reacted cynically,craving only for a quick end to the war andthe bombing. Such was the atmosphere inCologne as the Allied armies planned to con-quer the city in early 1945.34th CAVALRY99th DIVISION3rd ARMORED DIVISIONBERGHEIM104th DIVISION4th CAVALRYHEPPENDORFMANHEIM8th DIVISIONBATTLE FOR THE COLOGNE PLAINThe campaign which led to the Allied cap-ture of Cologne on March 7, 1945, began twoweeks earlier, with the long-awaited andmeticulously-prepared set-piece assault bythe US First and Ninth Armies across theRoer river on February 23. Although themain effort of this assault was by LieutenantGeneral William H. Simpson’s Ninth Armyin the north, one corps of Lieutenant Gen-eral Courtney H. Hodges’ adjacent FirstArmy had been assigned the responsibilityfor protecting the Ninth Army’s right flankas far as the Rhine. Once this job was com-pleted, that same corps was to take Cologne,then head south along the Rhine in order toconverge with other First Army contingentspushing south-east to the Ahr river.Between the Roer and the Rhine — a dis-tance of 25 miles — lies the Cologne plain,generally flat open country traversed by anextensive road network. The terrain includestwo natural military obstacles. Cutting diago-nally across the plain is the Erft canal (actu-ally a river and two parallel canals) whichruns northwards to flow into the Rhine nearDüsseldorf. And immediately behind theErft lies a low, flat ridge, some 25 miles long,called the Vorgebirge. Direct access up itswestern slopes is obstructed by a series of bigopen-cast coal mines with cliff-like sides andabandoned, water-filled mine pits which inmany places confine passage to the width ofthe roads. Here, factories and heavily-urbanised settlements abound. North-west ofCologne, the country is generally flat andpastoral, dotted with villages and smalltowns, particularly along the major highwaysradiating from Cologne.The push across the plain was spear-headed by the 3rd Armored Division.Although there were days when goodadvances were made, at times thearmour met stiff resistance. Here, smokepours from a Sherman hit by Germanartillery ‘on the road to Cologne’. (USNA)4Cologne was the objective of the VII Corps of the US First Army. Before the city itselfcould be assaulted, the VII Corps had to conquer the Cologne plain which stretches tothe west of the city between the Roer and Rhine rivers.The assignment to protect Ninth Army’sflank and clear the Cologne plain fell to theUS VII Corps of Lieutenant General J. Law-ton Collins. The assault across the Roerwould be done by two infantry divisions, the104th Division (Major General Terry de laMesa Allen) and the 8th Division (MajorGeneral William G. Weaver). Once a firmbridgehead had been established, the 3rdArmored Division (Major General MauriceRose) would pass through and start out forthe Erft. The 104th and 8th would followbehind and the 4th Cavalry Group (ColonelJohn C. MacDonald) would screen thearmour’s left flank. The 99th Division (MajorGeneral Walter E. Lauer) would be inreserve.The Germans had long expected theassault across the Roer and had tried to pre-pare themselves as well as possible. Using alarge foreign labour force, they had builtthree lines of defence: one hugging the eastbank of the Roer, one halfway between theRoer and the Erft, and one behind the Erft.In its drive to the Rhine and into Cologne,VII Corps would in turn meet elements fromthree different corps of General der Infan-terie Gustav von Zangen’s 15. Armee (whichwas just then in the process of exchangingheadquarters with General der Panzertrup-pen Hasso von Manteuffel’s 5. Panzer-Armeeto its south). Opposing the Roer assaultwould be the LVIII. Panzerkorps of Generalder Panzertruppen Walter Krüger (shorn ofMost of the towns lying between the Roer river and the Erft canal — the major obstaclein the push to Cologne — were first entered by 3rd Armored spearheads and then prop-erly cleaned out by the infantry divisions following behind them. Manheim, halfwaybetween the Roer and Erft, was captured by the 83rd Armored Reconnaissance Battal-ion, assisted by Task Force Kane (of Combat Command A), early on the first day of theCologne offensive, February 26. Later in the day, the 413th Infantry of the 104th Divi-sion arrived to mop up the town. Here, two men from the division’s 329th EngineerBattalion walk through a log road-block at the western entrance to the village, a typicalexample of the barricades met in almost every town and village on the road toCologne. Picture by Signal Corps photographer Tech/4 Leo B. Moran. (USNA)A)the armour which its name implied, it hadonly the 353. Infanterie-Division and the 12.Volksgrenadier-Division). Then, as VIICorps wheeled north-east and crossed theErft, it would meet Panzerkorps Bayerlein,an ad hoc formation led by GeneralleutnantFritz Bayerlein, which by then comprisedwhat was left of the 9. and 11. Panzer-Divi-sions after their piecemeal and futile commit-ment against the Ninth Army further north.Finally, as VII Corps turned south-easttowards Cologne, it would meet the LXXXI.Armeekorps of General der InfanterieFriedrich Köchling, consisting of the rem-nants of the 59. and 363. Infanterie-Divisionsand the 3. Panzergrenadier-Division.Cologne itself had been declared a fortresscity by the commander of Wehrkreis (Mili-tary District) VI. Additional 88mm guns hadbeen sent to reinforce the flak batteriesaround the city. Volkssturm units wereordered to construct tank barriers, whichwere constructed with trams and steel gird-ers, on approach roads to the city, and to digmanholes and trenches in the park belt sur-rounding the inner city.On February 23, VII Corps launched itsassault across the Roer river at Düren. In ahard-fought action, the 104th and 8th Divi-sions gained a foothold on the eastern bank.By February 25, the two divisions, attackingday and night, had secured a bridgeheadabout five miles deep, anchored on the highground from Oberzier in the north to Stock-heim in the south. Now, the VII Corps was todebouch its armour, the intention being tosend it north-eastward to seize crossings ofthe Erft.Early on February 26th, the 3rd ArmoredDivision — with the 13th Infantry Regiment(Colonel Numa Watson) of the 8th Divisionattached — launched five mobile task forcesthrough the infantry lines. One of theseforces was built around the light tanks andarmoured cars of the 83rd Armored Recon-naissance Battalion (Colonel Prentice E.Yeomans), the other four were each made upof one tank battalion and one armouredinfantry (or infantry) battalion plus a platoonof tank destroyers and engineers. On the left,Combat Command B (Brigadier GeneralTruman E. Boudinot), with two such taskforces, pushed towards the road centre ofElsdorf, while on the right Combat Com-mand A (Brigadier General Doyle O.Hickey), also with two task forces, attackedastride the Düren—Cologne highway. The83rd Armored Recon Battalion acted as abridge between the two combat commands.The secondary roads which the armourhad to use were muddy from the winter thawand rain, yet all five columns made goodadvances all day. The southernmost taskforce of CCA lost eight tanks to concealedGerman anti-tank guns at Blatzheim — astrong point in the German second line ofdefence — but apart from that the probingcolumns met only moderate resistance, andby the end of the day had advanced somefive miles to the vicinity of Elsdorf andBerrendorf.The next day, February 27, CCB neededmost of the day to eject the 9. Panzer-Divi-sion from Elsdorf, four miles short of theErft. The 83rd Armored Recon Battalionreached the river but found the bridges atZieverich blown. CCA was held up by stub-born and well dug-in infantry of the 12.Volksgrenadier-Division at Kerpen, just westof the Erft. Thus faced with determinedenemy opposition, General Rose decided tocommit the division reserve, Combat Com-mand R (Colonel Robert L. Howze), to forcea crossing of the Erft. Passing through CCBin the north, CCR’s two task forces reachedthe Erft at Glesch and Paffendorf where,after dark, infantrymen clambered over par-tially-broken bridges and waded across toestablish two shallow bridgeheads.Meanwhile, the corps’ infantry divisionsfollowed behind the 3rd Armored, moppingup enemy strong points bypassed by the tankspearheads. The 104th Division advancedwith two regiments, the 413th Infantry(Colonel Welcome P. Waltz) on the left andthe 414th Infantry (Colonel Anthony J.Touart) on the right, both regiments leap-frogging their battalions from town to townclosely behind the armour. On the 26th, the413th cleaned out Manheim and the 414thgot as far as Buir. Masses of German civilianswere wandering aimlessly within the opera-tional zone, and civilian control was as mucha problem as processing prisoners of war. Bythe afternoon of the 27th, both regimentshad reached the Erft’s west bank.On the corps’ south wing, the 8th Division(now commanded by Brigadier GeneralBryant E. Moore, after General Weaver hadsuffered another heart attack on the 25th)had a stiff fight for Nieder-Bolheim on the26th, but less trouble clearing Blatzheim andBergerhausen, which had been taken by thetanks. On the 27th, the 121st Infantry(Colonel Thomas J. Cross) helped the taskforce of 3rd Armored’s CCA to capture Ker-pen, but on the 28th the 8th Division closedup on the river too.Repaired and still very much the same. Even the flagstaff holder on the right remains.5
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