The Allies including Washington seemed to have been lulled into rumors of "home for Christmas" while the Germans were gearing up for an advance. Nobody worried about Ike's safety or the identity of American Troops until the Germans ran through the allied lines like they were invisible. Ike disciplined hard charger George Patton for slapping an enlisted man but Ike lost 20,000 Troops due to negligence and inattention to the realities of the final stages of the European conflict. Ike was in charge and he should have been relieved of duty but the U.S. was in a bind. FDR was virtually comotose and the Military leadership was incoherent under Marshall. The U.S. media stepped in and turned a monumental blunder around with propaganda that included stories about U.S. heroism and Nazi atrocitiesI don´t think Ike can be made responsible for the ongoings. The allies thought Eisenhower was about to be abducted and it was a double that was traveling around. Almost every US soldier was "arrested" to determine if he´s a German, even manifold, even Eisenhower. The allies were paralyzed. Of course, a plan to capture Ike never existed and there was no intention to make the allies believe it. The secrecy of the mission was very harsh, even the soldiers didn´t know and believed the Ike thingy.You can't examine Malmedy without examining the most incredible intelligence failure in modern warfare, generally referred to as the "Battle of the Bulge". Ike was attending a series of Christmas parties given by Staff Officers and the Troops were relaxing while the rumors of "home for Christmas" ran unabated. George Patton's career was over for slapping an enlisted man but Ike lost almost 20,000 Troops due to negligence and incompetence during the Battle of the Bulge.. Ike should have been relieved of duty but true to form the U.S. media turned a military blunder around with the "Bloody Bastards of Bastogne" propaganda campaign and Ike was politically unscathed.
The Germans gave wrong orders to the Americans, a total chaos broke out. The covert operations had much more success than hoped and if the German forces were not stuck in the streets and could have used the momentum, a total breakdown of the allies would have been inevitable and the western frontier would have been stabilized at least until April 45 according to Skorzeny. However, the Maas bridges that were up to be manned by the special forces were not occupied. The divisions got stuck in the streets due to the conditions and the lack of fuel and the mission became obsolete.
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