Word: gerdes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Fine Weather. It was fine weather for a withdrawal, and canny Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt made the most of it. Volksgrenadiere in trenches took up the fight, while armor and SS infantry pulled out. In some sectors, the punching, pushing Allies encountered aggressive "counter-reconnaissance screening forces"-in others, only mines in the snow, unguarded roadblocks and the eternal booby traps. Around Bastogne, Rundstedt counterattacked persistently to shield the swelling stream of German tanks and transport flowing east through Houffalize and Saint-Vith...
...third day of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt's surprise offensive, fog lay like a folded shroud over the wooded hills and rocky fields of southeastern Belgium. Near Stavelot a large German armored task force of tanks, tank destroyers, self-propelled guns and trucks snaked northward. Its aims: to seize U.S. gasoline and supply dumps just beyond Stavelot, to cut in behind the communications and supply lines of the U.S. First and Ninth Armies. At little Stavelot (pop. 5,000) the Germans would be only 22 miles from Liege, vital U.S. supply point at the end of the line...
When Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt's advanced forces reached Celles they were jumped by First Army tanks, artillery and infantry, aided by U.S. and British planes. The enemy lost 63 tanks, 49 guns, 177 vehicles, 1,200 prisoners, uncounted dead. Then, in a wild two-day battle the German remnants were driven back to Rochefort...
...gamble to a continued, steady, losing retreat. Adolf Hitler had withdrawn into the shadows and Heinrich Himmler was Germany's Man of 1944. Himmler had held the people and the Army in line while he squeezed them for the last ounces of German strength. Field Marshal Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt, the cold, wily Junker who mounted the December counteroffensive, was the Man of the Hour...
...spite of Gerd von Rundstedt's dashing drive against the U.S. armies, Germans at home had their own summary of the Christmas situation...