At dawn on 19 December, Peiper attacked the American defenders of Stoumont. He sent infantry from the 2nd SS Panzergrenadier Regiment in an attack and a company of Fallschirmjäger. He followed this with a Panzer attack, gaining the eastern edge of the town.
An American tank battalion arrived but Peiper finally captured Stoumont at 1030. Knittel joined up with Peiper and reported the Americans had recaptured Stavelot to their east. Peiper ordered Knittel to retake Stavelot.
He thought Kampfgruppe did not have enough fuel to cross the bridge west of Stoumont. On the same evening the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division under Maj. Gen. James Gavin arrived at La Gleize.
Kampfgruppe Sandig, which had been ordered to take Stavelot, launched another attack without success. Sixth Panzer Army commander SS-Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich ordered Hermann Prieß, commanding officer of the I SS Panzer Corps, to help Peiper's Kampfgruppe, but Prieß was unable to break through.
Small units of the U.S. 2nd Battalion of the 119th Regiment attacked the Kampfgruppe Peiper during the morning of 21 December. They were pushed back and a number captured, including their battalion commander, Maj. Hal McCown.
Attempting to withdraw from Cheneux, American paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division engaged the Germans in violent fighting. The Americans shelled Kampfgruppe Peiper on 22 December.
Although the Germans had run out of food and had no fuel, they continued to fight. A Luftwaffe resupply mission went badly, parachuting supplies to American troops in Stoumont.
In La Gleize, Peiper set up defences. He decided to break through back to the German lines on 23 December. The men of the "Kampfgruppe" abandoned their vehicles and heavy equipment.
Operation Stösser was a paratroop drop into the American rear in the High Fens (; ; ) area. The goal was the "Baraque Michel" crossroads.
It was the German paratroopers' only nighttime drop during World War II. The II Parachute Corps sent 100 men from each of its regiments. They had little time to train together.
The parachute drop was a failure. Von der Heydte ended up with around 300 troops. Their force was too small and too weak to counter the Allies. They withdrew towards Germany and attacked the rear of the American lines. Only about 100 of his tired men finally reached the German rear.
Another, much smaller massacre was committed in Wereth, Belgium, on 17 December 1944. Eleven black American soldiers, after surrendering, were tortured and then shot by men of the 1st SS Panzer Division, belonging to Kampfgruppe Knittel. Men from Third Company of the Reconnaissance Battalion were responsible.
The Germans did better when the Fifth Panzer Army attacked positions held by the U.S. 28th and 106th Infantry Divisions. The Germans lacked the strength that they had in the north, but they still had more troops and weapons than the 28th and 106th divisions. They surrounded two regiments (422nd and 423rd) of the 106th Division and forced their surrender.
The official U.S. Army history states: "At least seven thousand [men] were lost here and the figure probably is closer to eight or nine thousand."
In St. Vith, it was hard for von Manteuffel's and Dietrich's forces. The defenders resisted the German attacks. This slowed down the German advance.
Montgomery ordered St. Vith to be evacuated on 21 December. U.S. troops got into trenches, which made the German advance hard. By 23 December, U.S. troops were ordered to retreat west of the Salm River. Since the German plan called for the capture of St. Vith by 18:00 on 17 December, they were behind schedule.
To protect the river crossings on the Meuse, Montgomery ordered units to hold the bridges on 19 December.
The German advance in the center was the most successful. Fifth Panzer Army was led by the 2nd Panzer Division while Panzer Lehr Division came up from the south. The Ourthe River was passed at Ourtheville on 21 December.
Lack of fuel held up the advance for one day, but on 23 December the attack continued towards the towns of Hargimont and Marche.
Hargimont was captured the same day, but Marche was defended by the American 84th Division. Gen. Lüttwitz, commander of the XXXXVII Panzer Corps, ordered the Division to turn west towards Dinant and the Meuse. 2nd Panzer Division was still advancing quickly.
On 22/23 December the woods of Foy-Notre-Dame were reached, near Dinant. On 24 December the furthest point was reached. Panzer Lehr Division took the town of Celles. Farther north, parts of 2nd Panzer Division were close to the Meuse.
An Allied force prevented the German forces from approaching the Dinant bridge. By late Christmas Eve the advance in this sector was stopped by Allied forces.
For Operation Greif, Otto Skorzeny got English-speaking Germans in American uniforms behind the Allied lines. Although they failed to take the bridges over the Meuse, they caused confusion and rumors spread quickly. Even General George Patton was worried and described the situation to General Dwight Eisenhower.
Checkpoints were set up all over the Allied rear, greatly slowing the movement of soldiers and equipment. American MPs at these checkpoints asked troops about things that every American was expected to know.
The tightened security made things very hard for the German soldiers to move about, and a number of them were captured. Even during interrogation, they spread lies. when asked about their mission, some of them claimed they had been told to go to Paris to either kill or capture General Dwight Eisenhower.
Security around the general was greatly increased, and Eisenhower was kept in his headquarters.
Because Skorzeny's men were captured in American uniforms, they were executed as spies. This was the standard practice of every army at the time. Skorzeny said that he was told by German legal experts that as long he doesn't order his men to fight in combat while wearing American uniforms, such a tactic was a legitimate trick.
Skorzeny and his men wore their German uniforms underneath their American ones in case of capture. Skorzeny was tried by an American military tribunal in 1947 at the Dachau Trials for violating the laws of war from his leadership of Operation Greif, but was acquitted.
In Operation Währung, a small number of German agents went behind Allied lines in American uniforms. They tried to bribe rail and port workers to cause problems with Allied supply operations. However, this operation was a failure.
Further south attacking divisions crossed the River Our. The 112th Infantry Regiment kept German troops from using the Our River bridges around Ouren for two days, before withdrawing.
The 109th and 110th Regiments of the 28th Division did badly. They had so few troops that the Germans got around their positions. Both resisted and slowed down the German schedule by several days. Panzer groups captured villages and advanced near Bastogne within four days.
The battles for the villages and American strongpoints, and transport confusion on the German side, slowed the attack down. This allowed the 101st Airborne Division to reach Bastogne on 19 December. The defense of Bastogne made it impossible for the Germans to take the town. The "panzers" went past on either side, cutting off Bastogne on 20 December.
In the south, Brandenberger's three infantry divisions were stopped by divisions of the U.S. VIII Corps. Only the 5th Parachute Division of Brandenberger's command was able to move forward.
Eisenhower and his commanders realized by 17 December that the fighting in the Ardennes was a major offensive and not a small attack, and they ordered many new troops to the area.
Within a week 250,000 troops had been sent. Gen. Gavin of the 82nd Airborne Division ordered the 101st to hold Bastogne. The 82nd had to battle the SS Panzer Divisions.
By the time the senior Allied commanders met on 19 December, the town of Bastogne and its 11 roads had been held by the Germans for several days.