Elsenborn Ridge - Key Position in The Battle of The Bulge

Key Position in The Battle of The Bulge

The area around Höfen and Monschau was critical because of the road network that lay behind it. The Germans had planned a seven-day campaign to seize Antwerp, and they were counting on that road system to help them achieve that objective. The Battle of Elsenborn Ridge became a decisive component of the Battle of the Bulge when the U.S. Army was able to deflect the strongest armored units of the German advance.

Both sides in the battle were relatively well trained, armed and led, and employed newer, more lethal weapons and tactics. This gave the battle a brutal intensity and impact, resulting in high casualties and traumatic memories and experiences for the participants.

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