The Ardennes Offensive VI Panzer Armee: Northern Sector

It was remarkable strategic effrontery to consider a major offensive even as the German Army was in the midst of its most punishing losses in five years of war. Yet Hitler insisted on the original, ambitious magnitude of his plan to stop the advance of the Allies, and strike a destructive counter-blow. Under the overall command of Feldmarschall Walter Model's Heeresgruppe B, Josef Dietrich's Panzer Armee was to spearhead the attack in the Ardennes' Northern Sector, together with the Volksgrenadiers. The stakes were high: Dietrich knew it was an offensive that would prove decisive in the course of the war.