Looks like a Battle of the Bulge fest on twitter today--so thought I would chip in with my two cents. The way we discuss the battle is everything that is wrong and one thing that is right in WWII history.

It is worthy of remembrance because of its sheer scale, and the human loss and suffering, from the soldiers to the civilians.

What it was not was important in the strategic course of the war. It was an unwinnable battle that probably neither lenghthened or shortened the war by much if anything. In that sense the battle lacked all drama.

It only had some faux-drama for the first few days because the skies were cloudy and the Allies could not use airpower effectively. Once the skies cleared around Christmas, the Germans were stopped dead in their tracks.

This is what bugs me. The books about the battle are more about the period of faux drama. The battle goes on for weeks after as the US has to push the Germans back in a brutal, bitter campaign. This is in many ways to worst part of the battle, but it receives much less attention.

It is also one of those battles that appeals to the fetishizers of the German Army and the Waffen SS in particular. All those pictures of hard German troops with their cool weapons. Its just bad war porn.

Wish we could stop that. For isntance the focus on Joachim Peiper's advance is silly. He ran around in circles for a few days, then ran out of fuel. He accomplished nothing--and yet receives huge amounts of attention.

So Battle of the Bulge--important as a human story, mostly irrelevant in the course of the war, and the true story of the battle is often overlooked. Have a good one you German-Army battle lovers!