Chapter I
[1] MS # P o69, The Kreipe Diary, 22 July-2 November 1944 (General der Flieger Werner Kreipe). OKH, OKL, and OKW are the abbreviated versions, respectively, of Oberkommando des Heeres, the High Command of the German Army, Oberkommando der Luftwaffe, The Luftwaffe High Command, and Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the Armed Forces High Command.
[2] The results of the numerous joint intelligence studies undertaken immediately after World War II on the relation between German production and the Allied air offensive are well summarized in the third volume of the official Air Forces series, Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate eds., "The Army Air Forces in World War II," vol., III, Europe: ARGUMENT to V-E Day, January 1944 to May 1945 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 195). See also MS # P-059, Tank Losses (Generalmajor Burkhart Mueller-Hillebrand); K. O. Sauer, Effects of Aerial Warfare on German Armament Production (T.I. 341, M.I.F. 3); United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), Military Analysis Division, The Impact Of the Allied Air Effort On German Logistics (Washington, 1947).
[3] German ground force losses are discussed in more detail in H. M. Cole, The Lorraine Campaign, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1950), pp. 232. See also OKH, Gen. St. d . H/Organizations Abteilung (hereafter cited as OKH/Org. Abt.) KTB, 2 December 1944, which gives the revised personnel situation as of 1 November 1944.
[4] B. H. Klein in his Germany's Economic Preparations for War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959) advances the thesis that, contrary to Nazi propaganda, the Third Reich never went over to an allout industrial and economic effort until the war was lost.
[5] For a detailed description of the Goebbels comb-out see the manuscript study prepared by Charles V. P. von Luttichau entitled The Ardennes Offensive, Germany's Situation in the Fall of 1944, Part II, The Economic Situation (195). OCMH.
[6] Exact dating for the various phases of the Ardennes plan, as these evolved in Hitler's mind, now is impossible. Magna E. Bauer has attempted to develop a chronology in MS # R-9, The Idea for the German Ardennes Offensive, 1944. See also MSS # P-069 (Kreipe) and A-862 The Preparations for the German Offensive in the Ardennes, September to 16 December 1944 (Maj. Percy E. Schramm).
[7] The Wehrmachtfuehrungsstab, or WFSt, was the Armed Forces Operations Staff.
[8] The so-called Hitler Conferences from which Hitler's earlier thinking is derived are found in whole or in fragments in Felix Gilbert, ed., Hitler Directs His War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950).
[9] The background of the abortive Fifth Panzer Army attack is described in Cole, The Lorraine Campaign, pp. 190-95.
[10] The story of this operation is told in Cole, The Lorraine Campaign, ch. V. passim.
[11] MS # B-034, OKW War Diary, 1 April-18 December 1944: The West (Schramm).
[12] General Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1952, app. 3.
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Last updated 13 December 2005 |