The Last Stand of the Legendary Fallschirmjäger | Operation Stösser Ardennes 1944

December 16th 1944 the German Army launches an attack in the aren in what will be known as the last major offensive of the weach during World War II at this point in the war the legendary actions of German paratroopers during the French campaign or during the conquest of C were far behind and it had been many years since German parachute units had fought as regular infantry however because in this last operation the Germans were risking everything Hitler decided to use his parat Trippers again as an Airborne unit which would be dropped by Parachute Behind Enemy Lines this special mission called operation stobber was to consist of the dropping of some 1,200 paratroopers in the vicinity of the Belgian city of yupen during the night before the attack the unit would be commanded by the veteran Lieutenant Colonel Von ha who had participated in other parachute operations in France and cre later and as infantry he fought in Libya and participated in the occupation of Italy in September 1943 his last command in combat had taken place in Normandy commanding the sixth German parachute regiment which carried out intense combat in the vicinity of corentin against the American 101st Airborne Division the new mission for hate and his few men would be to take and defend the intersection of Barack Melle 12 km north of the city of Mal until the Vanguard of the Hitler Jen division arrived this sector was assigned to the sixth SS paner Army and the live standard and Hitler Jan divisions were expected to make their way through it at full speed unfortunately for hate he was informed only 8 days before having to carry it out specifically on December 8th and he barely had time to organize anything the person in charge of transmitting the mission to him was another veteran paratrooper named Kurt student who with the rank of General also participated in most of the operations of the second world war in command of false Cher troops on December 8th when hate was informed of the mission that had been entrusted to him he reacted by saying that with those 1,200 paratroopers he would be able to do little or nothing making a comparison a few months earlier the Americans launched almost 13,000 on the cotentin peninsula although general student agreed with him he informed him that it was an order from the furer and was immovable trying to increase the chances of mission success hate asked permission to use the veteran parat Trippers of the regiment he knew so well the sixth Airborne regiment which as we have just mentioned he led during the Battle of Normandy however Hitler rejected such a request as he did not want to risk losing his best parat Troopers who were basically concentrated in this unit there was no doubt that the the expected casualties on this Mission would be close to 100% instead he ordered each German parachute regiment to assign 100 of its best men to Hay's battle group of course the respective commanders did just the opposite they took advantage of the opportunity to get rid of all those soldiers who were a burden to their units presenting them as the best soldiers they had once hate saw that these men were not suitable he had to start returning them to their respective regimen and instead he called up the young men who were in the parachute although they were supposed to be of higher quality many of them had never even jumped from a plane but when everything seemed lost for hate news arrived that filled him with hope at his headquarters 250 Veterans of the sixth Airborne regiment showed up after hearing that their former Commander was looking for fighters to form a new unit they went to him to place themselves under his orders however the joy did not last long for hate since even the veterans turned out to be poorly trained for the task at hand and practically none of them had jumped out of a plane by Parachute in fact since the cre launches German paratroopers had been used mainly in common infantry functions in Hayes Commando group there were not even 300 men with experience in Airborne operations and many of the most seasoned soldiers had not jumped since the invasion of cre which was now 3 and 1/2 years apart thus few of them were prepared to fight after they were dropped into a forest at night Hayes Camp grup was given the task of launching at night on a strategic Road Junction 11 km north of Mal and holding it for approximately 24 hours until they were relieved by the 12th waffin SS Panzer Division meanwhile they should hinder the flow of Allied reinforcements and supplies in the sector to make matters worse another of the problems that hate had to deal with was Joseph Dietrich the general of the sixth SS Panzer army with whom he had numerous confrontations while Dietrich had proletarian Origins as his father had been a butcher hate had the title of Baron and was related to a large part of the European nobility in this way hate looked over the men at Dietrich who despite himself was above him within the German Army for the veteran paratrooper dietr was nothing more than an untrained Street Thug and he once said of the SS General that he was the closest thing to a street dog the disdain that the noble Lieutenant Colonel professed towards him was aggravated by the fact that in his opinion Dietrich was nothing more than a drunk who arrived wreaking of alcohol every time the two had to meet when hate had to appear before dietr to inform him of the mission his parat Trippers had to carry out the German general accused him of being a lunatic and called his operation crazy furthermore in di R's opinion the parachute operation would only serve to put the Americans on alert and reduce the chances of success for their ground assault Force for his part ha agreed with Dietrich but stressed that the idea of carrying out the parachute operation had been imposed on him from Hitler's headquarters forced to have to use the paratroopers detri determined that they would be used during the night of the 16th after the first day of the German attack in instead of during the night of December 15th although hate protested and did not agree because he considered that a night operation with so many inexperienced paratroopers was doomed to be ineffective if not outright suicidal in such rugged terrain Dietrich said that his decision was firm when the lieutenant colonel suggested bringing carrier pigeons in case the transmission equipment was lost during the airdrop Dietrich responded with a big laugh and said who did you take me for the director of asso in this way although the initial idea was for the paratroopers to attack first in the end they were going to be the last to do so despite his orders hate put his troops on alert during the night of December 15th and waited to launch that same night before the assault by the ground troops however he was only able to transport 400 of his men to Potter born Air Base because the trucks did not have enough gasoline to bring the remaining 800 thus thus the stobber operation had no choice but to be delayed until the night of December 16th with the ground operation already begun during the night of December 16th 112 junkers duw 52 of the third Air transport wing with the members of the hate combat group headed towards their objective as a curiosity it was the only night launched by German paratroopers during the second world war carried out by inex experienced pilots and it was done under very adverse atmospheric conditions what could go wrong in order to facilitate their flight projectors and lighting Rockets from the anti-aircraft batteries were used to show them the way through the darkness finally a junker j88 would go in the lead and would drop lighting bombs on the landing zone so that the rest of the planes that came behind it with the parat Trippers would drop hates 1,200 men there this plan which must have seemed excellent on paper did not take into account that things are much more complicated in the real world from takeoff from their bases near Potter born about 225 km from the launch point for the parat Trippers the German planes faced both their own and enemy anti-aircraft fire although not many were shot down the explosions forced several Pilots to maneuver to avoid the projectiles and some were lost in the chaos added to this were the strong winds which created even more complications for the German air fleet and diverted many planes from their course the nerves and anguish of the crew were immense because half of them had never known aerial combat until then most of the transport planes gave the wrong signal indicating that the area was clear for jumping in fact the 10 that had deviated the most from their course ended up in no less than the city of Bon on the Ry River 100 km from their objective sending 200 men there on the other hand with respect to the war material launched of more than 500 Panzer F that were sent in the different ples only eight and only 181 mm mortar were located approximately only 35 parat Trippers managed to land near the designated area in total some 870 paratroopers were scattered over a considerable area in the vicinity of yupin during the early hours of December 17th making a comparison it should be noted that the 13,000 American paratroopers who were launched on the cotentin peninsula during the early hours of June 6th also had many difficulties and practically none of them fell in their assigned place however while the men of the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions were Elite troops with many months of training Hayes men had had almost no training in any case due to the widespread dispersion of the drop the Allies reported the presence of German par Troopers throughout the Arden region leading them to believe that a major division sized parachute jump had been made this confusion forced the Americans to divert numerous troops in search of the German paratroopers roughly an entire American Infantry Regiment of 3,000 men this being the 18th infantry along with an armored command of 300 tanks and 2,000 men searched for the German forces for several days Lieutenant Colonel Vander haate was one of the few who were lucky enough to fall exactly in the designated sector after locating the Barack Michelle Road intersection located in the forested region that extended north of Mal and endowed with great strategic relevance no more than 20 parat Trippers joined him a couple of hours later his group had reached 150 men although the number would rise to 300 over the course of December 17th they lacked transmission equipment and heavy weapons finding himself in the very weakened situation hate decided to change tactics due to his weakness any direct confrontation with American troops had to be avoided consequently he hid with his men in the spruce Forest adjacent to the Barack Michelle intersection with the intention of occupying it as soon as the tanks of the Hitler jent approached the positions they had occupied in the forest allowed them to observe and count the number of American Vehicles passing in the direction of the front in addition the the patrols that hate sent to reconnoiter the surroundings also managed to obtain valuable information however because all the radio equipment had been damaged during the launch and because Dietrich had refused to equip the paratroopers with carrier pigeons he had no means of getting the much precious information to the commanders of the sixth Panzer Army for his part Dietrich had no news of the parachute force and he did not know what had happened to them shortly before midnight on December 17th to 18th British Ultra interpreters deciphered the following radio message regarding Hayes paratroop Force the situation of the German parachute troops dropped 20 km Southwest of yupen is unclear there are no Communications in effect ha's battle group was not going to contribute anything to the German offensive the paratroopers were only able to carry out a few ambushes against isolated US military vehicles which resulted in the temporary capture of a about 30 prisoners of war in this way gathered in the forest near Barack Michelle the 300 German paratroopers continue to engage in some skirmishes while they waited for the arrival of the man of the Hitler Jon division after 3 days at the mercy of the cold and rain with Provisions increasingly depleted and with no relief force in sight the lieutenant colonel had to recognize that his mission was doomed to failure and consequently on the night of the December 19th he set out east with his man with the intention of trying to reach the German lines although he did not know it for sure he assumed that the Hitler judan division had become stuck as it actually was on the morning of the 20th when the enemy infantry discovered them and they had to flee again to the forest the German Lieutenant Colonel decided to divide his forces into small groups of three men who would have to separately attempt to return to their own lines in the end after many efforts only about 150 men succeeded eded but their Commander was not among them after wandering for two full days through the winter Countryside the lieutenant colonel arrived at the town of moncha which he believed to be in German hands during the morning of December 22nd when he discovered that this was not the case he decided exhausted that he had had enough he knocked on the door of a house and they let him in and there he wrote a letter of surrender that he sent to the soldiers stationed in that municipality shortly afterward hate was taken prisoner with respect to the sector attacked by the 6th SS Panzer Army in which the German paratroopers were located it should be noted that since December 20th and 21st it was paralyzed and although the resistance of the isolated par tropers had been prolonged it did not it would have been of no use it was from then on that the offensive was reoriented towards the central area where aoon Manuel's fifth Panzer Army was located and it had the results that we have already analyzed extensively in other programs after the war hate remained a prisoner in England until July 1947 when he was released once back in Germany ha worked as a professor of international law at different universities while he was in the reserve of the new German Army in which he reached the rank of General finally he died in 1994 after a long [Music] illness

Channel: War Academy

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Keywords: Operation Stösser Ardennes, Operation Stösser paratroopers, Operation Stösser, German paratroopers in the Ardennes, Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes 1944, curiosities of the Battle of the Bulge, German paratroopers Second World War, von der Heydte, elite troops of the Wehrmacht, elite troops of the German army, parachute operations second world war, Fallschirmjäger action, Fallschirmjäger operations, Fallschirmjäger video, Fallschirmjäger, ardennes

Id: pco14bkBEGs

Length: 15min 27sec (927 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 16 2024