| Original caption: “German Prisoners of War – captured by American Airborne troops in the Ruhr.” Thousands were trapped in the Ruhr Pocket. On April 1, 1945, units of the United States 1st and 9th Armies met at Lipstadt, near Paderborn, to complete the encirclement of the Ruhr. The area’s industrial capacity by this time had been greatly diminished, and its communications, along with the remainder of Germany, had been almost completely disrupted as the result of an interdiction program launched by the Allied Air Forces in February. The troops contained in the Ruhr Pocket, commanded by Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model (January 24, 1891 – April 21, 1945), made 2 unsuccessful attempts to forge an escape route. An American attack, launched on April 14, bisected the pocket and on April 16, the eastern half collapsed. On April 18, the remaining troops surrendered. The number of captives taken was staggering and caused additional strain on the already overburdened Allied supply lanes. The Nazi prisoners huddled together comprise a small segment of the 82,000 taken by the XVIII Airborne Corps near Gummersbach. At this time General Omar N. Bradley (February 12, 1893 – April 8, 1981), Commander of the 12th Army Group, estimated that more than 316,000 prisoners had been captured during the elimination of the pocket. A later total revealed that 325,000 men, including 30 general officers, were taken captive. 17 United States Army divisions participated in this move which eliminated 21 divisions from Führer und Reichskanzler (“Leader and Reichchancellor”) Adolf Hitler’s (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) Army, and resulted in the capture of vast quantities of supplies and ammunition. During the latter part of April, figures disclosed that General Bradley’s 12th Group’s 1st, 3rd, 9th, and 15th Armies had taken nearly 843,000 disillusioned prisoners. United States Army Sergeant Thomas E. Warner (April 9, 1922 – June 17, 2004), 54th Signal Battalion, later recalled, “They put the German prisoners in a great big field. In this field there were Allied officials who began interviewing the Germans and issuing them discharges from the Heer (“Nazi German Army”). “About five hundred thousand Germans were captured in the Ruhr pocket operations. A couple hundred of them turned themselves in to me. They’d come walking down the road, ask me how they could surrender, and I’d lead them to the nearest Military Police (MP). Immediately, when the war was over, the Germans themselves were being freed.” “Our Eighteenth Airborne Corps captured a hundred and sixty thousand German troops, liberated two hundred thousand Allied displaced persons from German slavery, and freed fifty-six hundred Allied prisoners of war.” | |
| Image Filename | wwii0844.jpg |
| Image Size | 1,008.70 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2920 x 2299 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | April 17, 1945 |
| Location | |
| City | Gummersbach |
| State or Province | North Rhine-Westphalia |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NLR-PHOCO-A-6654(11) |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
Author of the World War II Multimedia Database