Western Europe · United States vs Germany
Ruhr Pocket
1 April 1945 – 18 April 1945
The US First and Ninth Armies met at Lippstadt on 1 April, encircling Model's Army Group B in the industrial Ruhr. The pocket was split and reduced in eighteen days. About 317,000 Germans surrendered; Model shot himself in a wood near Duisburg on 21 April.
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Day by day
— The ring closes
On Easter Sunday the 2nd Armored Division, coming east along the Lippe from the Wesel bridgehead, meets the 3rd Armored coming north-west from Paderborn at Lippstadt. Model's Army Group B, with Fifteenth Army, Fifth Panzer Army and the whole anti-aircraft defence of the Ruhr, is shut inside a ring some 130 kilometres across.
— Model will not surrender
Eighteen American divisions turn inwards on a pocket holding perhaps 370,000 soldiers and four and a half million civilians. Ridgway sends Model a letter inviting him to give in, citing Lee at Appomattox; Model, who has taken an oath, refuses to answer it. His men are already going home in twos and threes.
— Cut in two
Columns pushing in from north and south meet on the Ruhr river near Hagen and the pocket falls into two halves. Essen has gone and Dortmund is going; what is left is a matter of strongpoints in the mining towns and long queues of men waiting to be taken prisoner.
— The surrender
Organised resistance ends on the 18th. Some 317,000 prisoners are taken, more than at Stalingrad, among them thirty generals. Model dissolved Army Group B the day before and told his men to go home; on the 21st he walked into a wood near Duisburg and shot himself.
