Eight decades ago, on March 7, American soldiers saw the most unexpected sight. A bridge, just more than 1,000-feet-long, was intact over the Rhine River. It shouldn’t have been. The Nazis had been busy blowing up every crossing over the river in an attempt to slow down the surging Allied advance and invasion into Germany. But there it was.
The Ludendorff Bridge spanned across the Rhine River. In a day, it would be in American hands, starting an 18-day-long battle to hold onto it, with Nazi Germany throwing planes, artillery and even V-2 rockets at the town of Remagen to deny Americans an advance. The bridge had been built for German transport during the First World War, and in fact Americans had crossed it more than two decades earlier while fighting in Europe. Somehow it was still standing. But there was a major problem ahead of the Americans.
Elements of the 9th Armored Division of the First U.S. Army reached Remagen on March 7, intending to capture it while heading south to meet up with the Third Army. In the early afternoon, scouts were surprised to see the Ludendorff Bridge intact. It was one of only three that the Nazis had not blown up. Germans were pulling back across the bridge and the Americans dispatched a combined infantry and armor force led by Lt. Karl Timmerman. The number of Germans defending the bridge was unknown, even after scouting. They charged forward, seizing the western ramp of the bridge and then the Germans set off charges on the bridge.
Explosions rocked the Ludendorff Bridge. It was mid-afternoon now and the explosion blew a huge hole in the bridge, but did not fully demolish it. The American waited to see if it would collapse. But it held. It turned out the Germans had only set off minor explosives, not the full range of detonation charges. Timmerman’s men rushed to seize the bridge. Tanks and infantry moved down the damaged bridge, taking machine gun fire from towers at the end. Aside from the amassed German forces and the narrow path to cross itself, the entire bridge was still wired to explode. It still could.
While Company A, led by Timmerman and supported by Company A, 14th Tank Battalion, fought their way across the bridge, soldiers frantically working to disarm the explosives planted along it. If they were too late, it would blow up with them on it, and also deny the Allies a crossing.
“I spotted this lieutenant, standing out there completely exposed to the machine gun fire that was pretty heavy by this time,” Everett Hollis, an NBC Radio correspondent who was there later said. “He was cutting wires and kicking the German demolition charges off the bridge with his feet!”
After a short battle, the Americans seized both ends of the bridge. It was only after the battle that they learned from prisoners that the bridge had been set to blow at 4 p.m.
The fight to hold the crossing
Both the Axis and Allies realized the importance of the Americans seizing the Ludendorff Bridge. With the bridge captured, the Americans moved to transport people and equipment across it, even as, according to reports, the bridge creaked from the damage and weight. The Nazis quickly rushed to retake the crossing, sending understrength units towards Remagen.
On March 8, while U.S. Army engineers worked quickly to repair the bridge and set up safe routes to move equipment, the Nazis threw tanks and infantry west to try and retake it, or just destroy the crossing. By March 9, the Germans were launching major aerial raids on Remagen, trying to bomb the bridge and the Americans from the sky. The American forces kept fortifying their bridgehead with additional units, and concentrated anti-air weapons there, trying to fight off wave after wave of German aircraft. For 10 days the American forces kept repelling attempts to destroy the Ludendorff Bridge, all while moving vehicles and troops across it.
In a clear move of desperation, the Nazis even fired a V-2 rocket at Remagen. The weapon, the first long-range ballistic missile, had been a tool of terror, aimed at major Allied cities, not Allied forces. The rocket was fired from a launch site in the Netherlands but, as with other launches, it turned out to be wildly inaccurate and missed the bridge. 11 V-2s were fired, the only time at enemy forces in the war.
The bridge finally died on March 17. More than two dozen American soldiers died in the collapse and many more were injured. However the Americans had a solid foothold on the eastern side of the span and had set up more temporary bridges alongside it, letting the advance continue. Five divisions crossed the Rhine at Remagen.
After 18 days, the Germans pulled back and the Allies held the crossing. The victory was several-fold. Beyond the material capture, it was a major morale blow to the Germans and a boost to the Allies. It also helped the American advance ahead of the 21st Army Group’s large-scale push into Germany at the end of March, known as Operation Plunder.
As with other major events in the past year, celebrations were held in honor of 80 years of liberation from the Nazis. In Germany this past week, there was a small commemoration event by the remains of the bridge on March 7. Along with speeches and dignitaries, World War II-era American amphibious boats traveled along the Rhine. It was not as big of an anniversary spectacle as the displays for D-Day or Market Garden — with their largest contingent of reenactors and active-duty military participants — it marked an important step to the final defeat of the Nazis during the war.
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