The Germans call it "Nasskalt," which means "wet cold." The north wind blows down from the North Sea, and it penetrates you right to the bone. Somehow, it doesn't seem to matter how much insulation you are wearing. Wool, down, gloves... spend more than a few minutes outside, and lemme tell ya, none of them make much difference.
The longest I was outside was maybe two hours, getting a walking tour of Bonn. I remember the cold to this day even though it was ten years ago.
The soldiers of the Battle of the Bulge were out in much worse than I endured for weeks. They didn't have gloves lined with 3M "Thinsulate" super-fiber insulation. They didn't have goose-down parkas. Some were wounded and kept on fighting. Words are inadequate.
We drove in our rented Opel down from Aachen through Belgium, and down to Luxembourg, then back across into Germany at Trier (birthplace of Karl Marx).
Much of the drive through Belgium was through the Ardennes forest. Mile after mile of these little pine trees, oddly identical in form (like trees on a tree farm) and kind of sparsely distributed, not at all like a "shwartzwald" kind of forest. As I stole glances into the forest (I was driving, and paranoid about having an accident) I thought how difficult it would be to find cover from an attacker in there. I also thought about how d*mn cold it was.
(steely)