Question: Which offensive strategy during World War II lasted longer, Operation Nordwind or the Battle of Guam?
Context: Operation Zahnarzt (literally "Dentist") was a plan by the Germans to eliminate the Third Army during World War II.  The plan of Operation Zahnarzt was to immediately come after Operation Nordwind.  The plan was to initiate a pincer movement to encircle and destroy the 3rd US Army. The Guam Cable Station is where the United States territory of Guam was first connected via modern telecommunications to the rest of the world.  Reduced to ruins by the fighting of World War II, the ruins of the establishment remain on the grounds of Naval Base Guam on the west side of the island.  In 1901, the Commercial Pacific Cable Company offered to lay a cable between the Continental United States and Guam at no cost to the federal government.  In 1903 the company began construction of a series of buildings near what was the small village of Sumay.  Designed to be proof against typhoons, earthquakes, and other perils, the complex included the main cable station building, several buildings of living quarters, and a self-contained water supply system.  The cable connecting Guam to Hawaii was completed in June 1903, marking the complete encirclement of the globe by communications cables.  This station became a major communications hub, eventually also housing cables to China and the island of Yap, and becoming an early-warning center for typhoons.  Operation of the cable was interrupted by the Japanese capture of Guam in 1941.  It resumed with the liberation of Guam in 1944, but continued only until 1951, when the cable between Guam and Hawaii was broken.  Since then the remains of the cable station have been succumbing to the elements.  Its remains were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. This is the order of battle of German and Allied forces during Operation Nordwind in World War II The 827th Tank Destroyer Battalion was a tank destroyer battalion of the United States Army active during the Second World War.  It was activated in April 1942 as a segregated African American unit, deploying to Europe at the end of 1944 and attached to 12th Armored Division.  It saw action during Operation Nordwind in January 1945, where elements of the battalion performed creditably.  However, its overall combat record was marred by severe disciplinary problems and insufficient training.  It was withdrawn in February, and assigned to rear-area duties; while it nominally remained active for the remainder of the war, it had been effectively disbanded. Herrlisheim is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France.  The town dates from the 8th century.  Herrlisheim was the scene of very heavy fighting during "Operation Nordwind", an offensive launched by the German Army during World War II that inflicted considerable damage to the town. The Colmar Pocket (French: "Poche de Colmar" ; German: "Brückenkopf Elsaß" ) was the area held in central Alsace, France, by the German Nineteenth Army from November 1944 to February 1945, against the U.S. 6th Army Group during World War II.  It was formed when 6th AG liberated southern and northern Alsace and adjacent eastern Lorraine, but could not clear central Alsace.  During Operation Nordwind in December 1944, the 19th Army attacked north out of the Pocket in support of other German forces attacking south from the Saar into northern Alsace.  In late January and early February 1945, the French First Army (reinforced by the U.S. XXI Corps) cleared the Pocket of German forces. George Johnson McMillin (November 25, 1889 – August 29, 1983 ) was a United States Navy Rear Admiral who served as the 38th and final Naval Governor of Guam.  He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1911 and served as an officer during four separate conflicts: World War I, the occupation of the Dominican Republic, the United States occupation of Veracruz, and World War II.  He served on the staff of both the Naval Academy and the Naval War College as well.  He is most remembered as the commander who surrendered Guamanian forces to a much larger Japanese force during the First Battle of Guam, only the second battle of World War II involving the United States.  He had previously evacuated all but one civilian American citizen from the island and attempted to rebuild defenses after a strong typhoon devastated the island the year before.  On December 8, 1941, Japanese forces invaded Guam and McMillin surrendered two days later.  He spent the rest of the war at various Japanese prisoner of war camps. The Second Battle of Guam (21 July – 10 August 1944) was the American recapture of the Japanese-held island of Guam, a U.S. territory in the Mariana Islands captured by the Japanese from the U.S. in the 1941 First Battle of Guam during the Pacific campaign of World War II. Operation North Wind (German: "Unternehmen Nordwind" ) was the last major German offensive of World War II on the Western Front.  It began on 31 December 1944 in Alsace and Lorraine in northeastern France, and ended on 25 January. The Fortified Sector of Rohrbach ("Secteur Fortifié de Rohrbach") was the French military organization that in 1940 controlled the section of the Maginot Line in the vicinity of Bitche.  The sector was bordered to the west by the Fortified Sector of the Sarre and to the east by the Fortified Sector of the Vosges.  With lower priority than other sectors, the SF Rohrbach was built somewhat later than its neighbors to the east and west, and in company with positions on the extreme western end of the Maginot Line, became one of the "New Fronts."  The sector contains several major "ouvrages" and was the scene of fighting in both 1940 and 1944.  It was attacked in 1940 by German forces in the Battle of France.  The sector was heavily engaged by German forces in mid-June 1940, with several casemates and the "petit ouvrage" Welschhof surrendering before the Second Armistice at Compiègne.  The remaining positions and their garrisons finally surrendered on 27 June 1940.  In 1944 German forces occupied several positions in the SF Rohrbach, forcing advancing American forces to attack them individually or to bypass them.  The German Operation Nordwind offensive of early 1945 caused American forces to fall back, returning to complete the capture of the Rohrbach sector in March 1945.  Following the war many positions were reactivated for use during the Cold War.  Two locations are now preserved and open to the public.
Answer: Battle of Guam