![]() ![]() ![]() There were questions about the availability of resources, fuel, ammunition, equipment, for such a major undertaking. No allowance was made for an Allied response once the attack began. Thirty divisions and 1,500 aircraft, including some of the new jet planes, were promised. The plan required the withdrawal of numerous divisions from active fronts to form the attack force. Alternatives were offered but quickly dismissed. Most of the German military leaders felt the plan was far too ambitious. ![]() And it had worked before, in 1914 and again 1940, so why shouldn’t it now? General Jodl immediately set out to develop the plan. After all that had happened to Germany in recent months, the defeat in Normandy, withdrawal from Southern France, retreating to the Westwall, Germany’s last line of defense, withdrawal to northern Italy, and the series of defeats in the East, how was it possible for Germany to now suddenly turn and strike at its attackers? But Hitler knew that Germany’s industry was still productive despite Allied bombing and that German morale was not only good, but improving as the Allies moved closer to the German heartland.Īrmed with deceptive figures provided to him by his various sycophants, Hitler was convinced that his plan had merit. I shall go over to the counterattack, that is to say, here, out of the Ardennes, with the objective-Antwerp.” At a routine meeting with leading members of his military staff, including the head of his Armed Forces Command, General Wilhelm Keitel, and the chief of his planning staff, General Alfred Jodl, the Fuehrer pointed to a map of the Ardennes Forest in Belgium and announced, “I have just made a momentous decision. ![]() On September 16, 1944, Adolf Hitler revealed his master plan for reversing Germany’s declining fortunes in the West during World War II. ![]()
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