Gebruiker:De Zeistenaar/Battle of Otterlo

The battle of Otterlo happened in the Netherlands at the night of 16 till 17 april 1945, around the small Dutch village of Otterlo.

Background

In april 1945, the western allies liberated large areas in the Netherlands above the river Rijn. In the context of defeating Nazi-Germany, the army movements had their focus to go north as soon as possible; resulting in the liberation of Groningen at 13-16 april 1945. As a flank protection, an area called 'the Veluwe' was liberated from 14-18 april 1945 by the use of two military operations: operation Cleanser and operation Cannonshot. As a result, the troops on the Veluwe were encircled in a pocket which was expected to result in a surrender. During operation Cleanser, Otterlo was liberated on 16th april 1945 during operation by Canadian and British troops, which moved on to Barneveld directly. However, German troops assembled in the village Hoenderloo upon which they decided to break out of this pocket. It was their goal to join the German forces in what they called 'Festung Holland'. They expected that a last stand would have taken place in the Randstad; a battle that eventually never happened. As a big suprise to the allies (the military intelligence completely overlooked the gathering in Hoenderloo), the German troops decided to attack Otterlo during the night of 17th april. These were troops from the 361 Volksgrenadier Division, Regiment 952.

The battle

Around midnight, the first German troops surrounded and attacked a small squad that was located outside of Otterlo, as a distraction. According to the regiment's diary, about 25 soldiers raced into Otterlo next and started shooting around. About 800-1000 German soldiers attacked the village from the north, resulting in fierce man-to-man combat. The fightings continued the whole night, including an artillery attack at about 04.30 hours in the morning. The Germans were winning, until a couple of allied WASPS (firethrowers) and regular tanks appeared on the battlefield and turned the tide^[2]. They were informed on the fightings by a couple of allied soldiers that retreated into the woods and ran into a couple of scouts by pure coincidence. These scouts originated from a small tank division that was located at the Kröller Müller museum. Many german casualities were caused by the flamethrowers, as witnessed by local civilians.

Casualities

According to the grave memorial in Otterlo, 17 Canadians and 6 British soldiers lost their lives. No civlians lost their lives during the night, although four civlians had died during the earlier liberation of Otterlo at 15th and 16th april and are therefore mentioned as well. On the German side, the precise amount is still unclear. There are 62 known German graves: 24 bodies in a local mass grave and 37 bodies buried at the German war cementary in Ysselsteyn. However, eye witness accounts, the war correspondence reports and the regiment diary report much more dead Germans (including many teenage soldiers). Most numbers varies between 150 and 200, with a radio podcast of CBC mentioning up to 400 deaths.