According to SS-Gruppenführer Preiss, by the time the I.SS-Panzerkorps had already envisaged the possibility of the Kampfgruppe having to break its way out of the impasse. From the information it had about the movement of enemy units, the corps foresaw the increasingly more powerful American attacks were inevitable. However the idea of a withdrawal was rejected by 6.Panzer-Armee, which ordered that every possible effort was to be made to support the Kampfgruppe. The 1.SS-Panzer-Division was to intensify its efforts to render the Kampfgruppe mobile once more and equip it for action, while I.SS-Panzerkorps requested supplies to be dropped by air to the surrounded spearhead. To this the Luftwaffe agreed.
SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Preiss