Market Garden To Germany
The Brigade had a minor role in Operation Market Garden and went on to participate in the Ardennes.
Soon thereafter, the 11th Armoured Division pushed forward into the German-occupied Netherlands. In March 1945, it crossed the Rhine River and by the end of the war had advanced to the northeast and captured the German city of Lübeck on 2 May 1945.
As it drove into Germany, the Brigade occupied the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 15 April 1945, pursuant to an 12 April agreement with the retreating Germans to surrender the camp peacefully. When the Brigade entered the camp, they found more than 60,000 emaciated and ill prisoners in desperate need of medical attention. More than 13,000 corpses in various stages of decomposition lay littered around the camp. Units of the Division and its higher formations were detached to oversee the work needed in the camp.
From the end of the war in Europe (8 May 1945) the Division was involved in the occupation of Germany until its disbandment in January 1946.
Read more about this topic: 159th Infantry Brigade (United Kingdom)
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