The Netherlands. It was formed when 6th AG liberated southern and northern Alsace and adjacent eastern Lorraine , but could not clear central Alsace. During Operation Nordwind in December , the 19th Army attacked north out of the Pocket in support of other German forces attacking south from the Saar into northern Alsace. A German bridgehead on the west bank of the Rhine 65 kilometres 40 mi long and 50 kilometres 30 mi deep was isolated in November when the German defenses in the Vosges Mountains collapsed under the pressure of an offensive by the U.
Soon afterwards, French forces reached the Rhine in the region north of the Swiss border between Mulhouse and Basel. The effect of these two advances was to collapse the German presence in southern Alsace west of the Rhine to a semi-circular bridgehead centered on the town of Colmar that came to be known as the "Colmar Pocket".
Apart from Normandy, the areas of France most bitterly defended by the Germans were Alsace and Lorraine. This occurred in part because the Allied surge across France in was slowed down by logistical difficulties as the Allies reached the easternmost extent of France, but the primary reason for the stout German defenses of these regions is that Alsace and Lorraine were claimed as part of Germany and would be defended as strongly as any other German soil.
This perception informed Hitler's decisions of 24 November and 27 November , that committed General Siegfried Rasp 's 19th Army to a do-or-die defense of the region around Colmar. On 26 November, the Germans formed Army Group Oberrhein under the command of Heinrich Himmler and tasked his command with the defense of the front between the Bienwald and the Swiss border.
The logistical crisis and heavy combat of autumn had dulled the fighting edge of Allied forces throughout northwestern Europe. Restricted logistical support imposed limits on the usage of artillery ammunition and the number of divisions the Allies could effectively employ in the front lines. Faulty forecasts for the numbers of infantry replacements needed prevented U. On the part of the French, their replacement system was limited by the amount of training infrastructure they had been able to re-establish since reentering France in August and was further strained by a controversial French decision to "whiten" the French forces in Alsace by sending experienced Senegalese and other colonial troopsβexhausted from fighting in Italy [ citation needed ] βto the south and replacing them with French Forces of the Interior FFI troops of varying quality and experience.
