hour I had no communications and all my for-
ward tanks were knocked out.” This attack
signaled the commencement of Operation
Cobra, the long-anticipated breakout from
Normandy. The U.S. Third Army under Gen.
George S. Patton advanced mightily upon
Saint-Lô with five fresh divisions, but the sur-
viving Panzer Lehr veterans restricted their
advance to only three miles after fierce fight-
ing. Field Marshal Gunther von Klugethen
forbade Bayerlein from retreating further, and
the exasperated general declared, “You may
report to the Field Marshal that the Panzer
Lehr Division is annihilated!” On July 26, 1944,
Patton brought up the U.S. Second Armored
Division, which shattered the German line,
and the race across France began. Bayerlein
quickly cobbled together his surviving troops
and led a fighting retreat back to the German
borders. En route, Panzer Lehr was caught in
the closing Falaise Gap and had to run the
gauntlet, losing heavily in men and equipment.
The ensuing fall of France was a disaster that
cost Hitler a half-million troops and several
thousand tanks and other vehicles.
After several weeks of resting and refitting
his outfit, Bayerlein became part of the Fifth
Panzer Army under Gen. Hasso von Man-
teuffelduring the December 1944 Ardennes
offensive. After heavy fighting, he led Panzer
Lehr around the American strong point at
Bastogne and pushed to within 10 miles of the
German objective, the Meuse River. American
counterattacks soon forced the Germans
back to their starting point—minus 100,000
casualties—and Bayerlein left Panzer Lehr to
head up the 53rd Corps in the defense of the
Ruhr Valley. Stubborn resistance there availed
the Germans nothing, and Bayerlein was cap-
tured, along with the bulk of his troops, on
April 15, 1945.
After the war, Bayerlein returned to civil-
ian life. There he functioned as an unofficial
military historian, writing frank and scathing
appraisals of German strategic conduct and
its senior commanders. He also cooperated
cheerfully with editors of the U.S. Operational
History Section, which compiled one of the
first official accounts of the war. The feisty,
outspoken Bayerlein died at Wurzburg on Jan-
uary 30, 1970, acclaimed by many as one of
Germany’s leading panzer commanders.Bibliography
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