bigpigeon.us webpage WWII-Germany > The ETO > Alsace 1945 > Nordwind, © 2023 by Robert A. Christiansen, updated by RAC 26 Sep 2022.
Operation Nordwind was the German name for the January 1945 Wehrmacht counteroffensive into northern Alsace.
Operation Nordwind was the German name for the January 1945 Wehrmacht counteroffensive into northern Alsace.
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With much of General Patton's Third Army diverted north to the Ardennes to counter the Wehrmacht advance in the Battle of the Bulge, General Patch's Seventh Army became responsible for the portion of the Allied line that faced the German Saarland and eastern Palatinate. On 1 January 1945, the Wehrmacht attacked from the north into the thinned American line.
Thus began the little-known Operation Nordwind, the last major German counteroffensive in the ETO. Operation Nordwind was on a much smaller scale than the German Ardennes counteroffensive, and unlike the Battle of the Bulge, US lines yielded rather than being penetrated. However, German forces retained much of their Nordwind gains until mid-March when the Seventh Army moved north during Operation Undertone. |
Operation Nordwind, Northern Alsace, January 1945
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The above map shows the limit of the German advance, around 25 January when Operation Nordwind officially ended. By this date, the French and US operation to eliminate the Colmar Pocket to the south had already begun.
Sources for Big Pigeon's The ETO > Alsace 1945 > Nordwind webpage:
Major sources:
Pottawattamie Area WW II Dead - The ETO > Alsace 1945 > Nordwind:
† Drake, Eldon C., SN 37-403-963, US Army, Cass Co.
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/.
- Operation Northwind, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwind_(1944).
- Operation Nordwind, Northern Alsace, January 1945, map - C/O U.S. Army Center of Military History, https://history.army.mil.
Pottawattamie Area WW II Dead - The ETO > Alsace 1945 > Nordwind:
- Taken from the bigpigeon.us WWII Roster module.
† Drake, Eldon C., SN 37-403-963, US Army, Cass Co.
- Co. B., 25th Tank Bn., 14th Armored Div., VI Corps, Seventh Army; attached to 36th Inf. Div. at time of death; KIA 7 Feb 1945 northern Alsace, France; The ETO > Alsace 1945 > Nordwind.