ABSTRACT
After the failure of Hitlers Second Ardennes offensive, logic dictated a German withdrawal to the Rhine. The Reichs only hope of holding out against the Western Allies might was to defend the great river barrier. Hitler had shifted his headquarters to the capital from East Prussia when the Soviets opened their January offensive. With the approach of enemy troops, he took refuge in an underground bunker near the Reichs Chancellery building. As Allied armies converged from east and west, they began to occupy the Nazi death camps in Poland and the concentration camps of the Reich itself. The Remagen bridgehead was located in one of the most rugged areas of the Rhine, one that the Allies had not intended as a major crossing point. Allied airborne troops also dropped behind enemy lines once the operation began and contributed to its overwhelming success. All seven Allied armies were across the great river, and the way to the Reichs heartland lay open.
