The strategic importance of Hurtgen Forest: zero?

Dear all,

Reading up on the 1944 campaigns. Got stuck into the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest.

Wiki:
"
It was also thought necessary to remove the threat posed by the Rur dam. The stored water could be released by the Germans, swamping any forces operating downstream. In the view of the American commanders, Bradley, Hodges and Collins, the direct route to the dam was through the forest.[11]:239
Military historians are no longer convinced by these arguments. Charles B. MacDonald—a U.S. Army historian and former company commander who served in the Hürtgen battle—has described it as "a misconceived and basically fruitless battle that should have been avoided."[11]"

Flanking Aachen could also be an argument.

In light of everything we now know, It seems to me it boiled down to ego: Bradley's, Eisenhover, others?

Was there any major strategic gain? what would it mean to just leave it alone? Could it be left alone? The argument was also that it would be jump-off point for German counter-attacks (before Ardennes ofensive, though).

Anyone?

Ivan
 
The attack on the Huertgen Forest was part of a broader design to try to end the war in 1944. The failure on the part of the Allies was to underestimate both the strength of the Siegfried Line and the degree to which this late in the war Germans were still willing to immolate themselves on the pyre of Nazism. By this point the Germans actually were on the rebound all along the Front because everybody, Soviets, Democracies, and so on was logistically overstretched and the Hitlerization process was at its wartime peak.

There was a need to go into the forest, but not in any way, shape, form, or fashion in the way it was handled. *That* was the kind of tactics people would use to accuse the USA and company of being a bunch of brutes willing to spend blood like candy if it was done by the Soviets.
 
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