Battle of the Bulge and Buchenwald

I can recommend historian Heather Cox Richardson's "Battle of the Bulge" documentary series. Since I am not an expert at copying/pasting links best to google it. It is pretty powerful.

I agree that Bastogne and Buchenwald would be two of the major sites for the 6th Armored. Many of the places they were in France, they moved pretty fast, so probably not much to see. A couple others along the way would be Oppenheim, where Patton crossed the Rhine, beating Montgomery to it, I believe there is some type of memorial near there. Probably nothing specific to the 6th remaining, but the 6th ended up in Leipzig, a nice town worth visiting.

You should be able to find sites that talk about the route of the 6th and notes any memorials that were put up. In Luxembourg is the American Cemetery, which has Patton's grave.

A car might be worthwhile if you want to get to some of the memorials and sites.

I have not been to Buchenwald but I have been to Weimar, which is the next big town. It is a very significant city for German tourists because there were a lot of things which happened there historically, just coincidentally:

• Painter Lukas Cranach lived on the square there
• Goethe lived there, Schiller visited
• They were attracted by the Herzogin Anna Amalia Library (still there, very amazing to visit, all 18th century). There was a fire there some time back but would be restored by now
• The Bauhaus movement in design and architecture started there
• The Weimar Republic (the German state between WWI and WWII) was founded here
• of course visitors also see Buchenwald

When we went, we stayed a little out of the centre at Hotel Elefant. We were there for a few days as I visited the library while my husband was wrangling our daughter. They found a nearby model train exhibition, probably about 10km away (sorry, I don't have specifics of this but it was good for our daughter). While I was there, I noticed a lot of German tourists but others don't seem to know it. It's a lovely town, I can recommend it, but also suggest you do your homework - read up about Goethe and Schiller and Cranach before you go, and if possible do a tour of the city (???), because I think you will appreciate it on a whole other level if you do this.

Lavandula

I recommend the following locations:

1. Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial https://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries-memorials/about-luxembourg-american-cemetery/
   This is also the site of Patton's grave. About a mile east of Luxembourg city, easily reachable by bus. We visited in 2018 and were able to visit the grave of the father of a close friend who died during the battle. The attendent kindly took us to the grave site for photos and provided us with historical documents of the soldier's service record, and a flage which we were able to give to our friend upon our return. Such an emotional site.

2. Sandweiler German War Cemetery. https://kriegsgraeberstaetten.volksbund.de/friedhof/sandweiler
   About 1 mile southeast of the American cemetery. Another poignant site testifying to the tragedy of the war. Many graves of unidentified German soldiers. We walked there from the American Cemetery.

3. National Museum of Military History in Diekirch. https://www.mnhm.net/mnhm/
   It's not a fancy museum but is chock-a-block with the detritus of the Battle of the Bulge. Jeaps, bicycles (used by German soldiers), howitzers, rifles, and much more. During our visit in 2018, one of the volunteer docents told us of how she hid in a basement for days as a child as the war raged.

Keep in mind that public transport in Luxembourg is free. We had to pay 4 euros a day in 2018. We stayed in the lovely town of Ettelbruck (good restaurants and hotels) which proved to be a great place to explore the country. It's only 30 minutes by train from Luxembourg City but much quieter and less expensive. There is also a General Patton Memorial Museum in Ettelbruck but we did not visit it as the Diekirch museum had higher recommendations.

I've been to Oppenheim several times but I don't recall seeing any public references to Patton's crossing. However, there is a sign in the nearby town of Nierstein which notes the crossing.

Buchenwald is a somber experience. Weimar is a beautiful town. I suspect you can find the route that the U.S. Army took to get to Buchenwald and follow that. I know there was a battle in Coburg, which I believe is within an hour of Buchenwald and is a beautiful city as well. I just came across a website that discusses the sad and dishonorable role of Coburg in Nazi Germany as well as the April 1945 battle. Essentially, Coburg was an early supporter of Hitler. https://www.tracesofevil.com/search/label/Coburg. I've only read the Coburg page of the website but it may have other points of interest to you as well. The area around Coburg is beautiful with a lot of historically interesting things to see. Bamberg is relatively close as well.

The picture database of Federal Archive from Germany might interest you.

Ardennenoffensive:
https://www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/dba/en/search/?yearfrom=&yearto=&query=ardennenoffensive

Buchenwald:
https://www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/dba/en/search/?channelid=dcx-channel-channel_barch_bilder&query=buchenwald&day=&month=&yearfrom=1938&yearto=1946&imageid=&title=&farbe=&kostenfrei=&ausrichtung=&view=gallery&submit=

By coincidence i answered the same question in this thread just a short time ago:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/germany/following-my-fathers-ww2-service

There is a regular public bus route in Weimar that stops at Buchenwald. Weimar is an excellent visit, with literary, musical, and design history.

Edit:
You may not understand this until you try yourself, but for many years, I was singularly unsuccessful in trying to add Poland onto trips to nearby countries, especially Germany. Having been to two KL, Buchenwald and Auschwitz, I can tell you that they are both worthwhile. In some ways, Buchenwald was the opposite of Auschwitz; It was not crowded, and very accessible for a self-guided visit, but certainly painted a horrible picture. Walking back to the car, we found some teachers and tweens on their school-required visit, headed to the "Education Center". They were clearly uncomfortable, and acting-out in the line. (This was not a "recent visit.")

We eventually did a Poland-only visit, with a stop to see friends in London.
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/four-cities-in-poland-2019

I have been to Weimar a number of times, day trips and overnight stays, a singularly important city in German cultural history and literature should that be of interest to you.

Post cards of Weimar point out this regarding Weimar and Germany: "Deutschlands Kulturstadt and Dichterstadt " (cultural city and the city of poets), ie that of Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, etc.

Walk down, literally as it is downward path, from the Weimar train station to Goetheplatz. Signs there point to which bus goes to Buchenwald.

The visits I made to Weimar I saw some tourists, even coincidentally a tour group , all German, with a few Russians out and about. Never any Americans.

I visited Bastogne in December. The Bastogne War Museum is excellent. It has many artifacts of the Battle of the Bulge, but it also has a very interesting audio guide that features the true story of 4 individuals (a German troop, an American troop, a Belgian school teacher [who conducted clandestine resistance activities], and a Belgian boy) whose lives intersected in the most interesting of ways. It's a very well done museum! The Bastogne Barracks is another museum at a site originally built as barracks for the Belgian Army in the 1930's, it was used by German troops and later American troops during WWII. It was the site where Brigadier General McAuliffe's "NUTS" response to a German request for surrender was born. There is also a very nice mechanized warfare museum there. More 101st Airborne related than 6th Division related is a site where 101st troops dug in with foxholes.