WWII Home

The ETO

bigpigeon.us webpage WWII-Germany > The ETO > Alsace 1945, © 2023 by Robert A. Christiansen, updated by RAC 26 Dec 2022.
Alsace, in northeastern France, was subject to two military operations early in 1945.

Big Pigeon's The ETO > Alsace 1945 subpages:

• ​​Operation Nordwind
• The Colmar Pocket​

Alsace 1945 - Background

• The US 6th Army Group, consisting of the US Seventh Army and the French First Army, had liberated most of Alsace in November 1944. However, the German 19th Army remained in southern Alsace in the Colmar Pocket.
• To the north, in the Ardennes in December 1944, the German Wehrmacht launched the massive counteroffensive known as the Battle of the Bulge. The remainder of the ETO front went into a defensive posture.

Alsace 1945 - Overview

• 1 January 1945: Beginning of Operation Nordwind, a German counteroffensive in northern Alsace. The seized territory remained largely in German hands until mid-March.
• 20 January - 9 February 1945:  French and US forces eliminated the Colmar Pocket, the last German presence in southern Alsace.
• March 1945: In Operation Undertone, as part of the 1945 ETO advance to the Rhine, the Seventh Army drove north through the remaining German-occupied areas of Alsace and Lorraine, penetrated the Siegfried Line in the Saar area, and wheeled northeast to the Rhine. Third Army had already cleared the area behind the Siegfried Line. Elements of the French First Army advanced north near the Rhine River.

The accompanying  map shows both the land lost to Germany during Nordwind and the land gained from Germany by the elimination of the Colmar Pocket.

Thus, at the end of January 1945, the US 6th Army Group was on the the defensive in northern Alsace and on the offensive in southern Alsace.

Southern ETO Front, 1 Jan and 21 Jan 1945

Seventh Army Order of Battle Information:

• VI Corps and three of its divisions (3rd, 36th, 45th) came from Italy to France in August 1945.
• VX Corps, on VI Corps left flank, was acquired from Third Army in September 1944.
• ​The newly-activated XXI Corps was assigned to Seventh Army on 17 Jan 1945. From 25 January until 16 February, it was temporarily assigned to the French First Army for operations in the Colmar Pocket area.

Sources for Big Pigeon's The ETO > Alsace 1945 webpage:
Major Sources:

• Riviera to the Rhine (from the United States Army in World War II, European Theater of Operations series, by Jeffrey J. Clarke and Robert Ross Smith, 1993) - http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Riviera/.

Sources for webpage images: (C/O = courtesy of)