To the German Commander: NUTS!
“Aw, nuts.”
That was the offhand reaction Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe gave when told the Germans were demanding the surrender of Bastogne. The comment got a laugh, but what followed became legend.
It was December 22, 1944. The town of Bastogne, Belgium was encircled. German forces, having launched the surprise Ardennes Offensive — what we now call the Battle of the Bulge — had surrounded the 101st Airborne Division and its attached units.
Supplies were low. Reinforcements were far off. The men were cold, hungry, and vastly outnumbered.
That morning, four German soldiers — two officers and two enlisted men — arrived under a white flag. They carried a typed ultimatum: surrender within two hours or be annihilated by artillery.
The letter appealed to American “humanity” to spare the civilians of Bastogne from more suffering.
The message was relayed through channels until it reached McAuliffe at the 101st HQ on Rue de La-Roche. Reading it, he laughed. He knew his men were holding, and that they would bever surrender.
“They want us to surrender? Aw, nuts!”
His staff chuckled, but Colonel Kinnard, his operations officer, leaned in. “That first remark of yours would be hard to beat.”
So McAuliffe wrote it down:
22 December 1944.
To the German Commander: NUTS!
The American Commander.
Colonel Joseph Harper delivered it back to the Germans.
When they looked confused, he clarified: If you don’t understand what ‘NUTS’ means, it’s the same as “Go to hell.”
Then he warned the Germans: if they attacked again, “we will kill every goddamn German that tries to break into this city.”
That same message was circulated among the men of the 101st. Easy Company, dug into foxholes in the Bois Jacques, read it on Christmas Eve.
The weather was freezing. Food was scarce. They were still being shelled. But McAuliffe’s reply — bold, simple, defiant — gave them something rare: hope.
For the men in the woods, “NUTS!” wasn’t just a quip. It was a promise. That they would hold the line. That they were not forgotten. That their courage would mean something.
They had cold beans for dinner that night. One shell nearly took out Harry Welsh. Another bomb hit a hospital in Bastogne. Some men couldn’t even be sure it was Christmas Eve.
But they passed the “NUTS!” message from hand to hand, and in that small act, found something like Christmas spirit.
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Read more: Rendezvous with Destiny, Band of Brothers, Beyond Band of Brothers, Call of Duty, Easy Company Soldier, Shifty’s War, Fierce Valor, Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends.
Photos courtesy of U.S. Army Signal Corps, James Skeffington, and Unsplash.
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Plan your visit to Bastogne — including the War Rooms on Rue de La-Roche — with the Band of Brothers Travel Guide, available now on Amazon.