Sailing to Normandy throughout July, Patton’s Third Army formed on the extreme right (west) of the Allied land forces,
and became operational at noon on August 1, 1944, under Bradley’s Twelfth United States Army Group.
The Third Army simultaneously attacked west into Brittany, south, east toward the Seine,
and north, assisting in trapping several hundred thousand German soldiers in the Falaise Pocket between Falaise and Argentan.
The Third Army simultaneously attacked west into Brittany, south, east toward the Seine, and north, assisting in trapping several hundred thousand German soldiers in the Falaise Pocket between Falaise and Argentan.
Patton’s strategy with his army favored speed and aggressive offensive action, though his forces saw less opposition than did the other three Allied field armies in the initial weeks of its advance.
The Third Army typically employed forward scout units to determine enemy strength and positions.
Self-propelled artillery moved with the spearhead units and was sited well forward, ready to engage protected German positions with indirect fire.
Light aircraft such as the Piper L-4 Cub served as artillery spotters and provided airborne reconnaissance. Once located, the armored infantry would attack using tanks as infantry support.
Other armored units would then break through enemy lines and exploit any subsequent breach, constantly pressuring withdrawing German forces to prevent them from regrouping and reforming a cohesive defensive line.
The U.S. armor advanced using reconnaissance by fire, and the .50 caliber M2 Browning heavy machine gun proved effective in this role, often flushing out and killing German panzerfaust teams waiting in ambush as well as breaking up German infantry assaults against the armored infantry.
The speed of the advance forced Patton’s units to rely heavily on air reconnaissance and tactical air support.
The Third Army had by far more military intelligence (G-2) officers at headquarters specifically designated to coordinate air strikes than any other army.
Its attached close air support group was XIX Tactical Air Command, commanded by Brigadier General Otto P. Weyland.
Developed originally by General Elwood Quesada of IX Tactical Air Command for the First Army in Operation Cobra, the technique of “armored column cover”, in which close air support was directed by an air traffic controller in one of the attacking tanks, was used extensively by the Third Army. Each column was protected by a standing patrol of three to four P-47and P-51 fighter-bombers as a combat air patrol (CAP).
In its advance from Avranches to Argentan, the Third Army traversed 60 miles (97 km) in just two weeks. Patton’s force was supplemented
by Ultra intelligence for which he was briefed daily by his G-2, Colonel Oscar W. Koch,
who apprised him of German counterattacks, and where to concentrate his forces.
Ultra was the designation adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park.
Ultra eventually became the standard designation among the western Allies for all such intelligence. So named because the intelligence obtained was considered more important than that designated by the highest British security classification (Most Secret) and so was regarded as being Ultra secre
Equally important to the advance of Third Army columns in northern France was the rapid advance of the supply echelons.
Third Army logistics were overseen by Colonel Walter J. Muller, Patton’s G-4, who emphasized flexibility, improvisation,
and adaptation for Third Army supply echelons so forward units could rapidly exploit a breakthrough.
Patton’s rapid drive to Lorraine demonstrated his keen appreciation for the technological advantages of the U.S. Army.
The major U.S. and Allied advantages were in mobility and air superiority.
The U.S. Army had more trucks, more reliable tanks, and better radio communications,
all of which contributed to a superior ability to operate at a rapid offensive pace.
Lorraine Campaign
Patton’s offensive came to a halt on August 31, 1944, as the Third Army ran out of fuel near the Moselle River, just outside Metz,
near the German border, the city had a population of about 100,000 in 1944 and was an important transportation, communication and administrative center.
Metz had been overwhelmed by the German invasion of France in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War
. It was ceded back to the French following World War I and fell again to the Germans during their blitzkrieg of 1940.
Patton expected that the theater commander would keep fuel and supplies flowing to support successful advances,
but Eisenhower favored a “broad front” approach to the ground-war effort, believing that a single thrust would have to drop off flank protection,
and would quickly lose its punch. Still within the constraints of a very large effort overall,
Eisenhower gave Montgomery and a higher priority for supplies for Operation Market Garden.
Combined with other demands on the limited resource pool, this resulted in the Third Army exhausting its fuel supplies.
Patton believed his forces were close enough to the Siegfried Line that he remarked
to Bradley that with 400,000 gallons of gasoline he could be in Germany within two days.
The Third Army had been fighting fiercely since early September to push the tenacious Germans out of the city, suffering casualties that approached 50%.
In late September, a large German Panzer counterattack sent expressly to stop the advance of Patton’s Third Army was defeated at the Battle of Arracourt.
Finally on November 19 the American forces were able to encircle the city and begin a systematic elimination of the enemy occupiers
Despite the victory, the Third Army stayed in place as a result of Eisenhower’s order.
The German commanders believed this was because their counterattack had been successful.
On the evening of November 20, 1944 Sergeant Leonard O’Reilly, a former elevator operator from Brooklyn,
entered a brewery near the city that had just been abandoned by SS troopers after a fierce defense.
O’Reilly’s assignment was to help clear the building of any remaining enemy soldiers.
Prowling slowly through the darkness, O’Reilly glimpsed a figure cringing in a dusty corner.
Approaching warily, O’Reilly discovered a well-dressed German officer who immediately declared that his high rank prevented him from surrendering to a mere Sergeant.
The Sergeant shoved his pistol into his captive’s ample belly and cocked it. This was enough to motivate his prisoner to meekly join the other enemy captives.
The prisoner was Major General Anton Dunckern the SS commander of the region. Dunckern had joined the SS in 1933 and had steadily gained promotion over the intervening years.
He was a major catch of such importance that General Patton decided to interrogate him personally.
Early on in life Dunckern got involved in far right-wing politics in Southern Germany:
In 1922, when he was seventeen, he joined the Freikorps Lauterbach,
an association of volunteers serving as a supplementary to the regular German Army, where he met Heinrich Himmler.
Both men became close friends at that time, remaining on a first-name basis for the rest of their lives.
In September 1930 Dunckern joined the NSDAP and the SS,
which by that time was spearheaded by his friend Himmler.
Being a personal friend of the SS-chief and a highly educated academician
Dunckern managed to advance swiftly within the ranks of the SS after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany in 1933:
During the coup that brought the NSDAP to power in the State of Bavaria in March 1933 Dunckern,
on behalf of Himmler, commanded the SS-troopers that occupied and guarded the Government buildings in Munich.
In April he was appointed as an officer in the Bavarian Political Police, which
at that time was Himmler’s central power tool within the state apparatus.
When Himmler and his deputy Heydrich migrated from Munich to Berlin in April 1934
in order to take control of the Gestapo they took Dunckern along.
In the following months he participated in reorganizing the Gestapo in accordance
with the plans of the SS-leaders, thus decisively contributing to consolidating their power.
During the Nazi-government’s purge of June 30 to July 2, 1934
Dunckern played a key-role in clamping down on his masters’ adversaries in Berlin:
He led the SS-troop that occupied the offices of Hitler’s conservative Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen.
During this raid Papen’s chief of press Herbert von Bose, the organiser of the political opposition to Nazi rule within the government apparatus,
was shot and several other staffers were taken prisoner and dragged to concentration camps.
In the night of June 30 to July 1 Dunckern led a group of Gestapo agents who tried to execute
the disgraced former NSDAP politician Paul Schulz in a forest outside of Berlin, who,
however, managed to slip out of his would-be-killers clutches.
From July to December 1934 Dunckern reorganized the Gestapo in Breslau and Liegnitz in Silesia.
In March 1935 he was appointed to the office of chief of the Gestapo in Saarbrücken thus being placed in charge of the Gestapo within the whole Saar area.
German military performance against the Western Allies in France and on the German frontier in 1944
In early 1939 Dunckern was transferred to Brunswick as inspector of the Security Police and the SD supervising political,
criminal police as well SS intelligence service in his area.
In July 1940 Dunckern was appointed commander of the Security Police and the SD in Saar-Lorraine.
In 1942 he was promoted to the rank of a SS-Brigadeführer.
Following the Allied invasion of Europe in the summer of 1944 Himmler placed Dunckern
in charge of the SS and police in the defence section of Metz.
1944- U.S. infantry soldier views roadside “Purple Heart Avenue” sign outside Metz,
Patton, deciding that Dunckern was a ″viper″ and a ″low type″ of policeman, had him classified as a political detainee instead of a prisoner of war.
Until early April 1945 Dunckern was kept as a prisoner in England.
Afterwards he was transferred to a camp for captured generals in the US. In the summer of 1946 Dunckern was returned to Europe.
American Infantry enters one of the Metz forts during the reduction process.
From the summer of 1946 until the autumn of 1947 he was imprisoned in a camp for generals in Garmisch in Southern Germany.
Afterwards he was imprisoned in a military penitentiary in Metz until the spring of 1953.
From May 31 to July 1, 1953, Dunckern was tried as a war criminal before the Military Court of the 6th Region in Metz: he was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor.
In June, 1954, Dunckern was granted an early release from a prison in the Loos district of Lille.
He returned to Germany where he settled down in Munich, opening a law firm in 1956. Following a severe encephalitis attack in 1962 he became paraplegic.
Due to his old age and feeble health he gave up his law license in 1970.
In 1970 and 1971 the district attorney in Munich investigated Dunckern due to the suspicion that he had aided mass murder in his capacity as chief of police in Metz during the war.
Specifically it was assumed that the agency run by Dunckern had been involved in the organization of the deportation of French Jews to Eastern Europe from 1942 to 1944.
Since Dunckern denied those charges and since no evidence could be uncovered proving the opposite, the investigation was finally dropped in May 1971.
Dunckern died in 1985 following a lengthy ailment.
He is buried in the Ostfriedhof (eastern graveyard) of Munich. In accordance with his instructions, Dunckern’s sister burned all his private papers after his death.
Although Patton could speak German fluently, he opted to interrogate the SS officer through an interpreter because, as he noted, he would not give his prisoner the honor of talking to him directly:
| “Patton | You can tell this man that naturally in my position I cannot demean myself to question him, but I can say this, that I have captured a great many German generals, and this is the first one who has been wholly untrue to everything; because he has not only been a Nazi but he is untrue to the Nazis by surrendering. If he wants to say anything he can, and I will say that unless he talks pretty well, I will turn him over to the French. They know how to make people talk. |
| Dunckern |
. . . I received orders to go in the Metz sector and defend a certain sector there, and the reason I did not perish was that I could not reach my weapons and fight back. |
| Patton |
. . . He is a liar! |
| Dunkern | There was no possibility to continue fighting. The door was opened, and they put a gun on me. |
| Patton | If he wanted to be a good Nazi, he could have died then and there. It would have been a pleasanter death than what he will get now. |
| Dunkern | . . . It was useless to do anything about it under the circumstances. (He asked permission to ask a question; it was granted.) I was fighting against American troops and captured by them, and therefore am to be considered a prisoner of war of the American forces. |
| Patton | He will be a prisoner of war of the French forces soon. They have a lot they want to ask him. |
| Dunkern | I consider myself a prisoner of war of the American forces, and I have not been captured by the French forces. |
| Patton | When I am dealing with vipers, I do not have to be bothered by any foolish ideas any more than he has been. |
| Dunkern | I consider myself a prisoner of war since I fought as a soldier and should be treated as a soldier. |
| Patton | You also acted as a policeman – a low type of police. |
| Dunkern | I acted as an officer of the police in an honorable and practical manner, and I have nothing to be ashamed of. |
| Patton | This is a matter of opinion – no one who is a Nazi police man could act in an honorable manner. |
| Dunkern | I can only say that during every day of my life I have been honest, rightful, respectful, and humanitarian. |
| Patton | If this is the case, do you have anything you want to say by way of giving me information or by talking about the German people that will change my opinion? |
| Dunkern | No one will be able to stand up against me to testify that I did anything against the rules of humanity or human treatment. |
| Patton | I understand German very well, but I will not demean myself by speaking such a language. I think before I turn the General over to the French, I will send him to the Army Group who may question him or have some special investigators question him, and they can do things I can’t do. |
| Dunkern | I am not worried about having myself investigated. Of course, there may be some mistakes I have made, which is only human, but I am not worried about inhuman acts charged against me. |
| Patton | . . . I have great respect for the German soldiers; they are gallant men, but not for Nazis. Have the guards take him outside and have his picture taken and then we’ll see what we will do with him. Also tell him that those bayonets on the guards’ guns are very sharp.” |
On 14 June 1945, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson announced that Patton would not be sent to the Pacific but would return to Europe in an occupation army assignment.
Patton was appointed as then military governor of Bavaria, where he led the Third Army in denazification efforts.
Patton was particularly upset when learning of the end of the war against Japan, writing in his diary,
“Yet another war has come to an end, and with it my usefulness to the world.”
Unhappy with his position and depressed by his belief that he would never fight in another war,
Patton’s behavior and statements became increasingly erratic.
Various explanations beyond his disappointments have been proposed for Patton’s behavior at this point. Carlo D’Este wrote
“it seems virtually inevitable … that Patton experienced some type of brain damage from too many head injuries” from a lifetime of numerous auto- and horse-related accidents, especially one suffered while playing polo in 1936.
Patton attracted controversy as military governor when it was noted that several former Nazi Party members continued to hold political posts in the region.
When responding to the press about the subject, Patton repeatedly compared Nazis to Democrats and Republicans
in noting that most of the people with experience in infrastructure management had been compelled to join the party in the war,
causing negative press stateside and angering Eisenhower.
On September 28, 1945, after a heated exchange with Eisenhower over his statements,
Patton was relieved of his military governorship. He was relieved of command of the Third Army on October 7,
and in a somber change of command ceremony, Patton concluded his farewell remarks,
“All good things must come to an end.
The best thing that has ever happened to me thus far is the honor and privilege of having commanded the Third Army.”
Patton’s final assignment was to command the U.S. 15th Army, based in Bad Nauheim.
The 15th Army at this point consisted only of a small headquarters staff working to compile a history of the war in Europe.
Patton had accepted the post because of his love of history, but quickly lost interest and began traveling,
visiting Paris, Rennes, Chartres, Brussels, Metz, Reims, Luxembourg, and Verdun.
Then he went to Stockholm, where he reunited with other athletes from the 1912 Olympics.
Patton decided that he would leave his post at the 15th Army and not return to Europe once he left on December 10 for Christmas leave.
He intended to discuss with his wife whether he would continue in a stateside post or retire from the Army.
On December 8, 1945, Patton’s chief of staff, Major General Hobart Gay, invited him on a pheasant hunting trip near Speyer to lift his spirits.
Observing derelict cars along the side of the road, Patton said, “How awful war is. Think of the waste.”
Moments later his car collided with an American army truck at low speed.
Gay and others were only slightly injured, but Patton hit his head on the glass partition in the back seat.
He began bleeding from a gash to the head, and complained that he was paralyzed and having trouble breathing.
Taken to a hospital in Heidelberg, Patton was discovered to have a compression fracture
and dislocation of the cervical third and fourth vertebrae,
resulting in a broken neck and cervical spinal cord injury that rendered him paralyzed from the neck down.
After Patton’s death in an auto accident in Germany in December of 1945, Willie was brought back to live at ‘Green Meadows Farm’ (now the ‘Patton Homestead’) with Patton’s wife and daughters . Willie died in 1955 and is buried in an unmarked grave (with other family pets) by a stone wall on the property, which is still owned by the Patton Family
Patton spent most of the next 12 days in spinal traction to decrease the pressure on his spine.
All nonmedical visitors, except for Patton’s wife, who had flown from the U.S., were forbidden. Patton,
who had been told he had no chance to ever again ride a horse or resume normal life, at one point commented,
“This is a hell of a way to die.” He died in his sleep of pulmonary edema and congestive heart failure at about 18:00 on December 21, 1945.
Speculation as to whether the collision and Patton’s injuries and death resulted from mere accident or a deliberate assassination
continued into the twenty-first century.
Patton was buried at the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial in the Hamm district of Luxembourg City,
alongside some wartime casualties of the Third Army, in accordance with his request to “be buried with [his] men”.
References:
This eyewitness account appears in: Blumenson, Martin., The Patton Papers (1974); Allen, Robert Sharon,
Lucky Forward, the History of Patton’s Third Army (1947); Hanson, Victor Davis, The Soul of Battle (1999).
How To Cite This Article:
“General George Patton Interrogates a SS General, 1944,” EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2008).