August 14, 2026
What was the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, the reason WWII ordnances are strewn about the area?
Friday’s fire is taking place on the site of one of the longest and most costly single battles in the US military’s history.
That’s why the area is strewn with unexploded munitions from World War II that are at risk of exploding, both aiding the fire’s spread and potentially endangering emergency services.
The Battle of Hürtgen Forest, or Schlacht im Hürtgenwald in German, was a three-month push by US forces. They were trying at first to pin down German forces and stop them providing reinforcements in the nearby Battle of Aachen, and then later to push through the forest and advance to the Rur River.
The September-December 1944 battle tried to get through heavy fortifications as part of what the Allies knew as the Siegfried Line, a series of defensive structures that served as one of Nazi Germany’s last effective lines of defense as Allied forces tried to move east toward Berlin after the D-Day landings.
Germany’s military was already planning its Winter Offensive, which would be known as the Battle of the Bulge, in the same area by this point, and so its troops were given all possible resources for their defensive efforts.
The battle was seen as a comparatively rare Nazi victory in their attempts to stop the Allied advance, with at least 33,000 US casualties, and some estimates ranging considerably higher than that. Germany, with more strains on personnel and supply but also with the defenders’ advantage and favorable terrain, suffered an estimated 28,000 casualties.
It’s less well remembered than the much larger and more widespread Battle of the Bulge, whose main thrust was located slightly further south but in the same Eifel region. Nevertheless, it was the longest continuous battle on German ground during World War II and the second-longest single battle the US Army has ever fought.