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The Ruhr pocket was a battle of encirclement that took place in April 1945, on the Western Front near the end of the second World War, in the Ruhr Area of Germany. Some 317,000 German troops were taken prisoner along with 24 generals. The Americans suffered 10,000 casualties including 2,000 killed or missing.
Exploiting the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen on 7 March 1945, the U.S. 12th Army Group (General Omar Bradley) advanced rapidly into German territory south of Army Group B (Generalfeldmarschall (field marshal) Walter Model). In the north, the Allied 21st Army Group (Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery) crossed the Rhine in Operation Plunder on 23 March. The lead elements of the two Allied army groups met on 1 April 1945, east of the Ruhr, to create the encirclement of 317,000 German troops to their west.
While the bulk of the U.S. forces advanced east towards the Elbe river, 18 U.S. divisions remained behind to destroy Army Group B. The reduction of the German pocket began on 1 April by the U.S. Ninth Army, with the forces of the U.S. First Army joining on 4 April. For 13 days the Germans delayed or resisted the U.S. advance. On 14 April, the First and Ninth armies met, splitting the German pocket in half and German resistance began to crumble.
Having lost contact with its units, the German 15th Army capitulated the same day. Model dissolved his army group on 15 April and ordered the Volkssturm and non-combatant personnel to discard their uniforms and go home. On 16 April the bulk of the German forces surrendered en masse to the U.S. divisions. Organized resistance came to an end on 18 April. Unwilling to surrender with his rank of field marshal into Allied captivity, Model committed suicide on the afternoon of 21 April.
The 317,000 German soldiers from the Ruhr pocket, and some civilians, were imprisoned in the Rheinwiesenlager (in English, "Rhine meadow camp") near Remagen, a temporary prison enclosure.
The Americans suffered c.10,000 casualties while reducing the pocket. The Ninth Army lost 341 killed, 121 missing and just under 2,000 wounded. The First Army lost three times more, which brought the U.S. casualties to 10,000. The divisions of III Corps lost 291 killed, 88 missing and 1,356 wounded, while the 8th Division of the XVIII Airborne Corps lost 198 killed, 101 missing and 1,238 wounded. Casualty totals for the 15th Army units on the western edge of the pocket are not listed in the official U.S. history.
The Americans liberated hundreds of thousands of hungry, diseased and weakened prisoners-of-war and slave laborers, the former consisting mainly of Red Army soldiers who were very happy at their liberation. The liberated slaves also had a tendency to loot and terrorize the German population once released and to clog up the roads in front of the U.S. columns. The German civilians were incredulous at Germany's defeat. The Americans also witnessed the destruction inflicted on Ruhr cities and towns by the Allied bombing campaigns; in many cities the U.S. troops wrested control of there was nothing but rubble, block after block. However, most of the German industrial machinery, situated in protected or decentralized locations, had survived the onslaught, unharmed, or required only minor repairs. Such equipment was quickly made operational after its capture.