Bastogne was military target because of it’s value as a major crossroads, riight? but a PBS documentary (American Experience) I just watched stated that Hitler wanted it at all costs simply because the bastion was a major moral booster to U.S. soldiers and Americans at home.
What’s your opinion?
The fact that Bastogne was a valuable military target was the reason that there was really any battle there at all but once the 101st and other units had held off the Germans repeated attacks it also became a moral booster and strengthened the German resolve to capture it. Hitler certainly didn’t want it just to destroy U.S. moral but after it became a moral booster for the Allied troops it may have lead him to waste more resources trying to capture it instead of trying to bypass it.
Bastogne was a major road junction. The Germans were already having fuel shortages and mobility problems with their Panzers and needed to take this town as much as any other. I’m not sure they could simply have viably bi-passed it if they wanted too…
It certainly couldn’t have been easily bypassed but all the troops and equipment may have been better used if they had sent to other areas of the battlefield instead of trying to open up Bastogne. Then the fuel status that you pointed out comes to play though.
I really just included that to point out that there may be some validity in Hitler being determined to take the town to demoralize the Allies while acknowledging that it wasn’t the prime reason for the battle there. The Germans did continue to pound Bastogne even after the offensive had clearly failed so maybe that is when Hitler tried to go for the moral booster.
Bastogne was essential for “Watch on the Rhine” to succeed.I drove through Belgium (area Bastogne/Houffalize/Poteau/La Gleize/Stavelot) two years ago and even now ,you can imagine what kind of nightmare it must have been for the German armour denied of access to Bastogne to use all the secondary roads instead.Some roads are still very narrow and some bridges still uncapable to support a Kingtiger sized Panzer(in weight and width).
Of course we could go as far as to say that the Germans would have been better off using their equipment by not pissing it away in a huge, futile offensive nobody but the Fuhrer wanted to begin with…but certainly I concur that Bastogne had a strong symbolic value to both sides. But Hitler’s grave was dug by his incessant focus on “symbolic” military targets…