Westheer

Last updated April 29, 2019

The Westheer ("Western army") is the name given to the German Army fighting on the Western front of World War II after 1941. The Oberbefehlshaber West was the largest command structure for the Westheer.

The Western Front was a military theatre of World War II encompassing Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany. World War II military engagements in Southern Europe and elsewhere are generally considered under separate headings. The Western Front was marked by two phases of large-scale combat operations. The first phase saw the capitulation of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France during May and June 1940 after their defeat in the Low Countries and the northern half of France, and continued into an air war between Germany and Britain that climaxed with the Battle of Britain. The second phase consisted of large-scale ground combat, which began in June 1944 with the Allied landings in Normandy and continued until the defeat of Germany in May 1945.

The German Army Command in the West (Oberbefehlshaber West was the overall command of the Westheer, the German Armed Forces on the Western Front during World War II. It was directly subordinate to German Armed Forces High Command. The area under the command of the OB West varied as the war progressed. At its farthest extent it reached the French Atlantic coast. By the end of World War II in Europe it was reduced to commanding troops in Bavaria.

History

It was composed of Army Group H, which was based in the Netherlands under Generaloberst Kurt Student, Army Group B, covering northern France under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and Army Group G, which was based in southern France under the command of Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz. Also included was the Panzer Group West, under the command of General der Panzertruppe Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg.

Army Group H was a German army group in the Netherlands and in Nordrhein-Westfalen during World War II.

Generaloberst, in English colonel general, was, in Germany and Austria-Hungary—the German Reichswehr and Wehrmacht, the Austro-Hungarian Common Army, and the East German National People's Army, as well as the respective police services—the second highest general officer rank, ranking above full general but below general field marshal. It was equivalent to Generaladmiral in the Kriegsmarine until 1945, or to Flottenadmiral in the Volksmarine until 1990. The rank was the highest ordinary military rank and the highest military rank awarded in peacetime; the higher rank of general field marshal was only awarded in wartime by the head of state. In general, a Generaloberst had the same privileges as a general field marshal.

Kurt Student was a general in the Luftwaffe during World War II. He led the first major airborne operation of the war, the Battle for The Hague in May 1940. The highest-ranking member of Germany's parachute infantry, he commanded the Fallschirmjäger throughout the war. In 1947, Student was tried and convicted of war crimes committed while in command on Crete.

Most of Westheer's divisions were static infantry divisions, which did not have their own organic transport to move their own artillery. They were also laden with Ost battalions, which were made up of Russian POWs who had chosen to serve in the Wehrmacht. The leadership was also divided how to meet the invasion. Rommel, who commanded the expected landing areas, insisted that the panzer divisions should be near the coast, where they could quickly act without much interference. Rundstedt and von Schweppenburg suggested that they should be kept inland, to outmaneuver the enemy in battle. Thus, they were unsure on what to do in D-day. Despite that, the Westheer had 10 Heer and Waffen SS panzer and panzergrenadier divisions, besides some veteran infantry divisions of the Eastern Front which were currently refitting in France at D-day. At D-day, the Westheer had around 58 divisions organized into four armies.

Artillery class of weapons which fires munitions beyond the range and power of personal weapons

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Ostlegionen, Ost-Bataillone, Osttruppen, and Osteinheiten were units in the Army of Nazi Germany, during World War II that were made up of personnel from countries comprising the Soviet Union. They represented a major subset within a broader number of the Wehrmacht foreign volunteers and conscripts.

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It was commanded by Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt at the time of Operation Overlord. Hitler's refusal to release the armored reserve until 1430 hours on D-day prevented the Germans from eliminating the allied beachheads while they were lightly held. Thus, the Westheer was embroiled in a battle of attrition which it could not win. Particularly difficult was the surrounding bocage of the Norman countryside, which seriously hampered armored operations and the allied bombing, which prevented the Germans from receiving reinforcements in strength. After Operation Cobra, the Westheer's order of battle was decimated by the destruction of the Falaise pocket, which consisted primarily of Army Group B.

Generalfeldmarschall was a rank in the armies of several German states and the Holy Roman Empire (Reichsgeneralfeldmarschall); in the Habsburg Monarchy, the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, the rank Feldmarschall was used. The rank was the equivalent to Großadmiral in the Kaiserliche Marine and Kriegsmarine, a five-star rank, comparable to OF-10 in today's NATO naval forces.

Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt was a Field Marshal in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II.

Attrition warfare is a military strategy consisting of belligerent attempts to win a war by wearing down the enemy to the point of collapse through continuous losses in personnel and material. The war will usually be won by the side with greater such resources. The word attrition comes from the Latin root atterere to rub against, similar to the "grinding down" of the opponent's forces in attrition warfare.

Although the Westheer regrouped after Falaise to fight in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest and Battle of the Bulge, it never exhibited the strength that they had in the summer of 1944. Most of its divisions at that time were understrength in personnel and equipment. The remnants of the Westheer disintegrated after the American breakthrough in the Battle of Remagen.

The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Counteroffensive, took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945, and was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in eastern Belgium, northeast France, and Luxembourg, towards the end of the war in Europe. The offensive was intended to stop Allied use of the Belgian port of Antwerp and to split the Allied lines, allowing the Germans to encircle and destroy four Allied armies and force the Western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis powers' favor.

The Battle of Remagen during the Allied invasion of Germany resulted in the unexpected capture of the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine and shortened World War II in Europe. After capturing the Siegfried Line, the 9th Armored Division of the U.S. First Army had advanced unexpectedly quickly towards the Rhine. They were very surprised to see one of the last bridges across the Rhine still standing. The Germans had wired the bridge with about 2,800 kilograms (6,200 lb) of demolition charges. When they tried to blow it up, only a portion of the explosives detonated. U.S. forces captured the bridge and rapidly expanded their first bridgehead across the Rhine, two weeks before Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's meticulously planned Operation Plunder. The GIs' actions prevented the Germans from regrouping east of the Rhine and consolidating their positions.

Most units of the Westheer surrendered in the last weeks of World War II, especially at the Ruhr Pocket.

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.

The Ruhr Pocket was a battle of encirclement that took place in April 1945, on the Western Front near the end of World War II, in the Ruhr Area of Germany. Some 317,000 German troops, consisting mostly of unarmed Volksturm militia and Hitlerjugend units were taken prisoner along with 24 generals. The Americans suffered 10,000 casualties including 2,000 killed or missing.

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