Part 2 - Did it work?
By this stage of the war, the Allies had broken the German codes, so with the use of ULTRA intelligence, knew of the coming attack. Thinking of the military situation, General Eisenhower wanted to evacuate the troops from Strasbourg and position them to thwart the German attempt to break through the Western Front north of the city. French General De Gaulle was furious about the idea of abandoning Strasbourg and he complained to Winston Churchill about it. Prime Minister Churchill contacted President Roosevelt to discuss the matter. In turn, President Roosevelt contacted General Eisenhower and said to him to hold Strasbourg, as the political consequences of allowing the Germans to take it were too great. That was the only time President Roosevelt overruled one of General Eisenhower’s decisions during the war. General Eisenhower compromised, by leaving the French troops to defend the city and moving the Americans out. So, Hitler’s plan was working, as the Allied generals were all arguing with each other!
On January the 7th 1945, Heinrich Himmler, (the overall commander of the German forces in the Colmar Pocket), launched, what turned out to be, the last German counter-offensive against the Allies on the Western Front. His order of the day to the troops was, ‘I want to be able to inform our Führer in a few days, that the swastika is once again flying from the spire of Strasbourg Cathedral!’
The German forces started pushing out of the northern corner of the Colmar Pocket, heading for Strasbourg city. The French were being pushed back. Himmler wanted to present Strasbourg as a ‘gift’ for the Führer on the 30th January, because that would have been the twelfth anniversary of the Nazis taking power in Germany.
The French lost a whole regiment, and the Germans were getting closer to the city. However, the French blew the last big bridge eleven miles south east of the city on the 25th of January 1945, and the city ‘held’.
Everybody breathed a huge sigh of relief, and Himmler did not get to give the city to his Führer.
On the 22nd of January 1945, the American troops were given the order to attack and clear, what Audie had called an ‘iron fist’ and ‘dangerous platform’, that was the Colmar Pocket.
