Rare printed German broadside headed "Wir greifen an! [We are attacking!]," one page, 6 x 8.25, December 16, 1944. The general order issued on the opening day of the German Ardennes Offensive, better known as the Battle of the Bulge. Field Marshal Gerd von Runstedt exhorts his men (translated): "Powerful combat troops are lining up today against the Anglo-Americans. I need not say more. You all are feeling it: Everything is at stake! Carry out your sacred responsibility to give your all performing super human feats. For our fatherland and our Fuhrer!" Below, Field Marshal Walther Model, the commander of Army Group B, which formed the body of the attacking force, adds an additional order: "We will not betray the trust placed in us by the leader and the home that created the retaliatory sword," and urging his men to go forward in the spirit of Leuthen, alluding to the 1757 Battle of Leuthen in which Frederick the Great used tactical maneuvers and terrain to defeat a much larger Austrian army during the Seven Years War. In very good condition, with splitting along the fragile intersecting folds.
Although the German advance was initially quite successful, they soon became bogged down as the Allies reacted to the advance. Omar Bradley commanding the First Army (to the north) and George S. Patton commanding the Third Army (to the south) both sent in heavy reinforcements. Surrounded at Bastogne, the commander of the 101st Airborne, Gen. Anthony MacAuliffe, resisted the assault which forced the Germans to concentrate on taking the town rather than advancing further west toward their objective. The advance stalled on December 25, 1944, and within a month the Germans were pushed back to where they began. This would prove to be the final German offensive of the war. Germany would capitulate only a few months later in early May 1945.
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