1944.10.19 “Thumb’s Down” by Walter Enright

“Thumb’s Down” (October 19, 1944)
by Walter J Enright (1879-1969)
14 x 19 in., grease pencil on board

A native of Chicago, Enright studied at the Chicago Art Institute. He was listed as an artist in the 1900 census, while he was still living in parents’ household in Chicago. His first wife, Maginel, was an illustrator and the younger sister of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. In addition to his work for various newspapers, he also illustrated children's books, including at least one by Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum: “Father Goose’s Year Book: Quaint Quacks and Feathered Shafts for Mature Children.” Enright was with the “Miami Herald” from 1933 to 1943, and the “Palm Beach Post” from 1943 to 1948.

Sitting at the juncture of Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany, the Nazis wasted many lives trying to keep Aachen from the Allies.

There were four major approaches to the Ruhr from France: the Plain of Flanders, the Ardennes Forest, the Metz-Kaiserlauten Gap, and the Maubeuge-Leige-Aachen axis north of the Ardennes. On September 5, 1944, Eisenhower chose the route the American armies would follow through the German defensive line known as the Siegfried Line or West Wall directly to the north and south of the ancient city of Aachen. Once Aachen and its environs were captured, the Allied high command envisioned a rapid advance to the Rhine and then on to the Ruhr with the end of the war in Europe soon following.

In September, Aachen was under the protection of Colonel Gerhard Wilck.

On October 7, 1944, US troops entered Alsdorf, six miles north of Aachen, in an initial move to encircle the city and attack it from the rear. From there the Americans pressed southward. It took 3 days to move the six miles, as the Germans poured reinforcements into its previously fortified installations around the city. By October 10 the US had reached the Aachen suburb of Haaren, a mile north of the city, and had cut the two main roads into Aachen.

Before moving in the ground troops, British bombing raids had reduced Aachen to a sea of rubble. Few of its remaining 20,000 inhabitants, down from 165,000 before the war, could have doubted that the end was near when the Americans issued the call to surrender was issued on October 10.

The Wehrmacht rejected the demand, in accord with Hitler’s “last stand” orders. Wilck took over as the city’s military commander. A week later, following furious daily battles, the city was surrounded by Allied troops, and on October 18, the US forces started their move to take the city itself.

As the Allies moved in, Colonel Wilck issued a proclamation exhorting his command to “fight to the last man.” Too little, too late… by the end of October 19, the German high command had decided to withdraw.

On October 20, Wilck decided to end the fight for Aachen. When American soldiers entered the bunker, Wilck and his staff had already packed their bags and were ready to go. As the Germans left the bunker, Staff Sergeant Ewart M. Padget, a former prisoner, newly released, nabbed the prize souvenir of the occasion, Colonel Wilck’s service pistol.

As one America observer later wrote, the city is “as dead as a Roman ruin, but unlike a ruin it has none of the grace of gradual decay…. Burst sewers, broken gas mains and dead animals have raised an almost overpowering smell in many parts of the city. The streets are paved with shattered glass; telephone, electric light and trolley cables are dangling and netted together everywhere, and in many areas wrecked cars, trucks, armored vehicles and guns litter the streets….”

A real measure of the fight was the telling cost to the Germans. The US took 12,000 German prisoners, including 3,473 captured within the city. The Wehrmacht was starting to squander its resources with no achievement, moving by hollow dictates and compulsion.