| American infantry cross the Belgian border and enter into the suburbs of Aachen, the 1st entry into Germany. The United States Army 1st Infantry Division had the task of clearing Aachen of Nazi German resistance. But the principles of village fighting would come as a shock to American troops who had just swept at breakneck speed across France. It was a fighting discipline in which they had very little practical experience. To inspire his soldiers to dig in their heels, Führer und Reichskanzler (“Leader and Reich Chancellor”) Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) gave the order to “Stand your ground or die! …Every bunker, every block of houses in a German city, every German village must become a fortress.” As the Big Red 1 and other VII Corps units faced the Siegfried Line near the Belgian-German border, they encountered not 1 line of fortifications but 2: the Scharnhorst Line to the west and the Schill Line to the east. As the Germans expertly incorporated villages, towns, and cities into their defensive schemes, as per their Führer’s order, they challenged everything the Americans thought they knew about urban warfare. The Nazi German soldiers in the Scharnhorst Line were not Germany’s finest front line soldiers, but the defensive scheme magnified the combat power of the defenders, stalling the Americans and making the attacks into the West Wall costly. For their part, the Americans learned that destroying or capturing each pillbox required teams of riflemen, machine gunners, rifle grenadiers, engineers, bazookas, tanks, tank destroyers, explosives, and plenty of nerve. Ammunition and fuel shortages, along with Nazi German counterattacks and bad weather, conspired to prevent an American penetration of the West Wall. Nevertheless, by the 15th, the 1st Infantry Division had a semi-circle position around Aachen, covering it from the south, southeast, and east, although it had yet to penetrate the eastern Schill Line. The battle of Aachen, Germany occurred October 2-21, 1944, though fighting within the city did not start until October 12. The city is 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) east of the Netherlands-Belgium-Germany border and lies in a bowl-like depression with a series of ridges, hills, and scattered forests to its north, east, and south. The Siegfried Line, a formidable 400-mile (650 kilometer) defensive line running along Germany’s western border, ran to the city’s west and southwest. Aachen was the 1st major German city of the Reich to fall, a prize that after the fighting lay buried beneath 4,000,000 cubic meters (5.2 1,000,000 cubic yards) of rubble. Having suffered over 6,000 casualties, 1st United States Army’s experience on German soil hammered home the harsh fact that the Allied road to final victory would be long and miserable. Photo by Daniel J. Grossi (March 20, 1911 – January 4, 1944) Associated Press photographer. He was a United States Army pool photographer from Paris to Berlin. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1819.jpg |
| Image Size | 287.30 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1011 x 1288 |
| Photographer | Daniel J. Grossi |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | September 1, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | Aachen |
| State or Province | North Rhine-Westphalia |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | |
| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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