Although gaining ground the enemy had achieved no clear-cut success. Hitler nevertheless committed his last reserves on 16 January, including the 10th SS Panzer and the 7th Parachute Divisions. These forces finally steamrolled a path along the Rhine's west bank toward the XIV SS Corps' Gambsheim bridgehead overrunning one of the green 12th Armored Division's infantry battalions at Herrlisheim and destroying one of its tank battalions nearby. This final foray led Brooks to order a withdrawal on the twenty-first, one that took the Germans by surprise and was completed before the enemy could press his advantage.

Forming a new line along the Zorn, Moder, and Rothback Rivers north of the Marne-Rhine Canal, the VI Corps commander aligned his units into a cohesive defense with his badly damaged but still game armored divisions in reserve. Launching attacks during the night of 24-25 January, the Germans found their slight penetrations eliminated by vigorous counterattacks. Ceasing their assaults permanently, they might have found irony in the Seventh Army's latest acquisition from SHAEF reserves-the "Battling Bastards of Bastogne," the 101st Airborne Division, which arrived on the Alsace front only to find the battle over.

Even before NORDWIND had ended the 6th Army Group commander was preparing to eliminate the Colmar Pocket in southern Alsace. Five French divisions and two American, the 3d Infantry and the rebuilt 28th Division, held eight German infantry divisions and an armored brigade in a rich farming area laced with rivers, streams, and a major canal but devoid of significant hills or ridges. Devers wanted to reduce this frozen, snow-covered pocket before thaws converted the ploughed ground to a quagmire. General de Lattre's French First Army would write finis to the Germans in the Colmar Pocket, but it would be a truly Allied attack.

To draw the German reserves southward plans called for four divisions from the French I Corps to start the assault. This initial foray would set the stage for the French II Corps to launch the main effort in the north. The defending Nineteenth Army's eight divisions were low on equipment but well provided with artillery munitions, small arms, and mines, and fleshed out with whatever manpower and materiel that Himmler, the overall commander, could scrounge from the German interior. Bad weather, compartmentalized terrain, and fear of Himmler's SS secret police strengthened the German defense.

On 20 January, in the south, Lt. Gen. Emile Bethouart's French I Corps began its attack in a driving snowstorm. Although its gains were limited by armored-infantry counterattacks, the corps drew the Nineteenth Army's armor southward, along with the arriving 2d Mountain Division. Two days later, in the north, Maj. Gen. Amie de Goislard de Monsabert's French II Corps commenced its attack, led by the U.S. 3d Division. Reinforced by one of the 63d Infantry Division's regiments, the 3d advanced over the first of several watercourses and cleared the Colmar Forest. It met resistance on the Ill River but continued to fight its way forward through enemy counterattacks, subsequently crossing the Colmar Canal and opening an avenue for the French 5th Armored Division. The Allies pushed further eastward in deepening snow and worsening weather, with the 28th and 75th Divisions from the Ardennes following. On the twenty-fifth Maj. Gen. Frank W. Milburn's XXI Corps joined the line. Assuming control of the 3d, 28th, and 75th Divisions, the 12th Armored Division, which was shifted from reserves, and the French 5th Armored Division, the corps launched the final thrust to the Vauban Canal and Rhone-Rhine Canal bridges at Neuf-Brisach. Although the campaign was officially over on 25 January, the American and French troops did not completely clear the Colmar Pocket until 9 February. However, its successful reduction marked the end of both the German presence on French territory and the Nineteenth Army. And with the fighting finally concluded in the Ardennes and Alsace, the Allies now readied their forces for the final offensive into Germany.