Operation Northwind () was the last major German offensive of World War II on the Western Front. Northwind was launched to support the German Ardennes offensive campaign in the Battle of the Bulge, which by late December 1944 had decisively turned against the German forces. It began on 31 December 1944 in Rhineland-Palatinate, Alsace and Lorraine in southwestern Germany and northeastern France, and ended on 25 January 1945. The German offensive was an operational failure, with its main objectives not achieved.
Objectives
By 21 December 1944, the German momentum during the Battle of the Bulge had begun to dissipate, and it was evident that the operation was on the brink of failure.
The German high command believed that an attack against the 7th US Army further south, which had extended its lines and taken on a defensive posture to cover the area vacated by the 3rd US Army which had turned north to assist at the site of the German breakthrough, could relieve pressure on German forces in the Ardennes.
In a briefing at his military command complex at Adlerhorst, Adolf Hitler declared in his speech to his division commanders on 28 December 1944 (three days prior to the launch of Operation Nordwind),
:"This attack has a very clear objective, namely the destruction of the enemy forces. There is not a matter of prestige involved here. It is a matter of destroying and exterminating the enemy forces wherever we find them."
The goal of the offensive was to break through the lines of the U.S. Seventh Army and the French 1st Army in the Upper Vosges Mountains and the Alsatian Plain and destroy them, as well as seize the city of Strasbourg, which Himmler had promised would be captured by 30 January. The achievement of these objectives would pave the way for Operation Dentist (Unternehmen Zahnarzt), a planned major thrust into the rear of the U.S. Third Army, intended to lead to the destruction of that army.