Aachen Battle Site (Old Town)

Aachen, Charlemagne's ancient capital, became in October 1944 the first major German city captured by the Allies — and Hitler ordered it held 'to the last man'. American forces of the 1st Infantry Division encircled the city and fought a brutal three-week battle through its rubble-choked streets, clearing houses with satchel charges and flamethrowers while civilians sheltered in cellars. The garrison finally surrendered on 21 October 1944. The symbolic loss of the coronation city of the German kings was a heavy psychological blow to the Reich. The medieval cathedral with Charlemagne's throne survived the shelling, and today the rebuilt old town bears few visible scars of the fighting that first breached Germany's western frontier.