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...making the inevitable an accomplished fact kept taking thousands of lives. Hitler's last big offensive, the Battle of the Bulge, crashed through U.S. lines in the snow-covered Ardennes Forest just before Christmas of 1944. When the battle was over, the Germans had suffered more than 100,000 casualties, the Allies 81 ,000. From then on, the German retreat never really stopped. U.S. forces seized the Remagen bridge and swarmed across the Rhine in March. Frankfurt fell, then Karlsruhe. The Soviets took Vienna on April...
...wild euphoria, when he ordered his shattered forces to counterattack. "The Russians have overextended themselves so much that the decisive battle can be won at Berlin," he declared. Then came fits of despair, when he vowed to die in his besieged capital. "Should this fateful battle of the German people under my leadership fail," he said, "then the German people do not deserve to exist...
...field headquarters near the Elbe, Lieut. General William Simpson was working on his plans to seize Berlin. There was little evidence of German opposition. Simpson's U.S. 2nd Armored and 83rd Infantry divisions would race right up the autobahn to the capital. Then Lieut. General Omar Bradley summoned him back to headquarters in Wiesbaden. "You have to stop right where you are," Bradley said. "You can't go any farther. You must pull back across the Elbe...
...probably one of Dwight Eisenhower's worst miscalculations, though he never admitted it. Berlin "was politically and psychologically important as the symbol of remaining German power," the Allied Commander wrote later. "I decided, however, that it was not the logical or the most desirable objective ... To sustain a strong force at such a distance from our major bases along the Rhine would have meant the practical immobilization of units along the remainder of the front. This I felt to be more than unwise; it was stupid...
Robertson had recently passed a German prison camp, so he sent back to find someone who could speak Russian. When a Soviet prisoner of war was produced, Robertson and the man headed toward the wrecked bridge across the Elbe and shouted that they were friends. On the eastern bank, several uniformed men approached the bomb-shattered bridge. Robertson and the Russian began scrambling across the river, clawing their way from girder to bent girder. As they neared the far shore, one of the Russians finally crawled out on the bridge to meet them...