What was important about the battle of Aachen?

Answer 1

Aachen was the first German city reached by the American Army, in the early autumn of 1944. The Germans put up an extremely tough fight the city. Since breaking out from the Normandy beachhead about two months earlier, the American Army and the Allies had enjoyed a very happy time. Most of the German defenders in France had been drawn to the beachhead to encircle the Allies, and when they cracked through this crust and broke out, there was nothing to stop them from going pretty much where they pleased. The only limiting factor was the Allied supply situation. The Allies still did not have a major port and all supplies were still having to come in over the invasion beaches. It takes several hundred thousand gallons of gasoline per day for a single armored division to move. The farther the Allies moved from the beaches, the farther these supplies had to be forwarded, by truck. The trucks consumed a lot of gasoline themselves and were soon wearing out from constant use. Nevertheless as the Allies chased the Germans across France and quickly liberated Paris, they were telling one another that the war would be over by Christmas, 1944. Then when the Allies reached Aachen and saw just how hard the regrouped German army was disposed to fight for actual German territory, they began to have to reconsider just how soon the Germans could be defeated.