Ruhr Pocket 75th Anniversary Commemoration

On Saturday, April 18th at 11:30 a.m., the Friends of the National World War II Memorial will mark the 75th anniversary of the battle of the Ruhr Pocket, one of the last victories logged by American forces in the European Theater and the largest single German surrender in western Europe of the war.

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The April 18th commemoration will honor of the Allies who served and remember the 10,000 killed, wounded, and missing during the Battle of the Ruhr Pocket.

Learn more about Ruhr Pocket below:

On April 18, 1945, the Battle of the Ruhr Pocket came to a dramatic close. In three weeks of fighting, American forces had encircled an entire German Army Group in the industry-rich Ruhr region and forced their surrender, taking over 300,000 prisoners in one of the final actions of the west European Theater.

Once Allied forces secured bridgeheads across the Rhine in spring 1945, commanders looked for the best strategic approach to the heart of Germany. While Bernard Montgomery’s forces pushed across northern Germany and General Jacob Devers drove through the south towards Austria, General Omar Bradley’s push through the center of Germany was supported as the main Allied effort. Bradley’s next objective was to capture the Ruhr, an industrial region in western Germany known for the rich deposits of coal it offered to Nazi Germany. Allied leaders believed German losses in this region would best cripple the nation’s strength while producing fewer Allied casualties. By prioritizing action in central Germany, Eisenhower also let Soviet forces fight into Berlin themselves, an operation that promised to be a bloodbath. After securing the bridgehead near Remagen, Bradley’s forces entered the Ruhr by late March. Elements of the U.S. First Army pushed east beyond Remagen towards cities of Bonn and Koblenz, and parts of the U.S. Ninth Army to the north drove east from the Wesel bridgehead secured during Operation Plunder. These two rapid attacks formed pincers aimed to encircle German forces within the Ruhr. On April 1, Easter Sunday, the armies converged on Lippstadt, finishing the trap. In the following days, American units tightened their grip on what came to be known as the Ruhr Pocket. Within this Pocket, hundreds of thousands of German troops in Army Group B, under the command of Field Marshal Walter Model, were trapped within a pocket of the densely populated Ruhr roughly 30 miles by 75 miles in size. Originally deployed to halt the Allied advance through the region, these forces now found themselves encircled while low on equipment and supplies. Despite shifting his meager reserves into the path of the Allied attacks and conducting futile counterattacks to break the encirclement, Model’s situation soon turned chaotic as communication broke down and confusion set in. As American forces besieged German positions, the Ruhr’s industry and population became casualties as well—the one million artillery shells fired during the battle closed factories, halted production, impeded distribution of limited foodstuffs, and broke down electric, water, and sewer systems. Within this quagmire, Model ordered his men to fight on to defend “Fortress Ruhr,” convinced reinforcements and “wonder weapons” would soon arrive to turn the tide. Despite this determined resistance, American forces continued to reduce the Pocket. By April 11, the Pocket was half as large as it was on Easter Sunday. On April 14, the American 8^th and 79^th Infantry Divisions met near Hagen, a city at the center of the encirclement, thus splitting the Ruhr Pocket in half. Model could see that no reinforcements were coming to save him, yet instead of formally surrendering the remnants of his Army Group, Model dissolved it, hoping his troops would continue to informally resist the Allied advance and mobilize the Ruhr’s civilian population to do likewise. Meanwhile, American forces urged German troops to give up the fight, and many Germans, running out of food and ammunition, did. By April 16, the whole eastern half of the Ruhr Pocket surrendered, followed two days later by the remains of the western half. With this final reduction of the Pocket on April 18, the Battle for Ruhr Pocket ended. In total, some 317,000 German prisoners of war were taken. One German, however, did not to surrender. On April 21, Field Marshal Model, choosing to avoid the dishonor of defeat and facing Soviet accusations of war crimes, committed suicide.

With the defeat of German forces in the Ruhr, Allied forces delivered a fatal blow to the German forces in the west. Although many of Model’s soldiers did pose stiff resistance to the American advance and some 100,000 Germans died defending the Ruhr, their efforts were unsuccessful. Superior American tactics outmaneuvered an underequipped foe and captured a vital German industrial center in the process, at a cost of only 10,000 casualties. Yet the effects of this victory would not be fully realized, as Hitler would commit suicide in the besieged German capital just nine days after Model. To that end, the victory in the Ruhr was one of the last victories logged by American forces in the European Theater. While fighting would continue through southern Germany and into Austria until Nazi Germany formally surrendered, this victory marked the largest single German surrender in western Europe of the war. Within three weeks of this victory, the war in Europe was over.