Battle of Alsace

M10 Gun Motor Carriage (GMC) tank destroyers, serving as artillery, fire on enemy positions at night. They are using two types of ammunition, one which has very bright powder flash, and another which has a dull red glow that gives off very little light. Sparsbach area, France, on  26 January 1945. (U.S. Army photo)

The Battle of Alsace was a military campaign between the Allies, mainly French, and the Germans in Alsace, eastern France, from 20 November 1944 to 19 March 1945. It led to the liberation of Alsace by the Allies.

Context

During the second phase of World War II, the Allies landed in Normandy starting from 6 June 1944 and in Provence starting from 15 August 1944. These two new fronts have expanded and allowed the liberation of a large part of the French territory within the span of a few months. Exceptions were the "Atlantic pockets" and Alsace, the latter region being where the Allied troops, mainly French troops, focused their efforts starting in November 1944.

The battle took part next to the Battle of the Vosges.

Course of the Battle

The operations were launched from the Vosges and the Belfort Gap. Mulhouse was liberated on 21 November 1944, by General Béthouart, and Strasbourg on November 23 by General Leclerc while leading the 2nd Armored Division.

The Germans resisted and launched a strong counteroffensive, Operation Nordwind, on 1 January 1945. At that time, Eisenhower, the commander in chief, wanted to retreat and temporarily evacuate Alsace, but General de Gaulle opposed it and sent reinforcements to defend Strasbourg. The German counterattack was stopped.

General de Lattre, commanding the French 1st Army, launched a double offensive with his two army corps to defeat the Colmar Pocket. The 1st army corps operated from Mulhouse; the 2nd army corps, assisted by the XXI Corps, advanced from the northwest towards Neuf-Brisach. The French entered Colmar on 2 February 1945; the Colmar Pocket was cleared on February 9.

The last part of Alsace, from the Moder to the border, was liberated from March 15 to 19, 1945.

Battle of Alsace
Date	November 20, 1944 - March 19, 1945
Location	Alsace
Result	Decisive Allied victory
Belligerents
France United States	Germany
Casualties and Losses
France: ~3,000/4,000 killed, several thousands injured. United States: Thousands killed and injured.	Germany: approximately 23,000 killed or injured; 23,000 prisoners.

Bibliography and Sources

Rowley, Anthony, ed. (2002). Dictionnaire d'histoire de France. Paris: Perrin. p. 32.

Larousse, Éditions. "Campagne d'Alsace novembre 1944-mars 1945 - LAROUSSE". www.larousse.fr (in French).

Vonau, Jean-Laurent (2022). L'Alsace annexée: 1940-1945. Strasbourg: Signe. pp. 416–461.

 

U.S. 714th Tank Battalion moving from Bischweiler to Drusenheim. (U.S. Army photo)

Men of the 398th Regiment, 100th Infantry Division pass through a demolished roadblock in Alsace, November 1944.

Wearing camouflage smocks, German infantry moves through the icy fog of a January morning in preparation for another counterattack.

Mounted German infantry, some with white helmets, ride into battle atop a Sturmgeschutz covered with white sheets to blend with the snow. 

An M4 medium tank of the U.S. 781st Tank Battalion stands guard at Wingen-sur-Moder, France. The wrecked jeep, GI helmet, and burning truck in the background attest to the ferocity of the fighting in Alsace.

Using a tank as a shield, an American GI fires on a German sniper holed up in a church in the Alsace village of Oberhoffen-sur-Moder, southeast of Haguenau, France. Brutal winter weather and the difficulty of urban warfare gave the initial advantage to the Germans at the start of Operation Nordwind during the first weeks of 1945.

German troops, protected from the bitter cold by their long, heavy greatcoats, move into position during the fighting in the Alsace-Lorraine region, January 1945.

Infantrymen accompany a M4 medium tank camouflaged with a unique winter scheme, on a snowy, muddy road during the Allied advance on Colmar, France, January 1945.

Two soldiers from the U.S. 45th Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, lug rations and supplies through the deep snow to buddies dug in on an Alsace hillside. Resupplying frontline troops was a real challenge for both sides.

Members of a German grenadier unit pass scenes of fiery destruction during the Alsace fighting.

Surrendered German prisoners of war from the German 19th Army are searched and guarded by Military Police from the 44th Infantry Division of the United States Seventh Army circa late November 1944 at Sarrebourg in the Vosges region of France.