Aachen: The U.S. Army's Battle for Charlemagne's City in World War II

By September 1944, the Allied advance across France and Belgium had turned into a war of attrition along the German frontier. Standing between the Allies and the Third Reich's industrial heartland was the city of Aachen, once the ancient seat of Charlemagne's empire-the First Reich in the Nazi version of history-and now firmly entrenched within Germany's Siegfried Line fortifications. The last time a major German city had been lost to the enemy was over a century earlier during the Napoleonic Wars, and Hitler wasn't about to let that happen again. He ordered Aachen defended to the last man and bullet. "The eyes of all Hermany are on the defense of the ancient city," SS chief Heinrich Himmler informed the soldiers of Battle Group Aachen.
Over the course of six weeks, as American and German forces were pulled toward the city, the bucolic farm pastures surrounding Aachen became brutal fields of death. Thanks to hard fighting by some of the U.S. Army's finest units-including the 1st Infantry Division ("Big Red One"), the 30th Infantry Division ("Roosevelt's SS"), the 2nd Armored Division ("Hell on Wheels"), and the 3rd Armored Division ("Spearhead")-the Americans gradually encircled Aachen. After a final week of building-by-building, street-by-street combat in the city itself, the Germans surrendered, having delayed the Allied advance for weeks and forced the Allies to reevaluate their strategy for defeating the Third Reich. The battle for Aachen had been a victory, but at steep cost in men and time. Winning the war was going to take longer than planned.