At the conclusion of the Battle of the Bulge, the 352nd retreated to the east bank of the Sauer River, roughly opposite Echternach. Swollen with water from melting snow, the Sauer provided a temporary impediment to an assault by U.S. troops, but it was clearly only a matter of time before the Americans attacked. American artillery pounded German pillboxes surrounding the Irrel Gap leading toward the Eifel brewery town of Bitburg.

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A battlegroup of the 352nd VG joined the remainder of the 2nd Panzer Division to block the U.S. drive on Prüm. A few 352nd elements struck a company of the U.S. 8th Infantry Division and temporarily succeeded in recapturing Hill 511, but they were driven off by the end of the same day. While those battles took place west of Prüm, the remainder of the 352nd VG deployed southwest of Bitburg. Positioned on steep hills overlooking the Ens River by Peffingen, the 352nd vainly tried to halt the Americans at the last natural obstacle before Bitburg.

By February 25, 1945, all villages west of the Prüm River were in U.S. hands, and on the 26th the U.S. 5th Infantry Division drove the 352nd out of Bitburg. The remainder of the 352nd regrouped east of the Kyll River in an area where two months earlier the Germans had assembled for the attack through the Ardennes. With the American breakthroughs north of the Moselle River, the 352nd began an almost miraculous withdrawal out of the high Eifel, across the Moselle and east across the Rhine.

The U.S. 45th and 3rd Infantry divisions crossed the Rhine near Worms on March 26 and found no emplacements barring their way. German units, including the 352nd, were positioned in the wrong spot. With the Rhine barrier breached and the U.S. 4th Armored Division approaching, the 352nd fell back in panic.

German XIII Corps commander General Graf von Oriola, who commanded a provisional corps comprised of four decimated divisions, halted the 352nd’s retreat and ordered its remaining 400 men across two autobahns between Darmstadt and Heidelberg to prevent the Americans from enveloping the German forces around Heidelberg. In his entire corps, he had not a single anti-tank gun. The great envelopment never occurred, however, since U.S. soldiers pushed east toward Aschaffenburg. The broken 352nd, with less than regimental strength, dissolved into obscurity during the last month of the war.

Kevin R. Austra[ TOP ] [ Cover ]

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