The "Führer's Fireman"

Harzer, although preoccupied with preparing to move his division by train to Germany, ordered his troops to form 19 company sized, quick-reaction infantry kampfgruppen. Much of his divisional equipment was being loaded on trains when the first Allied airborne landings occurred. His division was the closest to Arnhem itself, with the Frundsberg Division garrisoned farther to the north and west near Apeldoorn. Also in the Arnhem area were two other Waffen-SS units, which were not under II SS Panzer Corps' command. Major Sepp Krafft commanded a Waffen-SS noncommissioned training depot to the west of Arnhem, and in the outskirts there was also a 600-strong battalion of Dutch SS infantry.

Bittrich had his headquarters in a small village nearly 10km (6.2 miles) to the east of Arnhem. In Arnhem's Tafelberg Hotel, Field Marshal Walther Model was trying to patch together his hopelessly undermanned and under-equipped army group to defend the northwest border of Germany. He had a reputation for being a great improviser and, after his successes on the Eastern Front, was nicknamed the "Führer's Fireman". Even at this point of the war, he was still ultra-loyal to Hitler and could be counted on to follow the Führer's orders to the letter. He was sitting down to lunch on 17 September with his staff when hundreds of aircraft were heard flying overhead. Operation Market Garden had begun.

Montgomery's plan to end the war

By the beginning of September, the Allied armies in France and Belgium had largely outrun their supply lines. With only a fraction of the needed supplies coming ashore, they could no longer advance into Germany on a wide front. The recently promoted Field Marshal Montgomery successfully lobbied the Allied supreme commander, Eisenhower, to allow him to drive into Holland to seize bridges over the Rhine, and then advance into Germany's industrial heartland of the Ruhr.

The normally cautious Montgomery now came up with a very ambitious and daring plan to capture the strategic bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem with a parachute drop by the British 1st Airborne Division. The US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions would also be dropped to seize the bridges across the Waal and Maas rivers, as well as the Willems and Wilhelmina canals, to allow the tanks of the British XXX Corps to motor 103km (64 miles) up from Belgium to relieve the troops on Arnhem bridge. In total some 35,000 Allied paratroopers and glider-borne troops would be dropped in the largest airborne operation in military history. Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks would predict that his XXX Corps would be in Arnhem in 60 hours.

Operation Market Garden

When RAF reconnaissance Spitfires photographed German tanks near Arnhem, the deputy commander of the First Airborne Army, Lieutenant-General Frederick "Boy" Browning, ignored the intelligence. Other Allied intelligence officers discounted the idea that the remnants of II SS Panzer Corps could put up serious resistance. The party was on, and nothing was going to spoil the show - except Bittrich's panzer troops.

Allied bombers and fighter-bombers hit targets all over southern Holland during the morning of 17 September. After 13:00 hours, when the first British paratroopers started to land to the west of Arnhem, Bittrich swung into action, alerting his troops with a warning order that was issued at 13:40 hours. With these brief orders he set in train the German counteroffensive that was to defeat Operation Market Garden. Harzer was ordered to assemble his kampfgruppen and move with "absolute speed" to contain and defeat the British airborne Oosterbeek landing. Meanwhile, the Frundsberg Division was to race south and hold the Nijmegen bridge across the Waal to stop reinforcements reaching Arnhem.

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