This is the extended Directing Staff version of the BAOR Battlefield Tour covering Operation Plunder - 12 British Corps crosses the Rhine 1945. A complete description of this operation including details of both the planning and the execution. Illustrated with 16 colour maps, two orders of battle and many of the original plans for the operation. An unrivalled source for the assault crossing of the River Rhine in 1945. The Allied operation was opposed by the German 1st Parachute Army, commanded by General Alfred Schlemm, a part of Army Group H. Unable to withstand Allied pressure, the 1st Parachute Army withdrew north-east, towards Hamburg and Bremen, leaving a gap between it and the 15th Army in the Ruhr. Joseph Goebbels was well aware of Plunder's potential impact from the beginning. On 24 March, he began his diary entry with "The situation in the West has entered an extraordinarily critical, ostensibly almost deadly, phase". Within a week of the start of Plunder, the Allies had taken 30,000 prisoners of war north of the Ruhr.