The nut is taken. Someone must have whispered, or at least thought, while observing the river on the other side. The Rhine Like Rubicone. He like Caesar. Whether it was a general or the simplest of the soldiers, because in the war, in front of the great moments, all are the same: it was not exactly another famous leader, that Napoleon Bonaparte, to repeat to his who “Each soldier brings the marshal stick to his backpack ” ?
A bridge of remagen
In March of [1945after the victory in the Ardenne, it was clear that nothing could stop the advance of the allies as a natural obstacle that can make the real difference: the Rhine precisely, the last line of western defense. If the bridges had been kept, or destroyed, if the allies had been nailed on the western bank, and exposed to the cannons shooting, ai blitz of what remained of the Luftwaffe, even at the shot of the rockets V2, the extraordinary Wunderwaffen of Hitler, perhaps no Anglo -American soldier would have set foot in the heart of the Reich.
Natural barrier that for centuries protected Germany from western invaders, the large, deep and long Rhine found in half of its course a mountainous stretch and a forest impractical for the armored vehicles essential to the battle. The city of Remagen And the mighty bridge named after General Lutandorff, who had proposed its construction during the Great War, and connected it to Erpel, on the other side.
The 12th Army Group of the US General Omar Bradley, who could also count on the army of the legendary general George Patton, had to focus on the passable tract and cross it. Initially, the leaders and the Intelligence analysts of the Shaef, the supreme command of the allied expedition to Europe, did not believe that that point of the river was practicable and that a bridgehead could be exploited for an advance in western Germany, even if it was evident how a passage at that point would have projected them, in case of victory, in the heart of western Germany. Just where the industrial heart of the Ruhr and of the Saar.
According to the supreme command that responding to Dwight D. Eisenhower, no bridge was still standing on the Rhine, therefore neither the US army group, nor the British one, the 21st in command of General Bernard Montgomery could cross agly. No one except for the Remagen railway bridge, with its solids steel arches and defenses from high stone towers In medieval style, full of slits from which the reeds of the modern MG 42 machine guns emerged.
On the other side of the bridge – under demolition With an order of “trigger” just for Hitler’s wishes or the commander of the sector to prevent the enemy advance – it was the bulk of the BRDRATE BRIGHT under the orders of the Feldaresse Walter Model, while in defense of the same it was a mixture of small units composed of old veterans and young Hitlerians.
The American avant -garde launched the first attacks in the first week of March, just as the German command took turns, and the new summit entrusted to the major Scheller the discretionary demolition of the bridge where he had considered it necessary. Needless to say, that, in previous cases, the officers who had committed “Evaluation errors“In the destruction or non-destruction of a strategic bridge they had ended up in front of the martial court, and, in the best of cases, straight on the eastern front. At 7 March the Germans began to retire to cross the bridge and risked on the other side of the Rhine, while the first modern armed tanks M-26 Pershing who exhibited the five-pointed star, took a position on the doors of Remagen.
Before time x
When the Americans reached the mouth of the bridge from the Remagen side, a first position blew the access ramp, but in the clashes with the first German line, a prisoner who fell in the enemy hand revealed the intention to blow up the bridge in the air at 16:00. Reason why Americans thought was necessary “hurry“.
What happened later, belongs to total chaos, while the Americans ventured on the bridge under the cross fire that hammering the tanks and infantry, which protected behind them, the Germans tried to trigger the charges to destroy the bridge. The remote trigger had not worked, and it had to proceed manually, but the amount of explosive Insufficient and in addition to the incoming type, he left the bridge standing albeit trembling. The soldiers who advanced under the shooting of the machine guns feared that the bridge could crumble under their feet.
One after the other the defensive towers were silenced, and before the time X, an American sergeant became the “First American soldier to cross the Rhine“. If you take Remagen and cross the bridge it was “A kids game”climbing the hill overlooking the eastern bank and conquering the top, it was a real act of courage. By an hour the bridge head on the other side of the Rhine was insured. Those who would cross him from the following 24 hours would have found a sign “Cross the Rhine with dry feet, courtesy of the 9th battleship division“, The first Americans to have crossed. But that was only the beginning.
Soldiers and general
After the first American soldier had crossed the bridge, others followed, and in short, tanks, and light armored, arrived in the following 120. The conquest of the intact Remagen bridge was not in the allies’ plans, in a certain sense, an unexpected event had been a stroke.
General Bradley had reported the success of his avant -garde, but Shaef’s response was initially lukewarm. Only after telling Eisenhower of the crucial turning point, the commander -in -chief of the allied expedition replied to Bradley: “Go to the other side immediately with everything you have. It’s the best turning point we had … the planners! Go ahead, Brad, and I will give you everything we have to keep your head bridge. We will make good use even if the ground is not the best“And so he did.
“Wonderful” weapons for the counterattack
On the morning of March 8, the Feltmaresse Model was informed that the Americans controlled Remagen and the two ends of the Lutandorff bridge, which was still suspended on the Rhine. Training of counterattackformed by just sixty tanks and 12,000 men, was gathered in formidable times to bar the way to the Americans and try to resume or at least destroy the bridge.
Informed of the facts, Hitler went on a rage. He dismissed Model, replacing him with the Feldramaresse Kesserling, and made all the subordinate officers process. Four of them ended up in front of a platoon of execution. While the Americans tried to stand at the eastern shore, the Germans, who had raised a defensive perimeter to stem their advance, attempted to concentrate the fire of the artillery and the bombers’ raids on the sector. The open space between Remagen and the end of the bridge became known as “corner of the dead man“And while 8,000 American soldiers stood on the other side, the genieri, convinced that the bridge would collapse at any moment, laid the foundations for the first artificial bridge.
The Americans took every possible countermeasure, to protect themselves from the sabotages of the Kampfschwimmerthe frog men of the Ass-Kampfschwimmergruppe, from pocket submarines and by the attacks from the air conducted by the brand new Luftwaffe planes, i bombers and reaction hunting AR-234 and ME-262. Nothing, neither the sabotage nor the bombers proved effective. The turn of the real Wunderwaffen came then.
On 17 March the first rocket V2 It was launched against Remagen. The impact of the supersonic missile made the earth tremble but did not centrice the goal. Like the other ten rockets that followed him, all launched by secret installations of Hellendoorn in the Netherlands. Nonetheless, that same day an arch of the bridge collapsed, carrying the artificial bridges spread by the American genieri.
The last desperate attempt to destroy the bridge took place on March 20, entrusted an obice Heavy Karl-Gerät 600 mm, put in line by the Germans. The 14 shots fired on Remagen did not bring significant effects, and the weapon was withdrawn. It was then that the Germans stopped at the idea that the head of the Americans’ bridge, despite every effort, had to be considered as “consolidated”. The nut had been taken, really, and who had collected the challenge, without going back, the Caesar of this story, was a sergeant from Ohio. The first to cross the Remagen bridge.
His name was Alexander Albert Drabik. He had run 398 meters under enemy fire knowing that the bridge on which he ran was mined, and could crumble under his feet.
Joke of fate, his parents were emigrants from Germany, and he had become one of many Heroes of America Like his superior officer, another American son of immigrants, born less than a hundred kilometers on the other side of the Rhine.