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The Ruhr pocket was a battle of encirclement that took place in April 1945, on the Western Front near the end of World War II in Europe, in the Ruhr Area of Germany. Some 317,000 German troops were taken prisoner along with 24 generals. The Americans suffered 10,000 casualties including 2,000 killed or missing.
The reduction of the Ruhr Pocket and advance to Elbe and Mulde rivers between 5 and 18 April 1945. The first step in realizing Eisenhower's plan was the eradication of the Ruhr Pocket. Even before the encirclement had been completed, the Germans in the Ruhr had begun making attempts at a breakout to the east.
After the breakdown of the Ruhr pocket another 325,000 were taken prisoner. After capitulation there were 3.4 million German soldiers in the custody of the Western Allies. With such large numbers of prisoners, it seemed more logical to keep them in Germany. The camps were founded in April 1945 and remained in existence until September.
For instance, in the battle of the Ruhr Pocket, there were about 10,000 fatalities on the German side (including prisoners of war in German captivity, foreign forced laborers, Volkssturm militia and unarmed civilians), [16] whereas about 317,000 Germans surrendered. "Many a German walked mile after mile before finding an American not too ...
The 1911 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica has only one definition of "Ruhr": "a river of Germany, an important right-bank tributary of the lower Rhine". The use of the term "Ruhr" for the industrial region started in Britain only after World War I, when French and Belgian troops had occupied the Ruhr district and seized its prime industrial assets in lieu of unpaid reparations in 1923.
The Twelfth Army Group was tasked with reducing the pocket. [2] On 3 April 8 turned 180 degrees in response to orders into the Ruhr Pocket and CCR attacked west toward Recklinghausen. CCR captured the towns of Stripe and Norddorf, and continued through Vollinghausen, Oberhagen, and Ebbinghausen before stopping for the night in front of Horne.
It was destroyed several successive times by British and American forces as the German Army was pushed back across Europe. The division suffered massive casualties in armor and personnel until it finally collapsed in March 1945. The division's few survivors were pushed into the Ruhr Pocket where they surrendered to the Allies at the end of the war.
It was a vital airfield used in the encirclement of the Ruhr Pocket during the Western Allied invasion of Germany, in which more than 300,000 German troops were taken as prisoners. After being closed in July 1945, the facility was eventually abandoned. Today, it is the site of a sports complex to the south of Biblis.