this order was fully transmitted, German resistance began to completely collapse on 16 April as the remnants of German divisions and corps surrendered en masse. 5th Panzer Army commander Josef Harpe was captured by paratroopers of the 17th Airborne Division on 17 April while trying to cross the Rhine to German forces in the Netherlands. The commander of the Allied XVIII Airborne Corps, Matthew Ridgway, sent an aide bearing a white flag to Army Group B's headquarters, calling on Model to surrender but the field marshal refused, citing his oath to Hitler. When asked for instructions by the squad leader of a German unit that was still armed, Model told them to go home as their fight was over. He then shook their hands and wished them luck. The western part of the pocket continued a weak resistance until 18 April. Model tried to get to the Harz mountains through the American lines in a small column, but could not make it. Rather than surrender and face trial for war crimes, he committed suicide. German anti-Nazi resistance groups in Düsseldorf attempted to surrender the city to the Allied armies in the so-called "Aktion Rheinland" in order to spare Düsseldorf from further destruction. However, SS units were able to crush the resistance, and executed a number of those involved. Executions of foreign laborers and political prisoners by the Gestapo had already been occurring since February. The act of resistance did accomplish a cancellation of further bombings on the city by another 800 bombers, through contact with the Americans. Düsseldorf was captured by Americans on 17 April without any notable fighting. Aftermath Casualties The 317,000 German soldiers from the Ruhr pocket, and some civilians, were imprisoned in the Rheinwiesenlager (in English, "Rhine meadow camp") near Remagen, a temporary prison enclosure. The Americans suffered 10,000 casualties while reducing the pocket. The Ninth Army lost 341 killed, 121 missing and just under 2,000 wounded. The First Army lost three times more, which brought the U.S. casualties to 10,000. The divisions of III Corps lost 291 killed, 88 missing and 1,356 wounded, while the 8th Division of the XVIII Airborne Corps lost 198 killed, 101 missing and 1,238 wounded. Casualty totals for the 15th Army units on the western edge of the pocket are not listed in the official U.S. history. The Americans liberated hundreds of thousands of hungry, diseased and weakened prisoners-of-war and slave