Editing Siegfried Line campaign (section)

==Aftermath==
{{main|Battle of the Bulge|Operation Nordwind}}
===Winter counter-offensives===
[[File:American 290th Infantry Regiment infantrymen fighting in snow during the Battle of the Bulge.jpg|thumb|American soldiers taking up defensive positions in the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge.]]

The Germans had been preparing a massive counter-attack in the West since the Allied breakout from Normandy. The plan called ''Wacht am Rhein'' ("Watch on the Rhine") was to attack through the Ardennes and swing north to Antwerp, splitting the American and British armies. The attack started on 16 December in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. Defending the Ardennes were troops of the U.S. First Army. After initial German successes in bad weather, which gave them cover from the Allied air forces, the Allies launched a counterattack to clear them from the Ardennes. The Germans were eventually pushed back to their starting points by 25 January 1945.

The Germans launched a second, smaller offensive (''[[Operation Nordwind|Nordwind]]'') into [[Alsace]] on 1 January 1945. Aiming to recapture Strasbourg, they attacked the 6th Army Group at multiple points. Because Allied lines had become severely stretched in response to the crisis in the Ardennes, holding and throwing back the ''Nordwind'' offensive was a costly affair that lasted almost four weeks. Allied counter-attacks restored the front line to the area of the German border and collapsed the [[Colmar Pocket]].

===Germany west of the Rhine {{anchor|Germany west of the Rhine}} <!-- Linked from [[list of battles by casualties#Major operations]] -->===
{{main|Operation Veritable|Operation Grenade|Operation Lumberjack|Rhineland Offensive}}
The pincer movement of the Canadian First Army, advancing from the Nijmegen area in Operation Veritable, and the U.S. Ninth Army, crossing the Roer in Operation Grenade, was planned to start on 8 February 1945, but it was delayed by two weeks when the Germans flooded the Roer valley by destroying the floodgates of two dams on the upper Roer ([[Rur Dam]] and [[Urft Dam]]). During the two weeks that the little river was flooded, Hitler did not allow Rundstedt to withdraw German forces behind the Rhine, arguing that it would only delay the inevitable fight. Hitler ordered him to fight where his forces stood.

By the time the water had subsided and the U.S. Ninth Army was able to cross the Roer on 23 February, other Allied forces were also close to the Rhine's west bank. The German divisions that had remained on the west bank of the Rhine were cut to pieces, and 280,000 men were taken prisoner. The stubborn German resistance had been costly; their total losses reached an estimated 400,000 men.<ref>Zaloga, Dennis p. 88</ref>

[[File:Crossingtherhine.jpg|thumb|American soldiers crossing the Rhine river]]
The Allies crossed the Rhine at four points. One crossing was an opportunity taken by U.S. forces when the Germans failed to blow up the [[Ludendorff Bridge]] at [[Remagen]]; another was a hasty assault; and two crossings were planned:
* The U.S. First Army aggressively pursued the disintegrating German troops, and on 7 March they [[Battle of Remagen|unexpectedly captured the Ludendorff Bridge across the Rhine River at Remagen]]. The [[9th Armored Division (United States)|9th Armored Division]] quickly expanded the bridgehead into a full scale crossing.
* Bradley told General [[George S. Patton]]—whose U.S. Third Army had been fighting through the [[Palatinate (region)|Palatinate]]—to "take the Rhine on the run". The Third Army did just that on the night of 22/23 March, crossing the river with a hasty assault south of [[Mainz]] at [[Oppenheim]].
* In the north, the Rhine is twice as wide, with a far higher volume of water than where the Americans crossed. Montgomery, commander of the 21st Army Group, decided it could be crossed safely only with a carefully prepared attack. In [[Operation Plunder]] he crossed the Rhine at [[Rees, Germany|Rees]] and [[Wesel]] on the night of 23/24 March, including the largest single drop airborne operation in history, [[Operation Varsity]].
* In the Allied 6th Army Group area, the [[Seventh United States Army|U.S. Seventh Army]] assaulted across the Rhine in the area between [[Mannheim]] and [[Worms, Germany|Worms]] on 26 March. A fifth crossing on a smaller scale was later achieved by the [[First Army (France)|French First Army]] at [[Speyer]].

After crossing the Rhine, the Allies [[Western Allied invasion of Germany|rapidly advanced]] into Germany's heartland. The [[end of World War II in Europe]] followed soon after with the surrender of Germany on May 7.