In the course of the bloody battle for Hurtgen Forest in late 1944, a 23-year-old German lieutenant heard a wounded American soldier crying for assist in a minefield. Lt. Friedrich Lengfeld ordered his males to not shoot any American medics who may attempt to rescue the person. When no assist got here after hours of listening to the person’s cries, Lengfeld led his personal medics into the minefield to save lots of him.
The choice would result in Lengfeld’s demise. The American soldier’s id stays unknown. Fifty years later, American veterans erected what could be the solely U.S. monument honoring a German soldier from World Warfare II.
The Battle of Hurtgen Forest
The Battle of Hurtgen Forest lasted from September 1944 to February 1945. The U.S. First Army tried to push via 200 sq. miles of dense forest, steep terrain and German fortifications alongside the Siegfried Line. American forces wanted to achieve the Rur River dams, which managed flooding towards the Rhine. After this, the People might breach into the German inside.
The People didn’t breakthrough. Weeks later, the Germans used the realm as a staging floor for his or her final ditch Ardennes Offensive. The battle in the end price not less than 33,000 American casualties, with some estimates reaching 55,000 when together with non-combat losses from trench foot, frostbite and fight fatigue. German forces suffered roughly 28,000 casualties.
On each side, troopers went via hell in one of the vital notorious battles of the Western Entrance.
The thick forest eradicated American air superiority. Highlighting the formidable terrain and enemy defenses, the ninth Infantry Division took 3,000 yards in 10 days at a value of 4,500 casualties.
The German 275th Infantry Division had dug into ready positions with minefields, barbed wire and concrete pillboxes. Forester’s lodges, bunkers, hills, ridges, and trenches all through the forest modified arms repeatedly in shut fight.
Lengfeld Takes Command
Lt. Lengfeld arrived in Hurtgen Forest and took command of 2nd Firm, Fusilier Battalion, 275th Infantry Division in early October 1944. His two predecessors had change into casualties inside days of one another.
Born Sept. 29, 1921, in Grunfelde, East Prussia, Lengfeld had been wounded repeatedly throughout fight on the Japanese Entrance and acquired a number of awards for his service. His communications runner, Hubert Gees, later recalled that Lengfeld by no means advised his males “Go and examine” however all the time stated “Observe me” when main patrols into sure hazard.
By November 1944, his firm was engaged towards U.S. troops close to Vossenack between Schmidt and Hurtgen alongside the 116th Panzer Division. The divisions have been sapped and exhausted after months of nonstop fight towards superior American firepower.
His troopers had not bathed in days. They suffered from lice, starvation, malnutrition and extreme chilly. However they held the road, hoping to stall the American advance into Germany.
They ultimately fought over a forester’s lodge south of what’s now Hurtgen Warfare Cemetery. The lodge was guarded on one aspect by the Wilde Sau minefield. On Nov. 11, the U.S. twelfth Infantry Regiment captured the lodge earlier than German forces retook it the next morning. American troops fell again in disarray.
The Rescue Try and Lengfeld’s Sacrifice
In the course of the American withdrawal on the morning of Nov. 12, an unlucky U.S. soldier bumped into the Wilde Sau minefield and triggered a mine. He was severely wounded and commenced calling for assist from no man’s land.
Lengfeld ordered Gees to run a message to certainly one of his machine gunners, ordering them to not hearth on any American medics who may attempt to rescue the soldier. Hours handed and no rescue try was made. The American continued to scream in agony because the Germans listened. Round 10:30 a.m., Lengfeld realized no assist was coming. He assembled a rescue staff of medics with Crimson Cross vests and flags and got down to save the person.
Lengfeld knew the place his firm had positioned anti-tank mines alongside the highway, however a number of anti-personnel mines have been hidden all through the minefield. He led his staff alongside the highway towards the American soldier. When Lengfeld moved throughout the highway to achieve the soldier’s place, he stepped on one of many anti-personnel mines.
The explosion tore two deep holes in Lengfeld’s again and induced extreme inside accidents. His males, together with certainly one of his NCOs who was additionally wounded, carried him to the help station at Lucas Mill, then to the medical facility in Froitzheim. Lengfeld died that night.
German troopers who returned to the realm later didn’t discover the physique of the enemy combatant. The American soldier’s id and destiny stay unknown. The Wilde Sau minefield would declare one other German soldier simply 5 days after Lengfeld’s demise. On Nov. 17, a soldier named Alfons Bösl stepped on a landmine close to the location of Lengfeld’s demise.
American Veterans Honor German Enemy
Gees witnessed the rescue try and Lengfeld’s demise. A long time later, he recalled, “With Leutnant Lengfeld, I misplaced one of the best superior I ever had. Within the earlier arduous weeks he meant a lot to me and gave me a variety of interior energy. He was an exemplary firm chief and he claimed by no means extra from us as he was keen to present by himself.”
On Oct. 7, 1994, retired Maj. Gen. John Ruggles led American veterans to Hurtgen Warfare Cemetery to dedicate a monument to Lengfeld. Ruggles had served as a lieutenant colonel with the twenty second Infantry Regiment throughout the battle. The twenty second sustained among the highest casualties of any single regiment within the Hurtgen marketing campaign.
The monument stands close to the cemetery entrance amongst over 3,000 German conflict useless, together with Lt. Lengfeld. The bronze plaque reads, “No man hath higher love than he who layeth down his life for his enemy.” The inscription additionally consists of “Deeds Not Phrases,” the twenty second Infantry Regiment’s motto.
Ruggles later stated, “You possibly can’t go to any higher excessive than to present your life making an attempt to rescue somebody you’re preventing as your enemy in conflict.”
Lengfeld is buried at Duren-Rolsdorf conflict cemetery. The monument devoted to him is considered the one memorial positioned by American troopers in a German conflict cemetery to honor an enemy soldier from WWII.
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