Situation of the German armed forces in Normandy in 1944

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The German situation in Normandy in 1944 was determined by many factors and was shaped by Allied deception operations , which were intended to distract from Operation Overlord , but also by the decision-makers' various war experiences.

The Germans were preparing for an Allied invasion, especially in France, which they had occupied . They suspected it was on the Strait of Calais , but could not rule out other areas and therefore did not concentrate on preparing to counter an invasion.

Development of the command and troop structure in the west

As a result of the reorganization of the German Army Group in the spring of 1941 that the planned attack on the Soviet Union brought with it was for the occupied France , the Army Group D under Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben erected. At the same time, the office of Commander-in-Chief West was established and assigned to the Commander-in-Chief of Army Group A , Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt , intended for Operation Sea Lion . In addition to Army Group A, Army Group D and the Wehrmacht Commander in Chief of the Netherlands, General der Flieger Friedrich Christiansen, were also under his tactical command . After the final end for an attack on England , the office of OB West went to von Witzleben and von Rundstedt went to the Eastern Front. Only two armies, the 7th and 15th , guarded the long coastline from the Spanish border to Antwerp . The 1st Army was stationed in the interior of France and had its headquarters together with OB West near Paris .

By the end of 1941, only seven heavy artillery batteries had been erected on the Channel coast . These should serve as support for the Sea Lion company for the bombardment of the English island . There were also some smaller coastal batteries built by the Todt Organization . However, after the change of plan from Hitler, this had received the order to build the submarine bunkers in Brest , Lorient and St. Nazaire and was no longer available for the expansion of the Atlantic Wall . More construction battalions were indispensable. So von Witzleben had no choice but to come to terms with the navy and borrow some workers who could be released and additionally use his own troops to build a fortress on the Channel coast. The prevailing scarcity of materials placed narrow limits on his project.

The actual expansion of the Atlantic Wall, which stretched from Norway to the French Bay of Biscay , did not begin until the spring of 1942, when a second front in the west came into the realm of probability as a result of the entry into the war by the United States and the Soviet winter offensive . Particularly in northern France and there at the narrowest point of the English Channel, the Pas-de-Calais , great attention was paid to a possible defense against invasions from the sea side. Heavy artillery installations, gun bunkers and resistance nests with machine gun positions were built on the coast. The larger ports and the estuaries were specially protected.

At the beginning of March von Rundstedt took over the office of OB West again and two weeks later Hitler issued his "Instruction No. 40" to expand the western defense. In this the OB West was given responsibility for all defense installations in the western occupied territories and, together with the commander of the German troops in Denmark, was subordinated directly to the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW). The OKW under General Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel took over the entire western defense area in early 1943. These included France, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as Scandinavia , Italy , the Balkans and North Africa .

Hitler's directive No. 40 pointed the way for the future tactical planning of the defense of northern France. The instruction contained the order to organize troops that could repel any possible invasion of the enemy immediately before or immediately after the landing. The aim was to concentrate the units on the beaches of the coast that were most suitable for a landing. Smaller stretches of coast had to be defended by strong artillery positions. The rest of the coast should be covered with patrols . The troops were also instructed to defend the coast "to the last man". For this purpose, the units should be equipped with weapons, ammunition and supplies so that they could continue the fight in the event of an enemy onslaught.

Only five days after its decree, Hitler was surprised by the successful attack by the British on St. Nazaire (→  Operation Chariot ). Hitler furiously complained about the state of the coastal defense. As a result, however, there were only personnel changes in the West High Command.

Due to the tense situation in the east, the OKW and the High Command of the Army (OKH) increasingly relocated troops from the west to the eastern front in 1942. With this, the divisions standing by for defense continued to thin out. Von Rundstedt issued an order in May calling for the faster rebuilding of the divisions that had been relocated from the Russian front back to France. At the same time von Rundstedt warned against stationing only the burned-out front-line soldiers in the west and soldiers who could not be used in the east. In return, the OKH proposed in the last quarter of 1942 a regular monthly exchange between two departments of Army Group Center and OB West and one department of Army Group North and the Norwegian garrison. The OKH recorded ten infantry units under the command of OB West, which were immediately usable for the eastern deployment. In order to avoid using the armored and motorized units in the Russian winter, they should not be relocated until next spring. But only a month later Hitler ordered the transfer of the 6th Panzer Division from the west to the Stalino - Volchansk sector . Within eleven months, 22 infantry and six armored or motorized units moved from the west to the eastern front. Together with the thinning of the staffing of the best officers and soldiers as well as supply materials, this weakened the western defense considerably.

At a three-hour meeting on September 29, 1942 between Hitler, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring , Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions and head of the Todt Albert Speer organization , von Rundstedt, his chief of staff Günther Blumentritt , General of the Pioneers Alfred Jacob , Lieutenant General Rudolf Schmetzer , the fortress inspector of OB West and some other leading officers in the Reich Chancellery , Hitler demanded the consistent expansion of the Atlantic Wall. He stated that after the successful spring offensive in 1943 the Soviet Union would be defeated and a second front in the west would then be possible. At first he saw the Norwegian coast threatened, but then turned to northern France, since an invasion there would require the least ship tonnage. After analyzing the Dieppe landing (→  Operation Jubilee ), which he believed to be a large-scale invasion that had failed, he concluded that the British had no choice but to try again. It would therefore be essential to expand the Atlantic Wall as much as possible - not only against a seaward landing, but also with regard to a possible enemy air sovereignty. To this end, 1,000 concrete bunkers were to be built that could withstand the heaviest artillery fire and bombs and were to be defended by 300,000 soldiers. Furthermore, the ports and above all the submarine bunkers had to be fortified and protected against enemy attacks. This program should run successfully by May 1, 1943.

Since the coastal defense was still under the lowest priority level, the Todt Organization would have been happy to have completed 40% of the facilities by the time mentioned. A sufficient build-up of military strength until an Allied attack was also beyond the scope of our expectations.

German preparations for an Allied invasion

When, in the autumn of 1943, the first information about the contents of the conference of foreign ministers in Moscow penetrated the German command staff through secret service activities, it quickly became aware that the opening of a new front in the west was imminent. This knowledge had to be put into perspective a little later, after it was leaked that the "Big Three" decided at the Tehran conference at the end of November to postpone the European invasion by several months. The German leadership therefore concluded that an invasion was not to be expected before the end of February 1944, but that it would take place in spring at the latest.

While the Allies were still holding their conference in Moscow in October, Rundstedt wrote a long, pessimistic report to the OKW on the position of the defenses in the west. In it he stated that his troops would in no way be able to withstand a possible Allied invasion. During the three years of occupation in France, the "Fortress Europe" project had not yet advanced far. Hitler endorsed von Rundstedt in his Führer directive No. 51 of November 3, 1943:

“The danger in the east has remained, but a greater one is looming in the west: the Anglo-Saxon landing! In the east, the size of the room allows, in extreme cases, a loss of soil even on a larger scale without fatally hitting the German lifeblood. Different in the west! If the enemy succeeds in breaking into our defense on a broad front, the consequences are unforeseeable in a short time. All indications are that the enemy will attack the western front of Europe in spring at the latest, but perhaps even earlier. I can therefore no longer answer for the fact that the West is being further weakened in favor of other theaters of war. I have therefore decided to strengthen his defenses, especially where we will begin the long-range battle against England. Because there the enemy must and will attack [...]. Attacks of restraint and diversionary attacks on other fronts are to be expected. "

Directive No. 51 was in fact influenced not only by von Rundstedt's October report, but also by the current situation in the east and south, where the German armies suffered more and more setbacks. In particular, the fact that the Allies were approaching the opening of the western front in order to bring about a faster decision on war contributed to Hitler's assessments. For all these reasons, there should be no further weakening of the West in favor of other fronts. The OKH should work out a plan to equip each Panzer and Panzergrenadier division with 93 Panzerkampfwagen IV and strong anti- tank guns. The upgrade should be completed by the end of the year. The reserve armored units were to be fully equipped and machine guns to be delivered in full to OB West. The withdrawal of armored troops was prohibited without Hitler's direct approval. The Luftwaffe and Navy were instructed to strengthen their defensive positions.

Despite the new orders, the order came on November 23rd to reorganize the Feldherrnhalle Panzer Grenadier Division as quickly as possible and to prepare it for relocation to the east. On December 3, the Wehrmacht leadership replaced around 10,000 experienced soldiers drafted in 1925 with men who had not previously been drafted for professional reasons. Around the same time, the allocation of heavy weapons fell in favor of the hotly contested Eastern Front.

Disagreement about time, place and countermeasures for an Allied landing

In November 1943, when Hitler decided that the possibility of an Allied invasion of France could no longer be ignored, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was appointed inspector of German coastal defense and later commander of Army Group B , which was responsible for ground defense in northern France. The circumstances that led to Rommel's appointment were somewhat confused, as he was the commanding officer of Army Group B in northern Italy up to this point and Hitler had even designated him as commander-in-chief of the entire troops in Italy. But Hitler suddenly changed his mind and raised Kesselring to the post of Mayor South . Three days after Kesselring's appointment, the OKW made a formal request in which it requested a reserve army group under Rommel that could be sent to any possible place of invasion. The new headquarters were recruited from the staff of Army Group B without a few special officers who had been withdrawn and about half of the soldiers. This new "Army Group for Special Tasks" temporarily moved into Munich and waited for further orders.

In preparation for a possible deployment of the new Army Group in France, Rommel received the order on November 6th to inspect the western defenses. He had instructions to report directly to the OKW, bypassing OB West. The OKW also reported this to Mayor West von Rundstedt and immediately made it clear that this would not curtail his authority in any way.

Rommel's first trip took him to Denmark and then to Artois on the Channel coast. Shortly afterwards, he inspected the preparations on the Cotentin Peninsula , in the Netherlands and then in Brittany . Rommel firmly believed that defending the beaches with armored troops as quickly as possible would be the only possible defense against invasion. Therefore, he wanted to have a corresponding number of tanks posted close to the beaches for a counterattack. His demands went directly to the OKW, which then consulted General Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt and obtained his opinion. Von Rundstedt, who was supported by Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg , the commander of Panzer Group West , and the latter in turn by Colonel General Heinz Guderian , the inspector general of the German armored forces, favored a concentration of the armored units in the rear so that the entire main line of attack of the enemy was identified and then can be smashed with a powerful counter blow. Von Schweppenburg saw the area between the Loire and the Seine as a battlefield . In November von Rundstedt suggested that six infantry divisions, which would not be directly threatened after an enemy landing, should retreat inland. For this purpose vehicles of all kinds would have to be kept available by the other armies. The divisions were then to be combined into two corps and placed under the command of an army. Existing tank and tank grenadier reserves were to be commanded by a tank reserve corps and organized together with the two infantry corps as a special army group under Rommel.

The debate reflected the different war experiences of the decision makers. Rundstedt, Geyr von Schweppenburg, and Guderian had gained most of their experience when the Luftwaffe controlled the skies over the battlefield or when neither side was able to achieve air superiority over the entire front. Rommel's experience was vastly different. Von Rundstedt and Guderian apparently did not consider that the Allied air power could be of a similar size to the German at the beginning of the war. Rommel, who had fought under an Allied air superiority in the course of the Africa campaign , estimated the opposing capacities to be higher than the other three.

To end the dispute, Hitler split up the six available tank divisions in northern France and placed three of them under Rommel's direct command. The three other divisions were relocated to the hinterland and placed under Hitler's direct command. The air defenses on the north coast of France consisted of only 169 fighters , as the airfields in northern France were constantly being attacked from the air by the Allies. Hitler's decision ultimately led to the fact that the German tank divisions were unable to destroy the later bridgehead after the invasion.

Towards the end of 1943 the OKW worked out a detailed plan that included all possible hostile scenarios that could arise from an invasion on various coasts of the west. For an invasion of France, the plan envisaged the relocation of three infantry divisions from Norway and Denmark, an infantry division, a launcher corps and a corps headquarters from Italy and four infantry and hunter divisions and smaller units from the Balkans. This was to be done against the background that the allies in the west were planning "one" major invasion attack. In January 1944 the OKW began to doubt this “one” major attack. Although everything pointed to an attack at the narrowest point of the canal, they also believed that they had seen signs that accompanying invasions could also occur, for example in Portugal or the Balkans. The German doubts were fed even more by the Allied landing near Anzio on January 22nd. General Alfred Jodl was of the opinion that this landing, unrelated to the Italian front, would be the beginning of several smaller operations designed to fragment the German forces and divert them from the main landing in northern France. For France, he foresaw landings in the Bay of Biscay and southern France that would cut off the Iberian Peninsula . The considerations were taken so seriously that as a result, two new infantry divisions were set up in February and assigned to the 19th Army in the south. The 9th SS Panzer Division was withdrawn from OB West and relocated to Avignon in reserve. The 1st Army received a new division to guard the Spanish border and the Biscay coast.

Because the situation on the Eastern Front and in the Mediterranean theater of war was subject to rapid changes, the OKW could hardly work out any long-term plans for the future and only plan from day to day. As early as March, the order was issued to withdraw the previously issued defense plan and the associated troop transfers. The commanders were also instructed that the relocation of troops would only be approved in detail after the enemy had launched a major invasion attack. For this purpose, relocation plans of the reserve units were drawn up for possible invasion scenarios. According to this, OB West would get a corps headquarters, two reinforced armored infantry regiments, a reinforced infantry regiment, combat groups from three infantry regiments as the basis for a new division, as well as a motorized artillery regiment, five land rifle battalions and a smoke thrower battalion. These newly established units were of course not comparable in experience and combat strength with the eight divisions expected according to the old plans. However, since the top leadership preferred multiple sites of invasion instead of a major attack, any possible concentration of troops seemed impossible.

Command structure in the west - 1944

At a management level meeting with Hitler in March 1944, Rommel tried to enforce an expansion of his authority, which would have led to the de facto replacement of Rundstedts and Geyr von Schweppenburgs as commanders of the defense forces. In particular, Rommel demanded that all armored and motorized formations as well as the artillery be subordinated to his high command. In the further course of the conversation, his demands for control over the 1st and 19th Armies were also discussed. Both armies, one stationed on the Atlantic coast and the other on the Mediterranean coast of France, were directly subordinate to OB West. In this sense, Rommel's demands appear plausible. Once he was responsible for the defense against an Allied landing, he would need command over all units involved in the defensive measures. Rommel did everything possible to unite what he saw as an unsatisfactory command structure in the West under his leadership. Hitler was taken with his contributions and promised to review the current situation. Only a study by the OKW's operations staff, which supported a letter of protest written later by Rundstedts, allowed Hitler to return to the old course. However, some changes had already taken effect and were not revised again. The 2nd, 21st and 116th Panzer Divisions were placed under Rommel's position as reserves for Army Group B with full tactical control. However, von Schweppenburg remained responsible for their combat training and organization. Nothing had changed in the confused command structure.

At around the same time, the OKW in the OB West sector was given four more tank units. These were the 1st and 12th SS Panzer Divisions, the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division and the Panzer Lehr Division. They should serve as a central mobile reserve. Both decisions represented a compromise of the March talks, with the main effect that OB West was deprived of the means to directly influence the battle without transferring them to Rommel.

The last change in the command structure took place in May, when von Rundstedt ordered the establishment of a second army group, which took over command of the 1st and 19th Armies. The Army Group G was under Colonel General Johannes Blaskowitz and took over besides the two armies and the other three tank divisions in France, the 9th, 10th and 2nd SS Panzer Division. Von Rundstedt tried to redefine his position by setting up the new headquarters. So, depending on the restrictions already in place, he outlined the command structure of OB West for invasion defense. He left the commanders of the army groups maximum freedom of action in their own sectors. His intervention would only be limited to fundamental political decisions and to overarching measures affecting the entire defense sector. He subordinated his own orders to the direct instructions of Hitler, which were also carried out by all other commanders-in-chief. It was therefore clear that in the critical phase of defense preparations the orders would come from OB West or directly from Hitler. Hitler, who was based in his headquarters in Wolfsschanze in East Prussia , was so busy with the Eastern Front that he only traveled to the West after the invasion had taken place. Furthermore, he did not seem to be able to make any direct tactical suggestions himself, so that his decisions were lost in details and contained hardly any political definitions. Hitler's authority to command continued to disturb the already disturbed relationship between Rommel and von Rundstedt.

The main German force to repel an invasion was concentrated in the area on the Strait of Dover , since that is where the distance from England to France is the smallest. These suspicions were reinforced by the Allied deception operation, Operation Fortitude . The Germans also suspected that the Allies would attack during the day, in good weather and at high tide , as they had observed this in previous Allied invasions.

Since the German secret services ( Foreign Defense Office , Foreign Army West and Reich Security Main Office ) did not work together, allied attempts at deception were mostly taken seriously. The majority of German commanders thought that the invasion would take place on the Pas-de-Calais, since they believed that eighty Allied divisions, divided into five armies (which in turn were divided into two army groups ), were preparing for an invasion there. Hitler, the Wehrmacht command staff, von Rundstedt and also Rommel partly shared this view even after Operation Neptune . Only the Marine Group Command West and Air Fleet Command 3 harbored doubts. The navy suspected that the Allies would not attack at the narrowest point of the canal and therefore where the Germans expected them to attack. They also questioned the truthfulness of the intercepted reports from eighty divisions in the south-east of England, since the ship units needed for an invasion of this magnitude would be lacking. They considered the area between the Somme estuary and Cherbourg to be a more likely place of invasion. Luftflottenkommando 3 came to the same conclusion due to Allied bombing in the area. Their message to the Wehrmacht High Command was hardly taken into account.

The Germans suspected that the Allies would begin an invasion about two to three hours after low tide at dawn. According to the measurements of the Navy, optimal conditions for such a landing prevailed in the area of Le Havre and Cherbourg between June 5th and 7th, 1944. However, Hitler, von Rundstedt and Rommel and other commanders were not alarmed by this knowledge.

Expansion of the Atlantic Wall and other German defense arrangements

Belgian gate
Atlantic Wall - Drills on the Gun (Spring 1944)
Atlantic Wall south of Bordeaux - Corporal with binoculars at observation post (spring 1944)

In 1944, Rommel inspected the German defenses, some of which were already out of date by that time, and commissioned several innovations to protect the coast. However, some of the bunkers were still under construction when the Allied forces landed. In France, with a huge construction effort by the Organization Todt and with the use of thousands of slave laborers, bunkers for guns of the heaviest caliber were built.

In Rommel's view, the “battle for the west” would be decided directly on the coastline, within the first 48 hours after an Allied landing. For this reason, his first goal was to build a defensive belt along the entire coast, with a special concentration in the area of ​​the 15th Army. Within this belt, all infantry , artillery and reserve units up to division strength , along with the rest of their staff, were to be housed in nests of resistance. Land mines and obstacles were to be laid out between the individual nests of resistance to prevent the enemy from advancing.

In view of the approaching time of the invasion and the increasingly scarce resources of material and construction workers, Rommel began to shift more and more to simpler and smaller field defense systems in 1944. He put particular pressure on the mine-layers. In addition, he introduced new types of obstacles on the Atlantic Wall , which were specially designed to repel landing craft. Throughout Normandy, anti-tank barriers such as the Czech hedgehog and Spanish rider were brought to the beaches from the hinterland . Belgian gates and slanted poles supported the barriers seaward. The intention was to cover every possible landing beach between the high and low water marks with the obstacles that would not allow any boat, however shallow, to reach the shore. Most of the obstacles were also equipped with mines.

Wooden stakes, the so-called “ Rommel asparagus ” , were rammed into fields in the hinterland that were suitable for landing gliders . The distance between them was chosen so that cargo gliders would literally be shredded if they tried to land. Large parts of the later landing areas of the American paratroopers in the west had been inundated by German pioneers by damming the rivers Merderet and Douve .

The scheme of coastal defense was expanded by laying out minefields in the English Channel. 16 fields, each about eight kilometers long, were laid out from August 1943 to January 1944 between Boulogne and Cherbourg. In the course of the year they were intended for renewal and expansion, as they were hardly expected to have sufficient effects on Allied ships. Quickly laid out additional minefields, for which all available ships in the catchment area were intended, were to close all routes, including those intended for German ships, shortly before the invasion. Between Zeebrugge and Granville there were 36 fields. It was also planned to lay mines to British ports from the air if an invasion plan became known.

For the construction work, the LXXXIV. Corps assigned three engineer battalions in January 1944, two of them for building fortifications and one for laying mines. In addition there were 2,850 men from the former French labor service who worked on a second line of defense behind the first belt. A request for additional helpers led to the dispatch of two eastern battalions to Rommel. The only other alternative to getting workers was the own German troops, from which especially soldiers of the reserve units were assigned several times a week for labor service.

With all these measures Rommel tried to make an invasion physically almost impossible. The Allied units that were stuck in the network of obstacles were to be crushed or shot down by the Wehrmacht waiting on the banks .

The strategic location

German order of battle on June 6, 1944
Briefing of the situation by officers, etc. a. Colonel General Friedrich Dollmann (left), Lieutenant General Edgar Feuchtinger (2nd from right) and Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (r) in Northern France, 1944

The German units were organized into a relatively complex command structure. So the OB West could not freely dispose of all units. Other commanders, such as Rommel, also had to take into account membership in the armed forces, such as the Navy , or the SS . Uniform access to all units was not possible. The 2nd Panzer Division , for example, belonged to the Panzer Group West , tactically to the I. SS Panzer Corps , territorially to the military commander in Belgium and northern France and in terms of supply to the 15th Army. Günther Blumentritt wrote to Alfred Jodl in January 1944 : "Everything here is so tricky and overlapped and fuzzy with 100 possible places."

A member of Rommel's staff described the situation as follows:

“The to-and-fro of opinions about the best form of defense was shown in the fact that bunkers on the beach at Fécamp had been walled up and left vacant in Dieppe. South of the Somme estuary we later even found some that had been blown up when a new commandant had moved the main line of action on a ridge a few kilometers from the beach "

The German army command often withdrew tank units from the command area of ​​OB West before the Allied invasion in order to relocate them to the Eastern Front. In addition, many of the divisions in northern France and especially in Normandy were still under construction or without combat experience. After the invasion, experienced divisions were relocated to Normandy, but they need several stages to fully arrive on site. The Germans had many divisions, but they had little fighting strength.

The German Atlantic Wall was also guarded by divisions, the majority of which consisted either of Germans who were mostly unsuitable for use on the Eastern Front for health reasons , or of people of other nationalities , such as Soviet prisoners of war who were serving in the Army had chosen so as not to have to endure everyday life in the prisoner of war camp .

The 21st Panzer Division guarded Caen and the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" was stationed in the southeast of Caen. The officers and non-commissioned officers of the SS Division "Hitler Youth" were long-serving veterans, but the soldiers with lower ranks had been recruited directly from the Hitler Youth in 1943 at the age of about sixteen . In addition to these two tank divisions, the Panzer Lehr Division was also in the Normandy area.

Another factor for the German situation was the increasing shortage of fuel, such as fuel for vehicles. In order to conserve these resources, exercises had to be shortened, among other things. In addition, there was a shortage of personnel. The authorities searched their personnel for expendable employees who could be sent to the front. For example, in Paris alone, 50,000 soldiers were employed in administrative offices. As a result, 6,500 soldiers could be recruited in the west.

The morale of the German troops was often bad. Unless they had been relocated from the Eastern Front, the soldiers had not been in combat for a long time. As a result, they have become more careless and negligent in their service. This went so far that there were even losses of weapons, ammunition and material. There was also an essential difference between the German troops on the Western Front and those on the Eastern Front: German propaganda had propagated a crusade against Bolshevism in the East and thus contributed to making the soldiers particularly aggressive against their opponents. On the western front, however, there was often a "humane" image of the enemy.

The German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels said despite the problems in a speech on June 5, 1943 in the Berlin Sports Palace :

“One speaks today of the invasion of Europe as if it were the most natural thing in the world [...] But the English and American soldiers will have to pay a bloody bill. Our Wehrmacht is ready to receive you! "

The German order of battle

The German positions on the English Channel - the concentration of troops on the Pas-de-Calais can be clearly seen

The German defenses in Normandy were under the command of the LXXXIV. Army Corps (General Erich Marcks ), the 7th Army (Colonel General Friedrich Dollmann ). The order of battle in the Allied landing area was roughly as follows from east to west:

The preparations and reactions of the German Navy

According to Hitler, the German submarines in the North Sea and Atlantic were his first line of defense, the second probably the German minefields laid in the English Channel and the third the coastal fortifications. In contrast to him, the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy , Karl Dönitz and Vice-Admiral Friedrich Ruge correctly suspected the landing further west, in the Seine bay at the Le Havre seaport .

The possible uses of the German Navy against the Allied landing operations were limited. In June 1944, the Navy had no major surface units in the bases in France.

From around April 1, 1944, most of about 50 class VII submarines in their bomb-proof submarine bunkers near Brest , St. Nazaire , Lorient and La Pallice were to be equipped with new torpedoes, a snorkel and other state-of-the-art weapons technology . Operations in the canal area had become almost futile for submarines without a snorkel. The newly equipped submarines should then be kept ready at all times so that they can leave within 6 hours. However, the production of snorkels and their transport to France were severely disrupted by Allied air strikes. When the invasion began, only 16 Type VII submarines stationed in France were largely ready for action. Nine other submarines were on their way from Norway to France to be refitted. In total, the Navy in Norway and France had around 100 Class VII submarines, of which only around a third were equipped with snorkels and were largely or fully ready for action.

The entrances to the canal were protected by strong warship formations of the Allies, and the Allies had control of the air over the canal. It was therefore obvious that the Kriegsmarine had no chance of interrupting the Allied supply lines across the canal, nevertheless units of the Kriegsmarine were sent into this, from today's point of view, pointless endeavor. The pointlessness is illustrated by the numbers: The Allies had gathered together seven battleships , two monitors , 23 cruisers , three gunboats , 105 destroyers and 1073 smaller warships to support the invasion . On June 6, 1944, the Navy owned five torpedo boats , 39 speedboats , five of which were not operational, 163 minesweepers and clearing boats , 57 outpost boats and 42 artillery carriers , plus five destroyers, one torpedo boat, 146 minesweepers and R -Boats, 59 outpost boats that were stationed on the Atlantic coast between Brest and Bayonne and a total of 32 largely combat-ready submarines, e.g. Some of them are still in Norwegian or German bases.

On June 6, an outpost boat that was traveling west from Le Havre to scout was sunk by the Allied invasion fleet. The only successful use of the Kriegsmarine on D-Day was through torpedo boats of the 5th Torpedo Boat Flotilla, which was stationed in Le Havre and which was able to sink the Norwegian destroyer Svenner , which was covering the landing operations off the Sword Beach section, in a surprise attack . In the days that followed, there were numerous attempts by German torpedo boats to prevent the landings through torpedo attacks and the laying of mine barriers, but were largely unsuccessful.

On June 6, 8 submarines with snorkels and 28 submarines without snorkels also left French bases. In the following days, the total number of submarines with snorkels rose to 15. They were ordered to disregard all otherwise justified precautionary measures. British planes sank 5 submarines without a snorkel and forced 5 more to break off their journey within four days. They were then withdrawn to the ports of Lorient, St. Nazaire and La Pallice and kept ready for defense there, as it was almost impossible for them to recharge their batteries in the landing area.

On the night of June 8th to 9th, the Kriegsmarine attempted to advance from Brest into the invasion area with four destroyers, the last larger ships lying in France. To the northwest of the Isle de Bas , this attempt was thwarted by an Allied destroyer flotilla consisting of four British, two Canadian and two Polish destroyers, who sank the German destroyer ZH 1 and damaged the destroyer Z 32 so badly that it had to be grounded and abandoned.

Of the 14 submarines with snorkels, U 621 reached the landing area on June 15, 1944 and sank the American LST 280 with 1,490 tons. On the same day U 764 torpedoed the British frigate Blackwood , which sank the following day. U 984 torpedoed the frigate Goodson , which was badly damaged and towed to Portland by the British frigate Bligh . On June 29, 1944, it torpedoed four 7400 GRT Liberty freighters, some of which had troops on board. 76 American soldiers were killed on the Henry G. Blaisdel . The Edward M. House was then repaired, the Henry G. Blaisdel , the James A. Farrell and the John A. Treutlen were scrapped.

After arriving in the landing area, U 953 sank the British freighter Glendinning with 1927 GRT from a convoy . U 763 sank the Norwegian freighter Ringen with 1499 GRT on June 11, 1944 off Brest . U 390 probably caused the sinking of the ASW trawler Ganilly with 545 GRT and the damage to the American Sea Porpoise 7934 GRT . The submarine was then located by the British frigate Tavy and sunk together with the British destroyer Wanderer. U 269 was discovered by the frigate Bickerton , forced to the surface with depth charges and then self-sunk. U 441 was sunk by a Vickers Wellington on the night of June 8, 1944 .

In between, four submarines with snorkels were used on orders from Berlin to transport ammunition to Cherbourg , which was canceled when the Allies were already close to the gates of the city.

From Norway, eleven submarines with snorkels drove into the Atlantic to join the submarines there in June. They received an order from the submarine command that demanded “the most ruthless use” against the invasion fleet, even at the risk of their own loss. Seven of these submarines were sunk before reaching their target area. Only four reached France. U 767 sank the British frigate Morne with 1,370 tons at the western end of the English Channel on June 15 . U 247 sank the armed fishing trawler Noreen Mary with 207 GRT with anti-aircraft guns off Cape Wrath on June 5 .

The situation of the Germans during the Allied landing

The German Abwehr knew of two lines from Paul Verlaine's poem Herbstlied , which were intended to trigger disruptive actions by the French resistance movement shortly before the invasion and which were read out via the BBC . The decisive second stanza announced the invasion within the next 48 hours, calculated from midnight on the day following the announcement. This verse was tapped on June 5th at 9:15 pm by German radio stations. The 15th Army , which was stationed on the Pas de Calais , was then put on alert. The 7th Army in Normandy was not notified for reasons that are no longer comprehensible.

Since bad weather had been forecast for June 5th and 6th, 1944, many generals were absent. Some, such as the commander of the 7th Army, Colonel General Friedrich Dollmann , stayed in Rennes for war games . Rommel visited his wife in Germany on June 6th as she was celebrating her 50th birthday.

Soldiers of the 1st British Special Service Brigade digging defensive positions near the Orne, June 7, 1944

The SS Panzer Divisions, including the 12th SS Panzer Division, could only be set in motion with Adolf Hitler's permission . But since he was asleep, the division stayed where it was stationed and did not intervene in the fighting. The fighting was downgraded by the Germans as an attempt to deceive the actual invasion of the Pas-de-Calais. Since the Resistance had destroyed the telephone and telegraph lines, there was little information available from the Germans about the Allied troop movements. The Allies also dropped dolls in paratrooper uniforms , which they called Rupert and which imitated loud fighting noises, over Normandy. Since, in addition to these imitations, six SAS soldiers jumped off and repeatedly carried out mock attacks on German positions, the Germans were completely confused and unable to act sensibly.

In order to cover up an air landing, the Allied aircraft carried bombs that they dropped over various targets in the area. A number of Allied paratroopers accidentally jumped over the wrong area, so that they had to make their way to their units in Normandy and variously attacked German units during their march there. This also distracted the Germans from the actual operational areas and sent their troops again to the less important areas.

The allied force faced a relatively small German air force. On the day of the landing there were exactly two German aircraft, flown by Lieutenant Colonel Josef Priller and Sergeant Heinz Wodarczyk , that attacked the Allied landing forces. All other aircraft had been moved inland on June 4, as the previous airfields were considered to be too threatened. During the D-Day the Allies had absolute control of the air. (→ Air War during Operation Overlord )

Some time later, the Germans realized that an invasion was taking place. But they thought it was a ruse and continued to suspect that the actual invasion would take place in the Pas-de-Calais area. Some of the German generals even expected a major invasion at the Pas-de-Calais months later.

German reactions to the Allied invasion

Map of Normandy and the allied front with drawn Bocage landscape

The combat area partly consisted of a bocage landscape with many fields, small paths, rivers and streams, which offered good defensive positions for the German units. Surviving Allied soldiers reported that every single field had to be conquered through fierce fighting. In addition, the terrain was very accessible for tanks, which was of great importance for the Allies as well as for the Germans.

The city of Caen was extremely important for the coordination of the German 7th and 15th armies in the Pas-de-Calais department . If the Allies took Caen, it would be inevitable that German troops would withdraw from the Channel coast in order to maintain a connection between them. A retreat was by no means in line with the ideas of Adolf Hitler , who had ordered every meter of land to be defended or held. For this reason the Germans concentrated their forces in the area around Caen, where British troops started several operations (→ Battle of Caen ). The Germans moved 150 heavy and 250 medium tanks to the Caen area, but only 50 medium tanks and 26 Panthers to the area where American units fought.

In response to the Allied advances, the Germans launched a counterattack on August 6, 1944 between the cities of Mortain and Avranches , the Liège Operation, also known as the Mortain Counterattack . The German plan provided for 7th Army to break through the Allied line in the southern area of ​​the Cotentin Peninsula and to cut off and rub off American units. Hitler's instruction to do so reached OB West , Field Marshal Günther von Kluge , on August 2nd . Von Kluge later stated that he thought the plan presented was too grandiose and impossible to carry out, but at the moment it was handed over, he was thoroughly taken with it. After a few setbacks, von Kluge decided around midnight on August 8 to suspend the attack for the time being, but prepared his units for a later advance. Hitler was not immediately convinced that his advance on Avranches had failed. In the hope of being able to cut off the Allies in Brittany and then to recapture the important ports and parts of the coastal areas in the north, he insisted on a resumption of the attack. On August 9, he accused von Kluge of having started the attack too early and that the timing had played into the hands of Allied air operations. He ordered OB West to resume his business immediately from the area around Domfront , southeast of Mortain.

The accumulation of German armored units in the area south of Falaise gave the Allies the chance to encircle them between Falaise and Argentan in the so-called Falaise Basin. The German Wehrmacht lost 50,000 soldiers in the west between August 7 and 21, and another 200,000 were taken prisoners of war. Up to this point the German losses in Normandy amounted to more than 240,000 dead or wounded and a further 250,000 prisoners. The Wehrmacht lost 1,500 tanks, 3,500 guns and 20,000 other vehicles in terms of material. With their victory at Falaise, the Allied forces were then able to advance towards the Seine and finally Paris (→ Battle of Paris ).

Treatment of prisoners of war and war crimes

An Allied soldier guards two German prisoners of war near Caen, July 11, 1944

The German general of the Waffen-SS Kurt Meyer reports on the Canadian treatment of German prisoners of war as follows :

“On June 7th, I was given a notepad from a Canadian captain. In addition to handwritten orders, the notes instructed: 'no prisoners were to be taken'. Some Canadian prisoners were asked [then] if the instructions were true [...] and they said that if the prisoners were obstructing progress, they were ordered not to capture them. "

Meyer is said to have ordered: “What should we do with these prisoners? They just eat our rations. No more prisoners will be taken in the future. "

More than 156 Canadian prisoners of war were reportedly killed by the 12th SS Panzer Division in the days and weeks after D-Day near Caen . During the massacre in the Abbaye d'Ardenne , twenty Canadian prisoners of war were shot by members of the 12th SS Panzer Division (→ German war crimes near Caen ).

Further information and processing

Movies

literature

  • Tony Hall (Ed.): Operation "Overlord" , Motorbuch Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-613-02407-1 .
  • Will Fowler: D-Day: The First 24 Hours , Amber Books Ltd., London, 2003, ISBN 3-85492-855-6 .
  • Anthony Hall: Operation Overlord: D-Day Day by Day , New Line Books, 2005, ISBN 1-84013-592-1 .
  • Hans Speidel : Invasion 1944. A contribution to Rommel's and the Reich's fate , Wunderlich, Tübingen, 1949, ISBN 0-8371-5988-1 .
  • Maurice Philip Remy: Mythos Rommel , List, 2004, ISBN 3-548-60385-8 .
  • Robin Niellands: The Battle of Normandy - 1944 , Weidenfeld & Nicholson military, 2002, ISBN 0-304-35837-1 .
  • Dieter Ose: Decision in the West 1944. The Commander-in-Chief West and the defense against the Allied invasion , Stuttgart, 1982.
  • Janusz Piekałkiewicz : Invasion. France 1944 , Munich, 1979.
  • Friedrich Ruge : Rommel and the Invasion , Bonn, 1959.
  • Hans Wegmüller: The defense against the invasion. The conception of the Commander-in-Chief West 1940–1944 , Freiburg, 1979.
  • John Pimlott: The Wehrmacht - The history of the German Wehrmacht in World War II , Kaiser, ISBN 3-7043-6036-8 .
  • Gordon Williamson: The SS - Hitler's Instrument of Power , Kaiser, ISBN 3-7043-6037-6 .
  • Percy E. Schramm (Ed.): War Diary of the High Command of the Wehrmacht 1944–1945 , Part 1, ISBN 3-7637-5933-6 .
  • Clay Blair : Submarine War. Licensed edition for Bechtermünz Verlag by Weltbild Verlag GmbH, Augsburg 2004, ISBN 3-8289-0512-9 .

Web links

Sources and Notes

  1. ↑ Directive No. 40 in the original wording: Archived copy ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ); Retrieved April 15, 2006.
  2. ↑ Leader's speech on the expansion of the Atlantic Wall on September 29, 1942: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-XChannel/USA-E-XChannel-4.html#cn32 ; Retrieved April 15, 2006.
  3. ↑ ibiblio.org: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-XChannel/USA-E-XChannel-4.html#fn1 , footnote 1 (OKW report); Retrieved April 14, 2006.
  4. ↑ ibiblio.org: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-XChannel/USA-E-XChannel-4.html#fn2 , footnote 2, (Rundstedt report); Retrieved April 14, 2006.
  5. ↑ Directive No. 51 in the original wording : Guide No. 51, November 3, 1943. (No longer available online.) Museum Center Hanstholm, archived from the original on September 27, 2007 ; Retrieved September 17, 2011 .
  6. ↑ ibiblio.org: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-XChannel/USA-E-XChannel-4.html#fn87 , footnote 87 (OB WEST / OKW / WFStab, November 14th 1943, Seventh Army, KTB facilities, Chefsachen 2.III.43–1.VII.44); Retrieved April 17, 2006.
  7. ↑ ibiblio.org: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-XChannel/USA-E-XChannel-7.html#fn8 , footnote 8 (Die OKW Kriegsschauplaetze); Retrieved April 19, 2006.
  8. ↑ Tony Hall (Ed.): Operation "Overlord" , ISBN 3-613-02407-1 , p. 53.
  9. ↑ a b Stefan Mannes: student-online.net ; Retrieved April 15, 2006.
  10. ↑ valourandhorror.com: Prisoners of War - The capture and treatment of POW's was often problematic, on both the German and Allied sides. ( Memento from January 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ waramps.ca: http://www.waramps.ca/military/wwii/tnop.html#abbaye2 , report by a Polish corporal from the 12th SS Panzer Division.