Operation Stösser
Encyclopedia
Operation Stösser was a paratroop drop into the American rear in the Hohes Veen area during the Battle of the Bulge
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive , launched toward the end of World War II through the densely forested Ardennes mountain region of Wallonia in Belgium, hence its French name , and France and...

. Their objective was to take and hold the "Baraque Michel" crossroads until the arrival of the 12th SS Panzer Division
12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend
The 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend was a German Waffen SS armoured division during World War II. The Hitlerjugend was unique because the majority of its junior enlisted men were drawn from members of the Hitler Youth, while the senior NCOs and officers were generally veterans of the Eastern...

. The operation was led by Oberst
Oberst
Oberst is a military rank in several German-speaking and Scandinavian countries, equivalent to Colonel. It is currently used by both the ground and air forces of Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway. The Swedish rank överste is a direct translation, as are the Finnish rank eversti...

 Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte
Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte
Dr. jur. Dr. rer. pol. Friedrich August Freiherr von der HeydteIn German a Doctor of Law is abbreviated as Dr. iur. or Dr. jur. and a Doctorate of Economics is abbreviated as Dr. rer. pol....

. He was given only 8 days to prepare the mission. The majority of the paratroopers and pilots assigned to the operation were untrained and inexperienced. The mission was a complete failure. It was the German paratroopers' only nighttime drop during World War II.

Background

Oberst
Oberst
Oberst is a military rank in several German-speaking and Scandinavian countries, equivalent to Colonel. It is currently used by both the ground and air forces of Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway. The Swedish rank överste is a direct translation, as are the Finnish rank eversti...

 Freiherr
Freiherr
The German titles Freiherr and Freifrau and Freiin are titles of nobility, used preceding a person's given name or, after 1919, before the surname...

 Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte
Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte
Dr. jur. Dr. rer. pol. Friedrich August Freiherr von der HeydteIn German a Doctor of Law is abbreviated as Dr. iur. or Dr. jur. and a Doctorate of Economics is abbreviated as Dr. rer. pol....

, hero of the legendary if ill-fated airborne assault on Crete
Battle of Crete
The Battle of Crete was a battle during World War II on the Greek island of Crete. It began on the morning of 20 May 1941, when Nazi Germany launched an airborne invasion of Crete under the code-name Unternehmen Merkur...

, was summoned on December 8 and told to prepare for a mission, but not given any details. Von der Heydte was given only eight days to prepare. He wanted to use his own regiment, but this was forbidden because their movement might alert the Allies to the impending counterattack. Instead, he was provided with a Kampfgruppe of 800 men. The II Fallschirmkorps was tasked with contributing 100 men from each of its regiments. Instead of contributing their best men as ordered, the regiments sent their misfits and troublemakers. von der Heydte could not afford to resist too strongly. A cousin of Claus von Stauffenberg
Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg commonly referred to as Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was a German army officer and Catholic aristocrat who was one of the leading members of the failed 20 July plot of 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler and remove the Nazi Party from...

, a central figure in the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler, von der Hydte was under scrutiny.

In loyalty to their command, 150 men from von der Hydte's own unit, the 6th Fallsschirmjäger, went against orders and joined him. To avoid alerting the Allies, the Germans planned to conduct the drop without prior reconnaissance or current aerial photographs.

Lack of training

The men had little time to establish any unit cohesion or train together. Many of the men assigned to von der Heydte had never jumped out of an airplane before. von der Heydte later commented, "Never in my entire career had I been in command of a unit with less fighting spirit."

On December 13, von der Heydte visited the headquarters of Heeresgruppe B
Army Group B
Army Group B was the name of three different German Army Groups that saw action during World War II.-Battle for France:The first was involved in the Western Campaign in 1940 in Belgium and the Netherlands which was to be aimed to conquer the Maas bridges after the German airborne actions in Rotterdam...

 near Münstereifel
Bad Münstereifel
Bad Münstereifel is a historical spa town in the district of Euskirchen, Germany, with about 19,000 inhabitants, situated in the far south of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia...

 to complain that the resources allocated to him for the operation were wholly inadequate. Field Marshal
Generalfeldmarschall
Field Marshal or Generalfeldmarschall in German, was a rank in the armies of several German states and the Holy Roman Empire; in the Austrian Empire, the rank Feldmarschall was used...

 Walter Model
Walter Model
Otto Moritz Walter Model was a German general and later field marshal during World War II. He is noted for his defensive battles in the latter half of the war, mostly on the Eastern Front but also in the west, and for his close association with Adolf Hitler and Nazism...

, who had tried to persuade Hitler to attempt a less ambitious counterattack, replied that he gave the entire Ardennes Offensive
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive , launched toward the end of World War II through the densely forested Ardennes mountain region of Wallonia in Belgium, hence its French name , and France and...

 less than a 10% chance of succeeding. Model told him it was necessary to make the attempt. "It must be done because this offensive is the last chance to conclude the war favorably."

Assault delay and mis-drops

The drop was delayed for a day when the assigned aircraft did not show up. The new drop time was set for 03:00 on 17 December; the drop zone was 7 miles (11.3 km) north of Malmedy
Malmedy
Malmedy is a municipality of Belgium. It lies in the country's Walloon Region, Province of Liège. It belongs to the French Community of Belgium, within which it is French-speaking with facilities for German-speakers. On January 1, 2006 Malmedy had a total population of 11,829...

. Their objective was to seize the crossroads and hold it for approximately twenty-four hours until relieved by the 12th SS Panzer Division
12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend
The 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend was a German Waffen SS armoured division during World War II. The Hitlerjugend was unique because the majority of its junior enlisted men were drawn from members of the Hitler Youth, while the senior NCOs and officers were generally veterans of the Eastern...

, hampering the Allied flow of reinforcements and supplies into the area.

Just after midnight on 17 December, 112 Ju 52 transport planes with around 1,300 Fallschirmjäger
Fallschirmjäger
are German paratroopers. Together with the Gebirgsjäger they are perceived as the elite infantry units of the German Army....

 took off during a powerful snowstorm with strong winds and considerable low cloud cover. The Luftwaffe was very short of experienced pilots. Many of the Ju 52 transport pilots had never flown them before, half had never flown in combat,, nor were they trained to conduct drops at night or to fly in formation. Pathfinders from the Nachtschlachtgruppe 20 were supposed to lead the way, but the pilots were so inexperienced that they flew with their navigation lights on.

Many planes went off course. Two hundred and fifty men were dropped near Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

, 50 miles (80.5 km) from the intended drop zone. Some landed with their troops still on board. Strong winds deflected many paratroopers whose planes were relatively close to the intended drop zone and made their landings far rougher. Only a fraction of the force landed near the intended drop zone. Since many of the German paratroopers were very inexperienced, some were crippled upon impact and died where they fell. Some were found the following spring when the snow melted.

Confusion among Americans

Because of the extensive dispersal of the drop, Fallschirmjäger were reported all over the Ardennes, and the Allies believed a major division-sized jump had taken place, causing the Americans much confusion and convincing them to allocate men to secure the rear instead of facing the main German thrust at the front. An entire U.S. infantry regiment of 3000 men of the U.S. 18th Regiment along with an armored combat command of 300 tanks and 2,000 men searched several days for the German force. The 12th SS Panzer Division
12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend
The 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend was a German Waffen SS armoured division during World War II. The Hitlerjugend was unique because the majority of its junior enlisted men were drawn from members of the Hitler Youth, while the senior NCOs and officers were generally veterans of the Eastern...

, unable to defeat the Americans at Elsenborn Ridge
Elsenborn Ridge
The Elsenborn Ridge is a ridge line east of the town of Elsenborn, Belgium in the Ardennes forest that was the blocking line on the northern shoulder of the Battle of the Bulge. Their area was the main line of advance for Hitler's prized 12th SS Hitlerjugend. Units of V Corps of the First U.S...

, never arrived.

By noon on 17 December, von der Heydte's unit had scouted the woods and rounded up a total of around 300 troops. With had only enough ammunition for a single fight, the force was too small to take the crossroads on its own. Oberst von der Heydte first planned to wait for the arrival of the 12th SS Panzer Division
12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend
The 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend was a German Waffen SS armoured division during World War II. The Hitlerjugend was unique because the majority of its junior enlisted men were drawn from members of the Hitler Youth, while the senior NCOs and officers were generally veterans of the Eastern...

 when they would suddenly seize the crossroads just before their arrival. After three days of waiting, he abandoned these revised plans and instead converted his mission to reconnaissance. General Model
Walter Model
Otto Moritz Walter Model was a German general and later field marshal during World War II. He is noted for his defensive battles in the latter half of the war, mostly on the Eastern Front but also in the west, and for his close association with Adolf Hitler and Nazism...

 had scoffed at von der Heydte's request for carrier pigeons, and none of the unit's radios survived the drop, so he was unable to report the detailed information he gathered.

Withdrawal to Germany

With only a single day's food supply and limited water, on 19 December he withdrew his forces towards the German lines. He used their limited ammunition to attack the rear of the American lines. Only about one-third of his weary men reached the German rear. Oberst von der Heydte, wounded, frostbitten, suffering from pneumonia, and exhausted, knocked on doors in Monschau until he found a friendly German family. The next morning he sent a boy with a surrender note to the Allies.
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