Crossing the Roer

Pigeon Central

The ETO

bigpigeon.us webarea WW II - Germany > ETO > Rhineland 1945, updated by RAC 11 Oct 2020

​After recovering from the Battle of the Bulge and renewing offensives eastwards against the German Army, US forces faced two physical obstacles:

• The Siegfried Line, also known as the West Wall, a fortified region that paralleled much of the western German border. In the northern part of the US sector, the Siegfried Line had earlier been penetrated and the front lay further east along the Roer River.
• The Rhine River, flowing northward from Switzerland into the Netherlands.

The Rhineland Campaign's goal was to break through the Siegfried Line and occupy the entire left bank of the Rhine preliminary to a Rhine crossing.

Links to The Rhineland 1945 subordinate webpages: (webpages not yet complete)

• Ninth & First Armies - during the Rhineland Campaign, advanced to the lower Rhine between Wesel and Remagen.
• Third & Seventh Armies - during the Rhineland Campaign, advanced to the middle Rhine between Coblenz and Mannheim.

Allied Armies:

• The Canadian 1st Army and the British 2nd Army had responsibility for the left bank of the Rhine below Wesel.
• The French 1st Army had left bank responsibility for the  Strasbourg sector southward, and eventually south of Speyer.

The Rhineland Campaign Overview
​
The arrows on the accompanying Canadian map show the major actions of the seven Allied armies during the Rhineland Campaign, starting on 8 February. The heavy dashed line shows the situation on 23 March 1945, with three Rhine crossings already in place. US sources generally use 21 March as the Rhineland Campaign ending date.

General Eisenhower advocated capturing all of the Rhine's left bank before attempting a crossing. Crossing plans called for a massive amphibious and airborne operation in the vicinity of Wesel at the top of the map. Thus the Rhineland Campaign was initially planned with the future Wesel crossing in mind, with priority to Montgomery's 21st Army Group in the north. Bradley's 12th Army Group in the middle was initially cast in a supporting role. Dever's 6th Army Group in the south was recovering from recent battles and did not participate in the Rhineland Campaign until mid March. 

As the Rhineland Campaign progressed, events caused drastic changes in the original plans. Apropros of this, it was General Eisenhower who passed into common parlance the saying "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything".

The Rhineland Campaign Overview

The Rhineland Campaign Battleground Area

Over most of the Western Front, Allied lines on 8 February 1945 differed little from the lines of 15 December 1944, the eve of Germany's Ardennes Counteroffensive. However, in the south, the 6th Army Group had just eliminated the Colmar Pocket in southern Alsace but had not recovered the territory in northern Alsace lost to Germany's January Nordwind counteroffensive.

In summary, the overall Allied plan for early 1945 was to launch a massive invasion across the lower Rhine after the Rhineland Campaign had eliminated German presence throughout the west bank.

The Rhineland Campaign ranged over the portions of today's North Rhine - Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Saarland German federal states that lie west of the Rhine River, as well as northern Alsace in France.

The Sixteen German Federal States Today

I conceptualize the Rhineland Campaign of 1945 as consisting of three phases. To demark each phase, I've used the date on the accompanying map.

First Phase, 8 Feb - 5 Mar 1945, Advance past the Roer River in the north & the Siegfried Line in the middle.

Summary of US Army major actions: 

• Ninth Army crossed the Roer River and advanced towards the Rhine, reaching the Rhine in early March.
• First Army's northen sector, supporting the Ninth Army's right flank, crossed the Roer and advanced to the Rhine, siezing Cologne/Køln, Germany's 4th largest city, on March 5.
• Third Army smashed through the Siegfried line throughout its sector.
• Seventh Army (not shown on the map) remained largely static.

By March 5, as shown by the solid red line on the Siegfried Line Smashed map, the stage was set for some remarkable episodes in the European Theater, summarized in the subordinate webpages.

The Siegfried Line Smashed, February 1945

Second Phase, 6 - 10 Mar 1945, Close to the Rhine in the North, breakout in the middle:

• Ninth Army occupied most of the Rhine left bank in its sector.
• First Army: III and V Corps sent columns southeast, occupied the northern Eifel and crossed the Rhine in one location.
• Third Army sent columns northeast through the southern Eifel to the Rhine.
• Seventh Army (not shown on the map) remained largely static.

The joint First and Third Army operation summarized above is sometimes called Operation Lumberjack. It cleared German troops from the Eifel Plateau area north of the Moselle River. 

• Early on 7 March, elements of the First Army's 9th Armored Division arrived on heights over Remagen on the Rhine River and discovered an intact bridge across the Rhine. More in the Crossing the Rhine webpage.
• To spearhead the Third Army's contribution to Operation Lumberjack, General Patton chose combat commands from two armored divisions to advance in parallel, the 11th Armored from east of Prum and the 4th Armored from east of Bitburg. Elements of the 4th Armored arrived three miles from the Rhine, also on 7 March.

The Eifel Plateau Overrun

Third Phase, 11-24 Mar 1945, Clear the Palatinate and Saarland in the south:

Ninth Army prepared for the pending Rhine Crossing.
First Army prepared for a breakout from the Remagen Bridgehead.
Third Army bridged the Moselle River in various locations and raced southeast, both to different Rhine crossing sites and to support the Seventh Army offensive.
Seventh Army's offensive , Operation Undertone, began on 15 March. Note on the accompanying map that Seventh Army still had to advance through northeastern Alsace, and then through the Siegfried Line. Considering these difficulties, the Seventh Army turned over additional portions of the Palatinate to the Third Army. The revised army boundary passed through Kaiserslautern as shown on the accompanying map.

Operation Undertone, the official Seventh Army offensive, began on 15 March and ended on 24 March. 

The Palatinate Cleared - status on 21 March

The Rhineland Campaign Ends

When the Rhineland Campaign officially ended on 21 March 1945, the Western Allies front lines lay on the Rhine River with two exceptions:

• The Remagen Bridgehead, established by the first Rhine crossing on 7 March, contained five First Army divisions on the Rhine's right bank.
• Further south, upstream on the Rhine, the Wehrmacht still held a portion of the Siegfried Line in the southern Palatinate. This outlier would disappear in the next several days and by the end of 25 March the German Army presence west of the Rhine would be gone, except for the Channel Islands and the several Atlantic ports that they still controlled.

In the next two days, two new Allied bridgeheads would appear on the east bank of the Rhine:

• 22 Mar late - Third Army's first Rhine crossing,  5th Division at Oppenheim begins.
• 23 Mar late - Operation Plunder, major Rhine crossing at Wesel, begins.

​The final European Theater campaign of WW II, the Central Europe Campaign, officiallymbegan on 22 March 1945.

The End of the Official Rhineland Campaign, 21 March 1945

Sources for the WW II - The Rhineland Campaign webpage:

• The webpage header photo Crossing the Roer is courtesy of the Warfare History Network.
• The Rhineland Campaign Overview map is courtesy of the Canadian website tothosewhoserved.org.
• The Sixteen German Federal States index map is courtesy of the Nations Online Project.
• The Siegfried Line Smashed, Eifel Plateau Overrun, and Palatine Cleared maps are courtesy of the United States Military Academy.
• The End of the Official Rhineland Campaign map is courtesy of the United States Military Academy. I do not believe the death figures in small type are all correct.