The Dutch city of Groningen is located in the north of the Netherlands.
It has a beautiful inner city, which unfortunately saw a lot of destruction during WW2, because
here near the end of WW2
April 1945 the Battle of Groning took place, where Canadian forces liberated the city and fought against German troops
but also Dutch and Belgian Waffen-SS volunteers.
This here is the story of a forgotten WW2 battle: the Battle of Groningen.
Good to have you back on the channel. If you're new, I'm Stefan, Dutch history teacher and I like to cover history on location 4 U!
If you find that interesting, consider subscribing. Hit that notification bell. Consider supporting me. You can do so via Patreon or via PayPal. Links are in the description!
The liberation of the Netherlands was a painful process, since Operation Market Garden had
failed the part north of the main rivers remained under German occupation.
Canadians battled their way through the Scheldt area in the province of Zeeland to clear it
of its defenders.
The west of the country was deprived of food and the so-called Hunger Winter (Dutch Famine)
commenced.
The Allies had make their way into Germany and re-entered the Netherlands from Germany
while battling its way up north.
The advancing Canadian forces were responsible for the liberation of the western and northern
parts of the province Groningen, as well as the main city with the same name, while the
Polish troops focused on eastern Groningen.
On the orders of General Johannes Blaskowitz, the German command in Groningen was determined
to hold the city for as long as possible in order to protect the evacuation of thousands
of German troops from Friesland via Delfzijl.
The German defenders consisted of Wehrmacht troops, together with Dutch and Belgian Waffen-SS
volunteers that had never fought together.
The Canadians wanted to take the city quickly in order to move to Delfzijl to open this
harbor for food convoys to provide food to the starving population of the western Netherlands.
In addition, the Eems estuary could be closed off to prevent the still active German U-boats
from using the water way as a base.
For the Canadians, the battle of Groningen was one of the toughest city battles of the
liberation.
This was going to be urban warfare.
From April 13 to 16 there was heavy fighting in the city as 14,000 Canadians entered it.
They took on about 7,000 Germans, a hodgepodge of paratroopers, Luftwaffe soldiers, SS men,
soldiers of the Kriegsmarine and members of the Hitler Youth.
The Canadians were the first to attack the east of the city, in order to prevent the
Germans from retreating to Delfzijl.
Dutch resistance fighters of the “Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten” (Interior Forces) also took
part in the liberation of the city.
The battle would start on 13 April.
A day before a Dutchman named Bennema who had an iron shop and also had some people in hiding
noted in his diary:
“On April 12, 1945, the Canadians stood on the southern edge of Groningen.
That evening began the exodus of NSB members and other wrong Dutch people.
Packed and bagged, they set out on a journey, pushing prams full of stuff and several coats
on top of each other.
A joyful sight!
But soon after, things got serious and there was a lot of fighting.
The Canadians set fire to the northern edge, driving the Germans out.
But the fire continued, it also came into our street.
So we had to make sure we got away.”
From 13 to 16 April, the Canadians fought against the Germans in Groningen.
The east of the city was the first to be attacked.
However, the Germans were well prepared and had a large number of snipers on the roofs.
The defenders had also put machine gun nests in basements and I read SS men dressed as
civilians also harrassed the attackers.
The cannels in the city were used by the defenders as barriers.
It was only after day 2 that the attackers managed to form a bridgehead to the inner
city.
Bridges were either blown up or heavily barricaded.
The Canadians had to conquer each house separately.
There are many house-to-house battles in the vicinity of the bridges.
The Canadian soldiers thought the houses on Parkweg were business premises, but they turned
out to be civilian homes, forcing them to be more careful to avoid civilian casualties.
The Canadian troops were fighting here all day.
Germans hid in the houses and fired at the Canadians with incendiary bullets and grenades.
Due to the shelling, many fires broke out in the city.
The Grote Markt, Waagstraat, Guldenstraat and Oude Ebbingestraat, among others, went
up in flames.
On April 16, the Germans surrendered.
Not only had their ammunition run out, about 130 German soldiers had been killed.
There were 43 casualties on the Canadian side and 106 civilian casualties.
In the city as many as 270 buildings were destroyed or damaged.
One of the destroyed buildings was the infamous Scholtenhuis where the German SD was located.
Under the leadership of the feared SD member Robert Lehnhoff, hundreds
of resistance fighters were imprisoned, interrogated and tortured.
The Scholtenhuis was therefore often referred to as the porch of hell.
During the liberation of Groningen, the building was destroyed.
After the liberation the population was happy and the liberators were welcomed.
Some had mixed feelings as Bennema wrote in his diary:
“Our house has not suffered any damage.
So we just slept in our beds at night.
But life was not ordinary in those days.
In the first place all those stories from other people about their war and their liberation
and about the deaths that fell in the process.
But also the spontaneous parties and dances that started here and there in the street
around gramophone music.”
The Battle of Groningen was not the last battle during the liberation Netherlands during WW2.
That was the Battle of Delfzijl.
And then there was also the Battle of Texel which is also another story for another time.
I actually talked about that in my video about the aftermath of WW2 in the Netherlands.
You can find that video right here.