"Schnee Eifel battle: the most serious reverse suffered by American arms during the operations of 1944-45 in the European theater."

Chapter VII - Breakthrough at the Schnee Eifel

The story of the 106th Infantry Division and the attached 14th Cavalry Group is tragic.

It is also highly controversial. Since the major part of the division was eliminated from combined operations with other American forces on the second day of the German counteroffensive, information from contemporary records is scanty and, as to particulars, often completely lacking.

The historian, as a result, must tread warily through the maze of recrimination and highly personalized recollection which surrounds this story; It should not be concluded that reminiscence by those caught up in this disaster is consciously tendentious. But the officers and men of the 106th Division who so narrowly escaped the German trap or who spent months in German prisons would be less than human if they did not seek to discover the cause of this debacle in either human error or frailty.

Since the author has been forced to depend in so great degree on the human memory, unaided or unchallenged by the written record, the scholar's old rule "one witness, no witness" has been generally applied.

Even so, some relaxation of the rule is necessary if a sustained and sequential narrative is to be presented.

Fortunately, the picture as seen from the German side of the Schnee Eifel is fairly complete and can be applied as a corrective in most of the major areas of controversy and contradiction.

The number of officers and men taken prisoner on the capitulation of the two regiments and their attached troops cannot be accurately ascertained. At least seven thousand were lost here and the figure probably is closer to eight or nine thousand. The amount lost in arms and equipment, of course, was very substantial.

The Schnee Eifel battle, therefore, represents the most serious reverse suffered by American arms during the operations of 1944-45 in the European theater. The Americans would regard this defeat as a blow to Allied prestige. The Germans would see in this victory, won without great superiority in numbers, a dramatic reaffirmation of the Schlieffen-Cannae concept.