What was the famous one-word reply of General McAuliffe of the US to a German demand for surrender during the Battle of the Bulge in WWII?
"Lüttwitz submitted the following demand for surrender to his American counterpart commanding the American forces in Bastogne, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe: Shortly thereafter, McAuliffe sent the following communication to von Lüttwitz in response to the German demand: To the German Commander. NUTS! The American Commander The commander of the 327th GIR interpreted it to the German truce party as ""Go to hell!"". Despite the defiant American response to the surrender demand, the 26th VG received one Panzergrenadier regiment from the 15th Panzergrenadier Division on Christmas Eve for its main assault the next day. That night, at about 7:00 PM, Luftwaffe"
"Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe. Before launching an assault by the 26th Volksgrenadier Division against the town, Lüttwitz sent an ultimatum to the American forces. His demand for the US troops to surrender was as follows: To the U.S.A. Commander of the encircled town of Bastogne. There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note. If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Corps and"
"Joseph H. Harper Joseph H. ""Bud"" Harper (May 1, 1901 – August 8, 1990) was a United States Army officer. Harper was the officer who delivered General Anthony McAuliffe's one-word response, ""Nuts"", to the German request for the surrender of Bastogne. Colonel Harper had been appointed to command the 401st Glider Infantry Regiment. When the 401st was split to expand the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment and 327th Glider Infantry Regiment from two battalions to three, Harper took command of the 327th. On 22 December 1944 during the siege of Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge, two German officers and"
"School. Joseph H. Harper Joseph H. ""Bud"" Harper (May 1, 1901 – August 8, 1990) was a United States Army officer. Harper was the officer who delivered General Anthony McAuliffe's one-word response, ""Nuts"", to the German request for the surrender of Bastogne. Colonel Harper had been appointed to command the 401st Glider Infantry Regiment. When the 401st was split to expand the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment and 327th Glider Infantry Regiment from two battalions to three, Harper took command of the 327th. On 22 December 1944 during the siege of Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge, two German officers"
"glider in the Netherlands during Operation Market Garden. He became deputy division commander of the 101st Airborne, following the death of Brigadier General Don Pratt on June 6, 1944. In December 1944, the German army launched the surprise attack that became the Battle of the Bulge. Major General Maxwell D. Taylor, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, was attending a staff conference in the United States at the time. During Taylor's absence, McAuliffe commanded the 101st and its attached troops. At Bastogne, the 101st was besieged by a far larger force of Germans under the command of General Heinrich Freiherr"
"von Lüttwitz. On December 22, 1944, von Lüttwitz dispatched a party, consisting of a major, a lieutenant, and two enlisted men under a flag of truce to deliver an ultimatum. Entering the American lines southeast of Bastogne (occupied by Company F, 2nd Battalion, 327th Glider Infantry), the German party delivered the following to Gen. McAuliffe:. According to those present when McAuliffe received the German message, he read it, crumpled it into a ball, threw it in a wastepaper basket, and muttered, ""Aw, nuts"". The officers in McAuliffe's command post were trying to find suitable language for an official reply when"
"Battle of the Bulge. He remembers it as a precursor to today's Special Forces, calling it the 542nd Parachute Raider Battalion, a unit full of cut-throats bent on killing Germans. His time with the battalion was a shaping moment in his life, a time he has never forgotten. Also during this period the Battalion sent groups of men on War Bonds drives as representatives of the U.S. Army Paratroopers, to raise money and attract new recruits. On 1 July 1945, when the war with Germany was over, quietly and without fuss, the 542nd ceased to exist and was reflagged the"
"""The New York Times"" in his 2009 obituary, ""McAuliffe said, 'What do you mean?' I answered, 'Sir, you said, 'Nuts.' All members of the staff enthusiastically agreed. McAuliffe then wrote down: 'To the German Commander, Nuts! The American Commander.'"" McAuliffe's response was passed on to the two German officers who didn't understand its meaning. Colonel Joseph Harper, commanding the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, who had delivered the message, explained to the Germans, ""If you don’t know what 'nuts' means, in plain English it is the same as 'go to hell.'"" McAuliffe asked Kinnard to compose a message that he delivered"
"German counter-attacks, including the Battle of the Bulge, Germany was eventually defeated. On 7 May 1945 at the SHAEF headquarters in Rheims the Allies accepted Germany's surrender. On the same day in a BBC news flash John Snagge announced that 8 May would be Victory in Europe Day. On Victory in Europe Day, Churchill broadcast to the nation that Germany had surrendered and that a final ceasefire on all fronts in Europe would come into effect at one minute past midnight that night. Afterward, Churchill told a huge crowd in Whitehall: ""This is your victory."" The people shouted: ""No, it"
"a defense. The town quickly became cut off and surrounded. The winter weather slowed Allied air support, and the defenders were outnumbered and low on supplies. When given a request for their surrender from the Germans, General Anthony McAuliffe, acting commander of the 101st, replied, ""Nuts!"", contributing to the stubborn American defense. On 19 December, General Patton told Eisenhower that he could have his army in Bastogne in 48 hours. Patton then turned his army, at the time on the front in Luxembourg, north to break through to Bastogne. Patton's armor pushed north, and by 26 December was in Bastogne,"
"McAuliffe, now acting commander of the 101st, was told, a frustrated McAuliffe responded, ""Nuts!"" After turning to other pressing issues, his staff reminded him that they should reply to the German demand. One officer (Harry W. O. Kinnard, then a lieutenant colonel) recommended that McAuliffe's initial reply should be ""tough to beat"". Thus McAuliffe wrote on the paper delivered to the Germans: ""NUTS!"" That reply had to be explained, both to the Germans and to non-American Allies. Both of the two panzer divisions of the XLVII Panzer Corps moved forward from Bastogne after 21 December, leaving only one panzergrenadier regiment"
"friends. In December 1944, the Germans launched a surprise counter offensive, the Battle of the Bulge, which the Allies turned back in early 1945 after Eisenhower repositioned his armies and improved weather allowed the Air Force to engage. German defenses continued to deteriorate on both the eastern front with the Soviets and the western front with the Allies. The British wanted to capture Berlin, but Eisenhower decided it would be a military mistake for him to attack Berlin, and said orders to that effect would have to be explicit. The British backed down, but then wanted Eisenhower to move into"
"covered with ten passages carved in stone commemorating the battle, and the parapet bears the names of the then 48 U.S. States . Insignia of most participating battalions are shown on the walls, representing the 76,890 killed and wounded during the thwarted December 1944-January 1945 German Watch on the Rhine offensive, known in English by the colloquial ""Battle of the Bulge"". Below the structure a crypt with three altars – one each for Protestant, Catholic and Jewish services – was carved, and decorated with mosaics by French artist Fernand Léger. The Latin inscription on the memorial stone: translates to """"The"
"capturing Paris (the ""Wehrmachtbefehlshaber von Groß-Paris"", Dietrich von Choltitz, capitulated 25 August, ignoring Hitler's ""Trümmerfeldbefehl""), First Army headed towards the south of the Netherlands. When the Germans attacked during the Battle of the Bulge, First Army found itself on the north side of the salient, and thus isolated from 12th Army Group, its commanding authority. It was, therefore, temporarily transferred, along with Ninth Army, back to 21st Army Group under Montgomery on 20 December. The salient was reduced by early February 1945. Following the Battle of the Bulge, the Rhineland Campaign began, and First Army was transferred back to 12th"
"Bastogne. A few days later, Brigadier General McAuliffe and the 101st Airborne Division along with elements of the 10th Armored Division (United States) and the 82nd Airborne Division, arrived to counter-attack but, after heavy fighting, became encircled within the town. On 22 December German emissaries asked for the American surrender, to which the General answered tersely, “Nuts!” The next day the skies cleared, allowing Allied air forces to retaliate and to drop much needed food, medicine, and weaponry to ground forces. On 26 December the Third U.S. Army, under the command of General Patton, arrived and broke the siege. The"
"with them, exploiting the rough terrain full of creeks and high bluffs, where the Confederates’ long wagon trains were highly vulnerable. The two small bridges over Sailor's Creek and Little Sailor's Creek caused a bottleneck that further delayed the Confederates’ attempt to escape. After some desperate hand-to-hand fighting, about a quarter of the remaining effective soldiers of the Confederate force were lost, including several generals. Witnessing the surrender from a nearby bluff, Lee made his famous despairing remark to Major General William Mahone, ""My God, has the army dissolved?"", to which Mahone replied, ""No, General, here are troops ready to"
"In the following three weeks, American President Woodrow Wilson responded to the request for a truce with three diplomatic notes. As a precondition for negotiations, he demanded the retreat of Germany from all occupied territories, the cessation of submarine activities and (implicitly) the emperor's abdication. This last demand was intended to render the process of democratisation irreversible. After the third note of 24 October, General Ludendorff changed his mind and declared the conditions of the Allies to be unacceptable. He now demanded the resumption of the war that he had declared lost only one month earlier. While the request for"
"before a judge. I thought that if I was going to fight for this country, I should be a U.S. citizen. MacGillivary's first wartime action came during the Battle of Normandy, landing on Omaha Beach in 1944. From Omaha Beach MacGillivary would be involved in numerous battles throughout France, before reaching Wœlfling during the Battle of the Bulge. When his unit was surrounded on January 1, 1945 by the 17th German Panzer Grenadier Division a Waffen-SS Panzer unit in Wœlfling, France, MacGillivary, then 27, picked up a machine gun and knocked out four German machine gun nests, killing 36 German"
"in the Battle of the Bulge and proceeded to the North Sea. In April 1945, Ridgway selected Jack to deliver under a flag of truce an ultimatum of surrender to the German Field Marshal Walter Model, whose army was trapped in the Ruhr Valley. Ridgway compared Model's situation to that of Confederate States Army General Robert E. Lee in 1865, when Lee surrendered to U.S. Grant. Unlike Lee, Model refused to surrender out of personal honor but instead discharged his troops and made then civilian prisoners of war and refugees before he took his own life. Jack returned to bring"
"that deceptively implied the Germans would be adopting a defensive posture along the Western Front. The Germans also referred to it as ""Ardennenoffensive"" (Ardennes Offensive) and Rundstedt-Offensive, both names being generally used nowadays in modern Germany. The French (and Belgian) name for the operation is Bataille des Ardennes (Battle of the Ardennes). The battle was militarily defined by the Allies as the Ardennes Counteroffensive, which included the German drive and the American effort to contain and later defeat it. The phrase Battle of the Bulge was coined by contemporary press to describe the way the Allied front line bulged inward"
"to civilians earlier in the war. For example, the German military in the Netherlands obliged to Berlin's constant demand of forced labour, materials, and compliance with Nazi ideology, even though some of the soldiers questioned what they were doing. On 5 May 1945 Canadian Charles Foulkes, a Royal Canadian Regiment General, and the German Commander-in-Chief Johannes Blaskowitz finalized an agreement that resulted in the Germans surrendering, thus ending the fighting and enabling support and supplies to be delivered throughout the Netherlands. The Canadian army did not question Foulkes ability to handle himself with the negotiations. He was known for being"
"area of maneuver, and eventually pinch it off. Such tactics were put to good use against the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. The German forces initially encountered little resistance, and their line of advance to the west quickly became apparent. US forces rushed from the north and south to place themselves on either side of the line of advance. Turning away from these forces, the spearhead met additional groups on the opposite side of the line, and their room for movement was progressively whittled down and slowed. When the battle ended, the German forces were arrayed along a"
"of the war in the biggest battle of World War II, involving approximately 1.3 million men, the Allies declared the Ardennes Offensive, or Battle of the Bulge, officially over. The 3rd Battalion, 395th Regiment had acquitted itself with valor, having held its lines despite the harsh winter weather, the enemy's numerical superiority and greater numbers of armored units. The 3rd Battalion received a Presidential Unit Citation for its actions around Höfen from 16 to 19 December. It was credited with destroying ""seventy-five percent of three German infantry regiments."" The citation read: During the German offensive in the Ardennes, the Third"
"escaped the battle area, although the fuel situation had become so dire that most of the German armor had to be abandoned. On 7 January 1945 Hitler agreed to withdraw all forces from the Ardennes, including the SS-Panzer divisions, thus ending all offensive operations. Considerable fighting went on for another 3 weeks; St. Vith was recaptured by the Americans on 23 January, and the last German units participating in the offensive did not return to their start line until 25 January. Winston Churchill, addressing the House of Commons following the Battle of the Bulge said, ""This is undoubtedly the greatest"
"and what had been left of the 9th SS Panzer Division was complete. For the 82nd Airborne Division the first part of the Battle of the Bulge had ended. After helping to secure the Ruhr, the 82nd Airborne Division ended the war at Ludwigslust past the Elbe River, accepting the surrender of over 150,000 men of Lieutenant General Kurt von Tippelskirch's 21st Army. General Omar Bradley, commanding the U.S. 12th Army Group, stated in a 1975 interview with Gavin that Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, commanding the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group, had told him that German opposition was too great"
"were left severely depleted of men and equipment, as survivors retreated to the defenses of the Siegfried Line. With about 610,000 men committed and some 89,000 casualties, including 19,000 killed, the Battle of the Bulge was the largest and bloodiest battle fought by the United States in World War II. The Colmar Pocket (French: Poche de Colmar; German: Brückenkopf Elsaß) was the area held in central Alsace, France by the German Nineteenth Army from November 1944 – February 1945, against the U.S. 6th Army Group during World War II. It was formed when 6th AG liberated southern and northern Alsace"
"colours and replying to signal challenges by giving misleading replies in German. These measures were all designed to buy time for the attacking force. When these tactics ceased to be effective and German shore batteries opened fire in earnest, all the British ships lowered their German colours and hoisted White Ensigns before returning fire. German commando Otto Skorzeny led his troops wearing American uniforms to infiltrate American lines in Operation Greif during the Battle of the Bulge. Skorzeny later reported that he was told by experts in military law that wearing American uniforms was a defensible ""ruse de guerre"", provided"
"What became known as the ""Battle of the Bulge"" forced the movement of large numbers of U.S. troops north out of Alsace and Lorraine to counter the German attack. In January, additional U.S. troops were moved north in response to the German counter-offensive into northern Alsace, Operation North Wind (""Unternehmen Nordwind""). Taking advantage of the stretched Allied lines, Himmler ordered the recapture of Strasbourg. German troops assaulted across the Rhine near Gambsheim on January 5, 1945 and soon occupied a bridgehead including the towns of Herrlisheim, Drusenheim, and Offendorf north of Strasbourg. South of Strasbourg, German troops in the Colmar"
"leader of German paratroops, Ramcke demanded to know the lower ranking Canham's credentials as a condition of surrender. Unruffled, Canham pointed to the dirty and tired American soldiers he had brought with him to witness the surrender and said, ""These are my credentials."" The account of this event, which was reported in ""The New York Times"", saw in this spontaneous statement of a combat leader the greatest tribute ever paid to the real power of the American Army, the individual soldier. By the end of World War II, Canham had earned every award for valor less the Medal of Honor"
"six heavy A. A. Battalions are ready to annihilate the U.S.A. troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given immediately after this two hours term. All the serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the well-known American humanity. He received the following reply from McAuliffe: ""To the German Commander. NUTS!"" The reply, ""Nuts!"", was explained to the German negotiators as the equivalent of ""go to hell!"" Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz Diepold Georg Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz (6 December 1896 – 9 October 1969) was a Prussian Junker, Olympic equestrian, and German"
"hold Bastogne if we keep falling back"" and the units were ordered to stay. On 20 December, VIII Corps was moved from Hodges' First Army back to Patton's Third Army. Bastogne was being surrounded by the Germans and without adequate weather for airdrops, supplies were running low. By 22 December the Germans felt that their position around Bastogne was strong enough to send in an emissary with a note advising the Americans to surrender the city, or they would be attacked in the afternoon. McAuliffe's famous reply, ""Nuts!"" was sent back to the German commander. The Germans did renew their"
"Division held the area of the Siegfried Line they had seized against German Attacks throughout the winter during the Battle of the Bulge. Military actions at the Siegfried Line up to 15 December alone brought death, injury or captivity to more than 250,000 soldiers from both sides. The First and Ninth U.S. Army suffered 57,039 battle casualties (dead, wounded, captured, missing in action); 71,654 non-battle casualties, i.e. accidents, diseases such as pneumonia, trench foot, frostbite, and trauma. German Armed Forces are presumed to be 12,000 dead, 95,000 captured (documented), and an unknown number of wounded. On 16 December 1944, German"
"west and the U.S. 318th Infantry pushed through the city, arriving in the vicinity of the command bunker of General Erxleben at 0900 on April 4, 1945. Faced with the collapse of his defenses, Erxleben dispatched a captain early on April 4 to discuss surrender terms with the Americans. The American reply was that the Germans had to cease resistance with no cease-fire to evacuate wounded or civilians, or that the fighting would continue. Around 1100 on April 4, U.S. tanks crossed the Fulda River from the east and moved toward the center of Kassel. At 1200, General Erxleben capitulated"