On History's Edge

Nine Allied armies, knifing into central Germany, trapped one Nazi army group and were on the verge of cutting off a second. In this week, on the edge of history, the outnumbered, outmaneuvered, broken Wehrmacht faced the chilling prospect of losing two-thirds of its strength in the west.

Completely encircled in the industrial Ruhr--Germany's last important source of coal, power and war machines--were some 100,000 troops of Field Marshal Walter Model's Army Group B. Rapidly pulling out of The Netherlands in a race against the British was Field Marshal Johannes Blaskowitz' Army Group H. The British were well on the road to Bremen, Hamburg and Wilhelmshaven. If they won the race, then Blaskowitz's fight was virtually over.

But the Allies were not merely waiting for that trap to spring. American and British tank columns cut eastward along Adolf Hitler's wide superhighways with overwhelming power. The farthest advanced Americans were only 198 miles from the nearest Russians. What was left to the Germans for the defense of Berlin, of Leipzig and Munich was a beaten, confused, retreating mass that could turn to fight only in knots of resistance. The last hope of the Nazi command seemed to be only this : abandon the north-south defense of Germany as speedily as possible and pivot to hold the southern bastion of the Bavarian Alps for a final, suicidal defense.

And even that hope was in danger. If the western Allies and the Russians, beating up from the Austrian frontier, could meet quickly, the bastion would be useless. Allied tank columns tore southeast toward Nuernberg at week's end.

Arms Around the Ruhr. The Ruhr encirclement--major prize in a week of blue ribbon advances--was a product of two armies. Lieut. General William H. Simpson's U.S. Ninth (under the tactical direction of Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery) threw one arm around the top. Lieut. General Courtney H. Hodges' First Army (under General Omar N. Bradley's Twelfth Army Group) turned north, tore through the last German defenses to wrap the other arm. The Ninth and the First shook hands at a street corner in the little town of Lippstadt on Easter Sunday. A First Army commander found Colonel Sidney R. Hinds giving orders to his combat team of the Ninth. Said a nearby corporal: "That makes it formal."

On to Bremen. In the north the growing British threat to seal off The Netherlands was suddenly revealed. After five days of news blackout, cautious Field Marshal Montgomery lifted the curtain a little. His British Second Army was making spectacular strides into the Westphalian plain along the hedge-lined roads. His drive swung up into the cathedral town of Muenster, and was reported this week hightailing northward less than 75 miles from Bremen.

In the U.S. Third Army sector, Lieut. General George S. Patton's armor had driven into the outskirts of Kassel (see below). South of Patton, Lieut. General Alexander M. Patch's U.S. Seventh Army--a late starter across the Rhine--was one of the farthest east. South of Patch this week the French First Army jumped across the Rhine to join the fight in the Karlsruhe area. Somewhere between Patton and Hodges to the north, the U.S. Fifteenth Army came into battle.

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