page_title: Battle of Nijmegen
section_title: Waal Bridge not demolished
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Nijmegen / Course of the battle / March on Nijmegen / Waal Bridge not demolished
caption_attribution_description: English: Operation 'market Garden' (the Battle For Arnhem)- 17 - 25 September 1944- Nijmegen and Grave 17 - 20 September 1944 Nijmegen and Grave 17 - 20 September 1944: British engineers removing the charge which the Germans had set in readiness to blow the Nijmegen bridge.
context_page_description: The Battle of Nijmegen or Liberation of Nijmegen occurred in the Netherlands from 17 to 20 September 1944, as part of Operation Market Garden during World War II.
  The Allies' primary goal was to capture the two bridges over the Waal River at Nijmegen – the road route over the Waalbrug and Nijmegen railway bridge – and relieve the British 1st Airborne Division and Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade at Arnhem, 10 miles north of Nijmegen. The Allied infantry units at Arnhem were surrounded by German forces, and involved in heavy fighting for control of bridges over the Rhine.
  Delays caused by hastily-organised German reinforcements at Nijmegen, ultimately led to the failure of Operation Market Garden. It took the Allies longer than expected to secure a land route to Arnhem, where the British and Polish forces were forced south of the Rhine and sustained massive casualties. In addition, fighting at Nijmegen cost hundreds of civilian lives, and caused significant damage to many buildings in the city.
context_section_description: The Allies' greatest fear was that the Germans would blow up the Road Bridge, which would render Market Garden a failure. Indeed, the Germans had already installed explosives on the bridge, ready to be detonated when that would be deemed necessary, but this never happened during the entire battle. Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model, commander of the German forces in the Netherlands, counted on an Allied defeat at Arnhem. This meant the bridge could still be of use for a large-scale counteroffensive, and so it was not destroyed on 17 September. On 18 September, resistance member Jan van Hoof allegedly sabotaged the explosives, but this remains uncertain. However, when he was arrested and executed by the Germans the next day, he was soon heroised as the "Saviour of the Waal Bridge". An official investigation after the war concluded the Germans would have had enough time to charge the bridge with explosives once more and demolish it anyway; however, they again did not do so out of strategic considerations. According to another hypothesis, the Germans supposedly failed to blow up the bridge on 20 September, because the ignition system malfunctioned.
caption: British soldiers dismantle German explosives on the Waal Bridge.
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