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Chapter 11: Nuremberg—Medal of Honor
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156 Nuremberg, Germany, April 18, 1945. Daly and his men were so close to surviving the war, so close to the end of the nightmare. One last hurdle remained: dangerous urban warfare in Nuremberg. The city had been flattened by air raids, but the shattered landscape afforded many sites for snipers and Nazi bitter-enders to extract a last measure of American blood. Sleep-deprived and running on adrenaline, Daly was haunted by the thought of losing more men so near the finish line. Getting them home focused him and put him into his “zone.” He would do his damnedest to protect them. Almost as if he could will their survival, he appointed himself company scout and advanced thirty yards in front of the rest in search of the enemy. What happened next would make Daly a national hero. On April 9 the 15th regiment moved to an area south of Schweinfurt, an industrial city and ball-bearing-manufacturing center whose air defenses earlier had proved so deadly to Allied airmen trying to bomb it. There, on April 11, Daly’s life, would take a dramatic turn. American intelligence feared that Hitler and his highest officials intended to make a last stand in a mountain redoubt surrounding Berchtesgaden in the Alps of southern Bavaria, Austria, and northern Italy. Although reports about an “Alpine redoubt” ultimately proved unfounded, Eisenhower took no chances. To prevent remaining German forces from retreating to the rumored redoubt, Eisenhower authorized the Seventh Army to execute an arching sweep to the east and then proceed southward from Schweinfurt to Nuremberg, the shrine of National Socialism and the scene of massive prewar Nazi rallies. The 3rd Division then would continue to Munich and, finally, Salzburg, Austria.1 On February 21, 1945, as part of the devastating Allied air offensive directed against German cities, two thousand Allied planes had smashed the center of Nuremberg knocking out electricity and water. Despite this punishment , Reich Defense Commissioner Karl Holz, the gauleiter of Nuremberg (a protégé of Julius Streicher, the phobic anti-Semitic Nazi boss of Franconia), 11 Nuremberg—Medal of Honor Nuremberg 157 pledged to defend the city against the American troops headed his way, signaling that urban warfare lay ahead. In the small village of Heroldsberg, just north of Nuremberg, fourteen-year-old Friedrich Braun (who had lost his father on the Russian front in 1943) and other members of the Hitlerjugend received an order to report to Erlangen—eleven miles away—for service in a “tank-hunting battalion.” Gathered in an exercise area, each boy was to receive a rifle and a bicycle with two panzerfäuste (mounted by leather straps under the handlebar). An SS 1st sergeant lined up the boys according to height. Those too short to straddle the bike he ordered to go home to their mothers. The diminutive Braun did so, trudging through the night until he reached his home. For other Germans, young and old, however, the war would continue—for some to the death.2 Beginning on the evening of April 11–12, units of the 15th Regiment took Schweinfurt and numerous villages along the Main River with little opposition . At this point, ever-present fatigue weighed heavily on Daly and his men. A photograph snapped by Sergeant Lebowitz, the company clerk, graphically captured Daly’s weariness that spring. Returning to the company area at dawn from leading a reconnaissance patrol, Daly appears gaunt, a study in exhaustion, with his eyes nearly closed as if sleep-walking, nose clearly reddened and swollen, rifle slung over his right shoulder with his long right arm and fingers keeping it straight.3 The exigencies of ending the war left precious little time for sleep. To the limit. Courtesy J. Leon Lebowitz. Die-hard resistance from SS troops and Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) meant that combat and casualties continued in March and April of 1945, even as it became clear that Germany had lost the war. The constant tension of combat can be seen in Daly’s exhausted body and face as he returns to camp from a reconnaissance patrol near Schweinfurt, Germany, in April. The company clerk who snapped this photo later wrote under it in his scrapbook: “Captain Michael J. Daly . . . the best officer and bravest man I have ever known.” [54.225.24.249] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 13:28 GMT) 158 Chapter 11 The regiment crossed the Main River yet again, the infantry crowding atop tanks and TDs...