Word: strasbourgers
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...here, where the Germans were strongest, that Supreme Commander "Ike" Eisenhower apparently hoped to break them most decisively. The Big Push was violently shaking the German fence from end to end; as pickets fell off, Allied troops were shouldering through to snatch prizes like Strasbourg and Belfort. But such openings would not tear the German fence down. Only when Bradley burst through, or when Montgomery turned the end of the fence in The Netherlands, would the Allies be able to lay it flat...
...south low-grade German troops had been caught holding the forts, the passes and the river lines, and apparently with few mobile reserves. They made only token defenses of Metz, Strasbourg and Belfort. No doubt Bradley had scheduled the start of Patton's push a week ahead of the Cologne offensive on the chance that Field Marshal von Rundstedt might shove reserves into the southern breaches. Rundstedt did not yield to this incitement. Instead he crowded more men, fire power and armor into the sector east of Aachen...
...French, the liberation of Strasbourg was next in importance to the freeing of Paris. Last week Paris celebrated; the sniper-infested ancient capital of Alsace could not. The Consultative Assembly sang and cheered. In the Place de la Concorde mounds of flowers banked the massive grey stone statue dedicated to Strasbourg. Through the day Parisians walked through the great square, to doff their hats at the statue. At night, midinettes celebrating the spinsters' feast, St. Catherine's Day, kissed many a G.I. who had never been near Strasbourg...
...Patch's Seventh Army jumped off in an offensive which carried four miles the first day,15 at week's end. They captured Raon l'Etape and Gérardmer, controlling two of the Vosges passes, and Blâmont, a communications center 40 miles from Strasbourg...
Both Patton and Hodges were 24 to 48 hours ahead of SHAEF communiques. General Eisenhower again had put a security blanket over their most advanced plunges. Front reports had Patton patrols near Strasbourg, near Saarbrücken ; placed Hodges' spearheads close to the Belgian-German border...