Documentary Review: 'American Experience: Battle of the Bulge: The Deadliest Battle of World War II'

American Experience - "Battle of the Bulge: The Deadliest Battle of World War II"

Written by: Thomas Lennon and Mark Zwonitzer

Directed by: Thomas Lennon

Narrated by: David McCullough

Date of Original Release: November 9, 1994


On November 9, 1994, over 300 member stations of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) aired Battle of the Bulge: The Deadliest Battle of World War II, a 90-minute long episode of WGBH Boston's American Experience documentary series. Written by Thomas Lennon and Mark Zwonitzer and directed by Lennon, it is a briskly-paced overview of the Ardennes Counter-Offensive, the biggest land battle of the Western Front in World War II and, as Charles B. MacDonald has dubbed it, the greatest single engagement in the history of the U.S. Army.

Planned personally by Adolf Hitler in the late summer and early fall of 1944, the Ardennes Counter-Offensive - code-named by the Germans as Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein ("Operation Watch on the Rhine") - has often been dubbed by historians and World War II buffs alike as "Hitler's last gamble in the West." Faced by two massive Allied thrusts against his shrinking Greater German Reich - the Western Allies advancing on a broad front from France and Belgium in the West, and the Soviet Red Army storming toward East Prussia, western Poland, and the German heartland in the East - Hitler believed that a daring surprise attack against the Anglo-American armies in Belgium and Luxembourg would cause a split in the Grand Alliance, force the British and Canadian armies off the Continent in another Dunkirk, and force Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to the negotiating table once he saw that his Western Allies were defeated by Nazi forces.

Most of Hitler's generals thought the Fuhrer was mad and that  Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein would not go as well as their warlord thought. But after the failure of the July 20 attempt on Hitler's life, none of the German Army's officer corps dared say so, so the High Command made plans and squirreled away men, vehicles, artillery pieces, aircraft, and material to make the Nazi leader's fevered dream a reality.

Essentially, Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein's goal was to capture the Belgian port city of Antwerp, which the British Second Army had captured on September 4. The Allies needed Antwerp's docks and harbor (the largest in Western Europe) to resupply Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's three army groups on the Western Front. If the Germans could retake Antwerp, they would literally cut off Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's 21st Army Group from Gen. Omar Bradley's 12th Army Group to its south. If all went as Hitler intended, the alliance between the U.S. and Great Britain would break from the political and military fallout of such a massive defeat, and Germany would get a badly-needed respite in which to rearm, re-equip, and reorient its armies to face the approaching Red Army in the East.

Map credit: Matthew Edwards for Wikipedia, based on data in U.S. Army historical archives

To ensure success, Hitler scheduled Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein to start at a time when fog, icy temperatures, and snow would ground Allied air forces and make an American counterattack difficult if not impossible. The Fuhrer also believed that Eisenhower had to consult with his political superiors before making any military decisions to stop the German offensive. If bad weather - "Hitler weather" - and a slow response from London and Washington tied Ike's hands, the Nazi leader reasoned, the German armies he had carefully hoarded for months would achieve a great victory and save the Third Reich from utter defeat.

In the early morning hours of December 16, 1944, elements of three German armies struck at the thinly defended Ardennes sector of the Western Front. Due to strict communications security on the part of the Germans, the Americans - most of them assigned to Lt. Gen. Courtney Hodges' First Army - were caught by surprise by the initial German assault.

But even though the Germans achieved some local victories at the start of the battle, most of the Americans resisted valiantly. Despite heavy losses - including the surrender of two regiments of the green 106th Infantry Division - and no air support, the GIs fought back and slowed Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein, buying time for Ike's countermoves and a brilliant maneuver by Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. that threw a wrench into Hitler's grand scheme and resulted in a month-long struggle by the Allies to push the Wehrmacht back to its original start line.

©2004 WGBH Boston Video

My Take

Battle of the Bulge: The Deadliest Battle of World War II is a well-done (if somewhat superficial) look at one of the most important and controversial battles of the war in Europe. Co-written, produced, and directed by four-time Academy Award nominee Thomas Lennon, the documentary mixes color and black-and-white footage from Allied and German archives, contemporary (the 1990s) interviews with veterans who were enlisted men and junior officers in 1944-45, and a masterful narration by historian David McCullough. 

As in many books about the Battle of the Bulge, Lennon and co-writer Mark Zwonitzer begin their documentary with the Allied liberation of Paris, then follow that up with the logistical problems that resulted from the Anglo-Americans' rapid advance across France and Belgium. The euphoria over the summer victories over the German armies in the West had unexpected consequences that would come to haunt Ike and his generals later, such as the War Department's decision to scale down demands for more artillery shells from U.S. munitions manufacturers.

Battle of the Bulge: The Deadliest Battle of World War II also delves into how Germany raised new Volksgrenadier divisions (using the remnants of units crushed in the Normandy campaign and melding them with a mix of underage teens - some as young as 13 - and older men over 50 who would normally be unfit for frontline service) and held off the Allies in multiple fronts while Hitler planned "Watch on the Rhine."  The documentary discusses such issues as the Fuhrer's insistence that the attack be carried out in bad weather and his belief that his forces could defeat the "soft" GIs of the American army.

Due to the passage of time, Battle of the Bulge: The Deadliest Battle of World War II could not rely on interviews with any of the Allied generals; none were around in 1994, which marked the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Instead, the makers of the documentary talked to veterans who were either junior staff officers (such as Chet Hansen, who was General Bradley's aide at the time of the battle and H.W.O. Kinnard, a lieutenant colonel in the 101st Airborne during the siege of Bastogne) or enlisted men who were caught up in the maelstrom of the Battle of the Bulge.

For the most part, Battle of the Bulge: The Deadliest Battle of World War II is a riveting film It encapsulates the many trials and tribulations faced by both the American and German participants. The 1990s-era interviews are nicely woven into the wider narrative of the campaign, and the editing (by Ken Eluto) blends them seamlessly with the wartime footage and contemporary on-location cinematography by Gary Steele and Jeremy Stavenhagen.

Is Battle of the Bulge: The Deadliest Battle of World War II a perfect documentary? For most viewers, Lennon's 90-minute film is a watch-worthy effort. It covers most of the basic talking points about the Battle of the Bulge, including the basic German plan, the Malmedy Massacre, the Siege of Bastogne, and the horrible conditions under which the GIs and Landser fought.

For buffs, Battle of the Bulge: The Deadliest Battle of World War II  is a mixed bag. I would have liked to see interviews with American, British, and German historians included. It's nice that Lennon and Zwonitzer interviewed veterans to give the documentary a view from the foxhole. as it were. But it would not have hurt to have included the perspectives of experts such as Stephen Ambrose, Max Hastings, Carlo D'Este, or Antony Beevor.

Also, I think that Battle of the Bulge: The Deadliest Battle of World War II would have been a bit more comprehensive had it been a two-part documentary rather than a 90-minute one. I have watched it several times since I got it as a Christmas present in 2009, and I always get the feeling that the third act is a bit rushed.

As for the DVD, I think it is a good home media product in most respects. The quality of the audio and video is superb, especially if you watch it on a modern high definition TV.

My only issue is that even though Battle of the Bulge: The Deadliest Battle of World War II includes closed captions for the deaf and hard of hearing, those do not work with Blu-ray players with HDMI cables. I really wish that WGBH Boston Video had used traditional subtitles instead of closed captions.