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A Holocaust Survivor Recalls The Day He Was Liberated

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WWII veteran recalls liberation of Buchenwald

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The Rhine is no ordinary river. About 766 miles in length, with an average width of about 1,300 feet, the generally north-flowing waterway also is exceptionally swift and deep. Since the days of the Roman Empire it has served as central Germany's traditional defense against invasion from the west. That remained the case in the first months of 1945. Although Hitler's Reich hovered on the verge of total collapse, with its cities in ruins from Allied bombing raids and Soviet forces crashing in from the east, Germany's defenses along the Rhine River still held strong. Although American, British and French forces had occupied most of Germany west of the Rhine, they remained unable to cross the river into the Ruhr industrial center. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deemed the river totally unfordable, even at low water; and the Germans had either destroyed or were prepared to destroy every significant bridge.

Allied planners recognized that they would most likely have to undertake an amphibious crossing of the Rhine in order to penetrate deeply into German territory. That seemed to necessitate focusing on somewhere north of Bonn, where the river entered relatively open and therefore more tank-friendly terrain. Only slight consideration was given to Remagen, about fifteen miles south of Bonn, where the Ludendorff Bridge remained standing but the terrain at and east of the river was discouragingly rough. Named after General Erich Ludendorff, Germany's military leader during the latter half of World War I, the railroad bridge had been built-primarily by Russian prisoners of war-from 1916-1919 and had a span of 1,200 feet. Given that high ridges pierced by a railroad tunnel lay east of the bridge, it seemed an unlikely target for the Americans. Still, German engineers had rigged it with explosives, removing them for a time to avoid their detonation during an Allied bombing raid, and then replacing them as the Americans approached. The infantry units guarding the bridge were weak.

At Remagen, the German Fifteenth Army squared off against the American First Army, commanded by Lt. Gen. Courtney Hodges. On March 3, 1945, Hodges directed his III Corps, with Maj. Gen. John Leonard's 9th Armored Division acting as spearhead, to drive down the valley leading toward Remagen from the west. German resistance was weak and disorganized. On March 6, remnants of the Fifteenth Army retreated across the bridge as the Germans prepared to set off their explosive charges and demolish it ahead of the Americans. Men and vehicles of Brig. Gen. William Hoge's Combat Command B approached the bridge, hoping but hardly expecting that they could seize the bridge intact.

Just as the morning fog lifted on March 7, however, Lt. Col. Leonard Engeman, heading a task force of the 9th Armored Division's 14th Tank Battalion and 27th Armored Infantry Battalion, was stunned to look through his binoculars and see the bridge still intact, with German vehicles still rumbling across it. Engeman dispatched Lt. Karl Timmermann with advance forces, including some new M26 Pershing tanks, to seize the bridge. He ordered: "Go down into the town. Get through it as quickly as possible and reach the bridge. The tanks will lead. The infantry will follow on foot. Their half-tracks will bring up the rear. Let's make it snappy." Timmermann, who had been born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1921, obeyed; but German resistance in the outskirts of the town made the advance excruciatingly slow. The local German commander had plenty of time to blow the bridge, but still refused in order to let more of his troops escape across it to the east.

Lt. Timmermann's men approached the bridge at 3:15 p.m. with an increasing sense of urgency. German engineers blew a charge near the west span, damaging it and making it temporarily impassable for tanks. Timmermann nevertheless rushed the bridge with his infantry. The Germans tried to blow the central span, but the charges failed to detonate. Finally another charge blew and the bridge seemed to rise in the air-before settling back down on its original structure. In their haste, the German engineers had placed a detonator improperly-and those Russian prisoners of war had built the bridge too well!

Fanciful official US Army painting of the assault on Remagen Bridge. Photo Courtesy of the US Army.

Sergeant Alexander A. Drabik was given credit as the first American to cross the bridge to the east bank of the Rhine. There was hard fighting to follow, however, as the Americans cleared the railroad tunnel-which the Germans might also have blown-and secured the ridge overlooking the crossing. And although the Americans were able to make some quick repairs to the damaged bridge, allowing troops and vehicles to cross, it lasted only ten days longer before collapsing under pressures of traffic and German air attack before collapsing for good on March 17. The unexpected prize at Remagen forced the Allies to shift their strategy for invading central Germany, and more time would pass before they broke out from their new bridgehead. The crossing of the Rhine at Remagen, however, marked a decisive moment heralding the impending collapse of Germany.

The Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen shortly after its capture, 7 March 1945. US Army Signal Corps, National Archives.

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Crossing the Rhine at Remagen | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

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The US Army's surprise capture of the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany, broke open Germany's defenses in the west.

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Yalta: World War Two summit that reshaped the world

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As World War Two was ending the leaders of the UK, US and USSR met to plan post-war peace.

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Hiroshima atomic bomb: Survivor recalls horrors - BBC News

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Liberation of concentration camps

German's overtaking

Yalta Conference's aims and results

Germany's surrender

The atomic bomb, the options it brought and consequences

The United Nations

The Potsdam Conference

The Nuremberg Trials

The result of the war boom in America

The Servicemen's Readjustment Act

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The United Nations Is Created | Flashback | History

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NOTE TO READERS
"Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations" has been retired and is no longer maintained. For more information, please see the full notice.

The Big Three-Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (replaced on July 26 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee), and U.S. President Harry Truman-met in Potsdam, Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to negotiate terms for the end of World War II. After the Yalta Conference of February 1945, Stalin, Churchill, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had agreed to meet following the surrender of Germany to determine the postwar borders in Europe. Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945, and the Allied leaders agreed to meet over the summer at Potsdam to continue the discussions that had begun at Yalta. Although the Allies remained committed to fighting a joint war in the Pacific, the lack of a common enemy in Europe led to difficulties reaching consensus concerning postwar reconstruction on the European continent.

Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin and President Harry Truman

The major issue at Potsdam was the question of how to handle Germany. At Yalta, the Soviets had pressed for heavy postwar reparations from Germany, half of which would go to the Soviet Union. While Roosevelt had acceded to such demands, Truman and his Secretary of State, James Byrnes, were determined to mitigate the treatment of Germany by allowing the occupying nations to exact reparations only from their own zone of occupation. Truman and Byrnes encouraged this position because they wanted to avoid a repetition of the situation created by the Treaty of Versailles, which had exacted high reparations payments from Germany following World War One. Many experts agreed that the harsh reparations imposed by the Versailles Treaty had handicapped the German economy and fueled the rise of the Nazis.

Despite numerous disagreements, the Allied leaders did manage to conclude some agreements at Potsdam. For example, the negotiators confirmed the status of a demilitarized and disarmed Germany under four zones of Allied occupation. According to the Protocol of the Conference, there was to be "a complete disarmament and demilitarization of Germany"; all aspects of German industry that could be utilized for military purposes were to be dismantled; all German military and paramilitary forces were to be eliminated; and the production of all military hardware in Germany was forbidden. Furthermore, German society was to be remade along democratic lines by repeal of all discriminatory laws from the Nazi era and by the arrest and trial of those Germans deemed to be "war criminals." The German educational and judicial systems were to be purged of any authoritarian influences, and democratic political parties would be encouraged to participate in the administration of Germany at the local and state level. The reconstitution of a national German Government was, however, postponed indefinitely, and the Allied Control Commission (which was comprised of four occupying powers, the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union) would run the country during the interregnum.

One of the most controversial matters addressed at the Potsdam Conference dealt with the revision of the German-Soviet-Polish borders and the expulsion of several million Germans from the disputed territories. In exchange for the territory it lost to the Soviet Union following the readjustment of the Soviet-Polish border, Poland received a large swath of German territory and began to deport the German residents of the territories in question, as did other nations that were host to large German minority populations. The negotiators at Potsdam were well-aware of the situation, and even though the British and Americans feared that a mass exodus of Germans into the western occupation zones would destabilize them, they took no action other than to declare that "any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner" and to request that the Poles, Czechoslovaks and Hungarians temporarily suspend additional deportations.

In addition to settling matters related to Germany and Poland, the Potsdam negotiators approved the formation of a Council of Foreign Ministers that would act on behalf of the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China to draft peace treaties with Germany's former allies. Conference participants also agreed to revise the 1936 Montreux Convention, which gave Turkey sole control over the Turkish Straits. Furthermore, the United States, Great Britain, and China released the "Potsdam Declaration," which threatened Japan with "prompt and utter destruction" if it did not immediately surrender (the Soviet Union did not sign the declaration because it had yet to declare war on Japan).

The Potsdam Conference is perhaps best known for President Truman's July 24, 1945 conversation with Stalin, during which time the President informed the Soviet leader that the United States had successfully detonated the first atomic bomb on July 16, 1945. Historians have often interpreted Truman's somewhat firm stance during negotiations to the U.S. negotiating team's belief that U.S. nuclear capability would enhance its bargaining power. Stalin, however, was already well-informed about the U.S. nuclear program thanks to the Soviet intelligence network; so he also held firm in his positions. This situation made negotiations challenging. The leaders of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, who, despite their differences, had remained allies throughout the war, never met again collectively to discuss cooperation in postwar reconstruction.

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Milestones: 1937-1945 - Office of the Historian

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Nürnberg trials, Nürnberg also spelled Nuremberg, series of trials held in Nürnberg, Germany, in 1945-46, in which former Nazi leaders were indicted and tried as war criminals by the International Military Tribunal. The indictment lodged against them contained four counts: (1) crimes against peace (i.e., the planning, initiating, and waging of wars of aggression in violation of international treaties and agreements), (2) crimes against humanity (i.e., exterminations, deportations, and genocide), (3) war crimes (i.e., violations of the laws of war), and (4) "a common plan or conspiracy to commit" the criminal acts listed in the first three counts.

The authority of the International Military Tribunal to conduct these trials stemmed from the London Agreement of August 8, 1945. On that date, representatives from the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the provisional government of France signed an agreement that included a charter for an international military tribunal to conduct trials of major Axis war criminals whose offenses had no particular geographic location. Later 19 other nations accepted the provisions of this agreement. The tribunal was given the authority to find any individual guilty of the commission of war crimes (counts 1-3 listed above) and to declare any group or organization to be criminal in character. If an organization was found to be criminal, the prosecution could bring individuals to trial for having been members, and the criminal nature of the group or organization could no longer be questioned. A defendant was entitled to receive a copy of the indictment, to offer any relevant explanation to the charges brought against him, and to be represented by counsel and confront and cross-examine the witnesses.

The tribunal consisted of a member plus an alternate selected by each of the four signatory countries. The first session, under the presidency of Gen. I.T. Nikitchenko, the Soviet member, took place on October 18, 1945, in Berlin. At this time, 24 former Nazi leaders were charged with the perpetration of war crimes, and various groups (such as the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police) were charged with being criminal in character. Beginning on November 20, 1945, all sessions of the tribunal were held in Nürnberg under the presidency of Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence (later Baron Trevethin and Oaksey), the British member.

After 216 court sessions, on October 1, 1946, the verdict on 22 of the original 24 defendants was handed down. ( Robert Ley committed suicide while in prison, and Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach's mental and physical condition prevented his being tried.) Three of the defendants were acquitted: Hjalmar Schacht, Franz von Papen, and Hans Fritzsche. Four were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from 10 to 20 years: Karl Dönitz, Baldur von Schirach, Albert Speer, and Konstantin von Neurath. Three were sentenced to life imprisonment: Rudolf Hess, Walther Funk, and Erich Raeder. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death by hanging. Ten of them- Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Alfred Rosenberg, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Keitel, and Arthur Seyss-Inquart-were hanged on October 16, 1946. Martin Bormann was tried and condemned to death in absentia, and Hermann Göring committed suicide before he could be executed.

In rendering these decisions, the tribunal rejected the major defenses offered by the defendants. First, it rejected the contention that only a state, and not individuals, could be found guilty of war crimes; the tribunal held that crimes of international law are committed by men and that only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced. Second, it rejected the argument that the trial and adjudication were ex post facto. The tribunal responded that such acts had been regarded as criminal prior to World War II.

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Nürnberg trials | Facts, Definition, & Prominent Defendants

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Nurnberg trials, a series of trials held in Nurnberg, Germany, in 1945-46, in which former Nazi leaders were indicted and tried as war criminals by the International Military Tribunal. The court rejected the defense that only countries could perpetrate war crimes and found most of the original 24 defendants guilty.