To this day, there is only one American-built monument located in any German military cemetery and it stems from a rare act of battlefield compassion. As Nazi Germany fought for its life in a battle now known as a meat grinder, a German officer heard the cries of a wounded American soldier trapped in a minefield – and then rushed out to try and save him.
1944 was not a great year for Nazi Germany. Berlin and other German cities were being pounded day and night by Allied air campaigns. The Allies controlled all major sea lanes. The Reich was losing ground on the Eastern Front and in Italy as massive Allied forces landed in both Normandy and on France’s Mediterranean coast. By September of that year, the Germans were fighting on their home territory in the West and were determined to hold it.
Nowhere is this determination more apparent than the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. It would go down in history as the longest battle fought on German soil during World War II and the second-longest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army (the 1942 Battle of Bataan was only four days longer). Ernest Hemingway, covering the battle for Colliers Magazine, would later write: “Whoever survived Hürtgenwald must have had a guardian angel on each of his shoulders,”
The Americans were trying to keep German forces occupied at Hürtgen Forest to prevent them from reinforcing against the Allied attack on Aachen some 16 miles away. The Germans, conversely, were trying to inflict as many casualties on the Allies as possible and prevent them from penetrating the Siegfried Line.
Although Aachen would fall to the Allies, the Germans were successful in inflicting casualties on the advancing Americans at Hürtgen Forest. The battle raged on for three months, and the attacking Americans took upwards of 55,000 casualties in that time. By November, the U.S. VII Corps was ready to make a push through the northern part of the forest and clear the way to the Rur River. The 22nd Infantry Regiment would be in the VII Corps’ southern flank. What they didn’t know was that although the enemy was understrength, they were well reinforced and ready for an attack. The 22nd encountered heavy resistance before that phase of the battle ever even began.
German Lt. Friedrich Lengfeld was in command of one of the 2nd Company of the Füsiliers Battalion, defending the area from the 22nd’s advance. At just 23 years old, his unit had suffered heavy casualties as well. On the morning of Nov. 12, 1944, he could hear a wounded American soldier calling for help. He ordered his men not to shoot if the Americans sent help, but they never did. The wounded man cried for aid for hours. Lengfeld decided he would do something about it, so he organized a squad to reach the man.
The man, it turned out, was wounded in the middle of the “Wilde Sau” minefield, one of the largest, built to protect the Siegfried Line. Lengfeld alone proceeded toward the wounded man, but stepped on a mine. The explosion and fragmentation shredded his leg and peppered his body. Within eight hours, the lieutenant was dead. No one knows what happened to the wounded American. The entire incident was recorded by Hubert Gees, Lengfeld’s communications runner. In 1994, Gees’ story inspired members of the 22nd United States Infantry Society to erect a monument for the German at the entrance to the military cemetery in Hürtgen, one dedicated to the officer who gave his life to render aid to an enemy soldier. The inscription begins with the words:
“No man hath greater love than he who layeth down his life for his enemy.”