The Rhine crossings in the Lower Rhine region in March 1945 were executed to establish several bridgeheads on the eastern bank of the river. Once this was accomplished, the Allies planned to advance into the North German Plain to quickly end the war.
March 24 to 26, 1945 - Churchill and Eisenhower Visiting the Frontlines
On March 23rd, 1945, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrived by plane at a former German military airfield in Herongen near Venlo. Planning to observe the impending major offensive across the Rhine, he spent the night at the Tactical HQ of the British Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, near Straelen.
An American paratrooper hangs lifeless in his harness, the parachute caught in the branches of a tree. He never reached German soil to take up the fight. This soldier's life ended on a Saturday morning - on March 24th, 1945, near the village of Hamminkeln.
In the autumn of 1944, the situation on the Western Front appeared increasingly threatening for the Nazi regime and the German army. After the Allied airborne landings near Eindhoven, Nijmegen, and Arnhem ("Operation Market Garden"), enemy troops had come very close to the German-Dutch border. Confronted with this situation, the Germans decided to strengthen their defensive positions in the Lower Rhine border region. Here, the so-called "Westwall" (also known as the „Siegfried Line“) consisted mainly of improvised earthworks rather than concrete bunkers, as was the case further south in the Eifel region and along the German-French border. In the Lower Rhine region further "entrenchment" works were now called for.
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