The Hürtgen forest (also: Huertgen Forest; ) is located along the border between Belgium and Germany, in the southwest corner of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The forest lies within a triangle outlined by the German towns of Aachen, Monschau, and Düren, covering in area. The Rur River runs along the forest's eastern edge.
Before World War II, the Hürtgen Forest was a dense, rugged woodland, spanning about 50 square kilometers, mostly used for timber production. The area was sparsely populated with small villages and had limited strategic importance.
The Hürtgen Forest lies at the northern edge of the Eifel mountains and High Fens â Eifel Nature Park. Its terrain is characterized by plunging valleys that carve through broad plateaus, with hilltop plateaus that have been cleared for agriculture.
During World War II, the rugged terrain of this area was the scene of the long, bloody, drawn-out Battle of Hürtgen Forest, which took place over three months during a cold fall from 19 September 1944 to 16 December 1944. The Germans successfully defended the area while gaining time to launch a surprise counter offensive in the Ardennes on 16 December 1944, the Battle of the Bulge.
The forest was further devastated by fires in the summer of 1945, ignited as the weather warmed leftover white phosphorus munitions.
The battle is commemorated in the 1944 Hürtgen Forest Museum, opened in 1983. There are three German war cemeteries; the one at Hürtgen was opened in 1952 and is the resting place of some one hundred postwar victims of mines and unexploded ordnance. Beside other small memorials, the road that rises from the Kall River Valley to the town of Schmidt incorporated the track of a destroyed Sherman tank.