My Story: Prisoner at Battle of Bulge

Nobody knew it in the 6th Armored Divisions 9th Armored Infantry Battalion, but the tide of the Battle of the Bulge had turned by the time the outfit moved into snow-covered fields and forests near Bastogne. Adolf Hitler had given up on his overly ambitious plan to force the Meuse River, split the Allied armies in half, and seize the major Belgian port city of Antwerp.

One major reason for the German failure had been the determined American defense of the Belgian town of Bastogne by the 101st Airborne Division and elements of Combat Command B, 10th Armored Division. Now the “battered bas- tion” had been relieved by Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.'s Third Army, and Hitler had ordered his elite SS panzer divisions to regroup and seize the consolation prize. The hardest fighting for Bastogne lay just ahead. So did the hardest ordeal in the life of a young Jewish GI from New Jersey named Robert Max, who would endure the multiple traumas of combat, captivity, slave labor, and escape from the Nazis, returning home at half his body weight, but surviving to speak about his experiences for decades, inspiring generations yet unborn.

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