The Battle of Aachen was a military engagement fought between the US First Army, led by General Courtney Hodges, and the German 116th Panzer Division in and around Aachen from October 2 to 21, 1944, during World War II. This town was the First Army's main obstacle in German territory on their way to the Ruhr region. Thus, it had to be taken at all cost as the Germans were ready to put up stiff resistance to the Allied advance.
The British Second Army would launch Operation Market Garden on September 17, 1944, to establish a bridgehead on the eastern shore of the Rhine River to invade northern Germany. To the south, the US First Army advanced eastward through the Belgian border into Germany. On September 14, 1944, the Americans came across the town of Aachen, which was defended by the German 116th Panzer-Division, under Gerhard von Schwerin. As the Americans closed in on the German positions, intense fighting broke out on the outskirts of Aachen between the two opposing forces on September 15 and 16.
On October 2, men of the US 1st and 30th Infantry Division, First Army, engaged the Germans in fierce combat action as they poured through the Siegfried Line near Aachen. The US 30th Infantry Division was reinforced by 743rd Tank Battalion. Meanwhile, the war-mangled 116th Panzer Division had been beefed up by a Volkssturm's 5,000-men unit. To avoid being drawn into town and having to fight a vicious house-to-house urban battle, the American commanders of the 1st and 30th Division decided to surround the city in pincer movements, encircling the city. Thus, ferocious fighting took place in smaller towns nearby, such as Übach and Merkstein-Herbach as the battle raged on for weeks.
Finally, on October 21, 1944, the German commander, Gerhard von Schwerin unilaterally decided to withdraw from Aachen and declared it an open town without seeking approval from superior command, in a manner similar to what General Dietrich von Choltitz had done in Paris two weeks earlier. The main rational for retreating and abandoning the city was the fact that his unit had been severely decimated, with only a few working tanks and totally deprived of artillery guns.
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| Above, an M4 Sherman tank going through a building at the end of the battle. |
Battle of Aachen (video-footage from National Archive)
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