| Original caption: “The endless procession of German prisoners captured with the fall of Aachen marching through the ruined city streets to captivity.” German forces in the West braced to defend their homeland against the fast-moving Allied forces, which were as much as 8 months ahead of schedule for the liberation of Germany. The Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force aimed to seize the Ruhr, Germany’s industrial heartland, to halt any further war production. Bradley assigned Lieutenant General Courtney Hicks Hodges’s (January 5, 1887 – January 16, 1966) 1st Army to break the German front near Aachen. The 1st Army comprised 40 infantry and airborne divisions, as well as 15 armored divisions. At the center of 1st Army was the VII Corps, commanded by Major General J. Lawton “Lightning Joe” Collins (May 1, 1896 – 12 September 12, 1987). Collins did not want to get bogged down in house-to-house fighting in Aachen, so he decided to surround the city in the hope that the Germans might decide to pull out. However, such an approach failed to take into consideration German leader Adolf Hitler’s fortress mentality and his obsession with not giving up a town as historically significant as Aachen. “The Führer wanted to defend Aachen to the last stone,” Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering (January 12, 1893 – October 15, 1946), Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe (“Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force”) said after the war. “He wanted to use it as an example for every other German city, and defend it, if necessary, until it was leveled to the ground.” The Germans considered Aachen to be hallowed ground. It was the presumed birthplace, as well as the coronation site, of Frankish King Charlemagne, who became the 1st Holy Roman Emperor. For 600 years afterward, it was the seat of power for Imperial Germany, and the majority of the emperors were crowned in its stately cathedral. The old Imperial city held great psychological significance for the Germans, particularly for Hitler, who regarded it as the founding city of Germany’s 1st Reich. Hitler instructed that the city was to be held at all costs. He ordered the staff of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, “High Command of the German Armed Forces”) to ensure that it did not fall into Allied hands. “Every bunker, every dugout, every town, every village must become a fortress against which the enemy will beat his head in vain or in which the German garrison goes under in hand-to-hand combat,” wrote Generaloberst Alfred Jodl (May 10, 1890 – October 16, 1946), Chef des Wehrmachtführungsstabs im Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (“Chief of the General Staff in the High Command of the Armed Forces”), in a September 16, 1944, order. The Royal Air Force (RAF)’s 1st bombing of Aachen, in May 1940, was the beginning of over a 120 strategic air raids that nearly obliterated the city. A devastating firebombing in 1943, followed by a blitz in April 1944, left the city paralysed. By September 1944, with the United States Army advancing, the German forces briefly occupied Aachen, imposed martial law, and evacuated its citizens in preparation for a fierce defence. Hitler, who had never visited Aachen and reportedly despised it, was prepared to let the city become a sacrificial offering to Nazism. As United States forces surrounded the city of Aachen, the 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, began the offensive to take the city. Operating with only 2 battalions and a few tanks, the 26th attacked the city and its 10,000 defenders on October 13, 1944. They fought house to house until the city was finally taken on October 21, the 1st German city to fall to American forces. The Battle of Aachen cost both the Americans and Germans dearly; the former suffered over 7,000 casualties, while the latter lost over 5,000 casualties and 5,600 taken prisoner. 85 percent of Aachen was destroyed when captured. Since October 2, 1944, the 30th Infantry Division suffered roughly 3,000 men killed and wounded, while the 1st Infantry Division took at least 1,350 casualties (a 150 killed and 1,200 wounded). The Germans lost another 5,100 casualties during the fighting in Aachen itself, including 3,473 prisoners. In the process of the battle, the Wehrmacht lost 2 complete divisions and had another 8 severely depleted, including 3 fresh infantry divisions and a single refitted armored division; this was largely attributed to how they fought, as although an equivalent of 20 infantry battalions had been used during various counterattacks against the 30th Infantry Division alone, on average each separate attack only involved 2 infantry regiments. John F. “Jack” Frankish (November 17, 1944 – December 23, 1944) a United Press war correspondent, reported on the Battle of Aachen in a nationally syndicated column on October 12, 1944: “…Our artillery turned its fire from Aachen and began shooting out to the east and northeast, and Lightnings swooped down for strafing attacks against the relief columns. Late reports said we inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy and temporarily dispersed the rescue party.” “Then the guns swung back and resumed their pounding of Aachen. The beating is too much for some of the German garrison. Already, several hundred have streamed into our lines. They tell us that several officer sharpshooters have taken positions inside Aachen rail station to shoot down Nazis soldiers who attempt to enter the Tailroad pass leading out of the city.” “Above the din of our artillery can be heard the drone of our ‘hog callers.’ They are loudspeakers manned by German-speaking Americans who continue urging the Nazis to lay down their arms. They brought results for late this afternoon, a whole Nazi company surrendered to Third Battalion, Twenty-Sixth Infantry Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John T. Corley [(August 4, 1914 – April 16, 1977)], Brooklyn. Some of them were as old as sixty. One was a gravedigger.” “Some of the prisoners are very intoxicated. The monthly liquor ration – a bottle of Schanpps among three men or a bottle of wine among two – was issued in Aachen yesterday, presumably to bolster Nazi morale in the face of the surrender ultimatum. A high American officer said scores of German enlisted men were surrendering as a result of the ultimatum, but that the officers were holding out.” “American officers estimated that two to three thousand civilians were still in Aachen. Prisoners say, however, there are five thousand to fifteen thousand inside the doomed city, which had a normal population of a hundred and sixty-five thousand.” “Early this morning, many homes displayed white surrender flags put up by the civilians who had no stomach to see their city destroyed. The flags were hauled down later by Nazi troops shortly before our bombardment began. Throughout the morning, while we were awaiting an answer which never came to our ultimatum, Lightnings continued dropping pamphlets urging the Nazis to give up.” A Nazi German officer surrendered on November 13, 1944, in Aachen, over 3 weeks after the fall of the city. He had been hiding since the surrender. He said that he concealed himself because he was sure the Germans would recapture the city in a counterattack. But he decided that 3 weeks without food was too long. He decided to surrender. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0997.jpg |
| Image Size | 761.33 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2119 x 2924 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Occupation Headquarters |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | October 15, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | Aachen |
| State or Province | North Rhine-Westphalia |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-260-MGG-1061-1 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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