Operation Market Garden – 3 Para’s immediate ambush against the local German commander
The opening hours of the Arnhem landing
September 2025, Arnhem, Netherlands. I am standing at the intersection of Wolfhezerweg and Utrechtseweg with author David Buggenum (B Company Arrived: The Story of B Company of the 2nd Parachute Battalion at Arnhem September 1944), on the site where the local German commander, Generalmajor Friedrich Kussin, was ambushed and killed by members of 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, on 17 September 1944.
As the first reports of British paratroop landings around Wolfheze reached his headquarters, General Kussin attempted to contact SS-Sturmbahnführer Sepp Krafft, who led a battalion of about 450 soldiers in Oosterbeek. Krafft immediately deployed his troops in a blocking line between Oosterbeek and Wolfheze.
The ambush
General Kussin was unable to contact Krafft by radio, so he decided to drive to Krafft’s headquarters at Hotel Wolfheze to get an update in person. Kussin, with his driver and Orderly, set out in their Citroen staff car.
As they passed through the intersection of Wolfhezerweg and Utrechtseweg , they crossed the path of a British reconnaissance platoon: No. 5 Platoon, “B” Company, 3rd Parachute Battalion.
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Authored by Mick Prictor, a retired military officer with 40 years’ service, and a military historian specialising in terrain-focused analysis of tactics, doctrine, and command decision-making in land warfare. His work draws on extensive battlefield fieldwork—more than 280 sites worldwide—and one of the world’s largest private collections of historic military arms, uniforms, and equipment. About me
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