by Nigel West
Cramer, who suffered from severe asthma, and whose grandmother had been English, reached Berlin on 23 May, where he described his observations and was then granted a half-hour audience with Hitler and General Rudolf Schmundt at Berchtesgaden. He then took a short leave at his home in Krampnitz and was posted to von Schweppenburg’s staff in Paris, where his very recent personal experience added weight to his stated opinion that the invasion would take place on both sides of the Somme estuary.
During his nine months of captivity at Trent Park, Cramer had spent most of his time alone in his room, but his conversations with other senior officers were routinely recorded by the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC) staff, which revealed that his fellow captives, all senior officers, regarded him as ‘incompetent’ while his CSDIC file marked him as anti-Nazi and pro-monarchist. Upon his return to duty as a reserve officer, Cramer endured a frosty reception by Nazis, who considered him defeatist, but when he reached Paris he was able to re-establish good relations with Rommel.6
However, through his friendship with Claus von Stauffenberg, Cramer was implicated in the 20 July plot and arrested on 26 July, questioned at the Gestapo headquarters and then transferred to Ravensbrück. He was hospitalised at the end of September and then released under house arrest until August, when he was discharged from the Wehrmacht.
Although Cramer probably played only a minor role in the overall deception, the various FORTITUDE components of the campaign combined together to create the mosaic that was intended – and succeeded – to convey a wholly misleading narrative to the enemy. One measure of the success was articulated by General Omar Bradley’s Twelfth Army Group in a letter to SHAEF on 20 November 1944:
FORTITUDE, which had as its mission support of Operation OVERLORD, was responsible for containing a minimum of twenty divisions in the Pas-de-Calais area during the crucial first months of the invasion. The enemy was led to believe – and reacted to – a long inventory of opportune untruths, the largest most effective and decisive of which was that OVERLORD itself was only the prelude to a major invasion in the Pas-de-Calais area. The enemy’s acceptance of this story is witnessed by his estimate on 15 May 1944 of troops in the United Kingdom … The force which was shown as threatening the Pas-de-Calais was the exclusive creation of the deception FORTITUDE. Best testimony to the effectiveness is the historical record of the enemy committing his forces piecemeal – paralysed into indecision in Normandy by the conviction that he had more to fear from Calais.
8
THE ROMMEL ANALYSIS
‘It had been a decisive mistake to leave the
German troops in the Pas de Calais.’
General Fritz Bayerlein
Commander, Panzer Lehr Division
The Rommel Papers
The strategic conclusions reached by Erwin Rommel during his initial inspection of the Atlantic Wall defences in December 1943 put him in direct conflict with his colleagues, most of whom had not shared his experiences of combat against the British, among them Günther von Kluge and the commander of the 1st SS Panzer Corps, General Geyr von Schweppenburg, a former military attaché in London. Much is known about the differences between the men because, years after Rommel’s suicide in October 1944, his own private views became public. While Rommel advocated a mobile reserve positioned close to the coast to react swiftly to the coming assault, his advice was rejected by the OKW, which opted to keep the panzers south and east of Paris so as to deal with the perceived threat of a large-scale airborne assault far behind the beaches.
Upon his return from France, Rommel had written a detailed account of the invasion, but when he came under suspicion following the 20 July plot he destroyed most of his papers. The remainder was dispersed by his widow and sister to a farm in south-west Germany, and to a cellar in Stuttgart, with his diaries for 1943 and 1944 hidden in a hospital. At the end of April 1945, as Ulm was occupied by the US Seventh Army, much of Rommel’s surviving papers were looted, and the farm was taken over by French Moroccan troops. Only a small proportion of the field marshal’s archive was ever recovered, but this was eventually returned to his widow and son, who in 1948 allowed the military historian Basil Liddell Hart to edit them with Rommel’s former Chief of Staff, General Fritz Bayerlein, recently released as a PoW. Both men had an interest in burnishing Rommel’s reputation. Liddell Hart, who had been investigated by MI5 when his 1944 monograph Some Reflections on the Problems of Invading the Continent, had contained some very sensitive observations, had promoted the somewhat fanciful idea that ‘the Desert Fox’ had been influenced by his own pre-war writing on armoured warfare. Bayerlein, who had commanded the Panzer Lehr Division in Normandy, had his own motives for restoring the Wehrmacht’s reputation and distancing German soldiery from the Nazis. In their version of Rommel’s pre-invasion deliberations, the strategist displayed prescience and reason:
The focus of the enemy landing operation will probably be directed against Fifteenth Army’s sector (the Pas de Calais), largely because it is from this sector that much of our long-range attack on England and central London will be launched. With difficult sea conditions, it is likely that the enemy’s main concern will be to get the quickest possible possession of a port or ports capable of handling large ships. Furthermore, he will probably endeavour to capture the area from which our long-range attack is coming as quickly as possible.
It is most likely that the enemy will make his main effort against the sector between Boulogne and the Somme estuary and on either side of Calais, where he would have the best support from his long-range artillery, the shortest sea route for the assault and for bringing up supplies, and the most favourable conditions for the use of his air arm. As for his airborne forces, we can expect him to use the bulk of them to open up our coastal front from the rear and take quick possession of the area from which our long-range missiles will be coming.
The timing of the enemy attack is uncertain, but he will make every effort to launch the operation before the start of our long-range attack on England. If, due to bad weather or unfavourable sea conditions, he fails in this, he will launch his attack either at the beginning or shortly after the beginning of our long-range campaign. For the longer our attack on England goes on, the more will its effect be felt, with inevitable damage to the morale of the British and American troops. Thus, by launching our long-range attack at the beginning of a period of weather unfavourable for a landing, we have the chance of creating particularly adverse conditions for the enemy’s attack … The landing will probably be preceded by very heavy attacks from the air and be made under cover of a smoke-screen and of intense fire from numerous warships, with simultaneous heavy bomber attacks.
In addition to the seaborne landing, airborne troops will probably be dropped close behind the coastal defences in the main attack sectors, in order to break up the defences from the rear and create a major bridgehead in the shortest possible time.
On the coast, our defence line, thin as it is at present, will suffer severely from the enemy bombing and artillery bombardment and it seems very doubtful whether, after this battering, it will be capable of beating off the enemy, whose forces will be approaching over a wide front, in hundreds of armoured assault craft and landing craft and under cover of darkness or fog. But if the landing is not beaten off, our thinly held and shallow front will soon be pierced and contact will be established with the airborne troops behind.
We can hardly expect a counter-attack by the few reserves we have behind the coast at the moment, with no self-propelled guns and an inadequate quantity of all forms of anti-tank weapons, to succeed in destroying the powerful force which the enemy will land. We know from experience that the British soldier is quick to consolidate his gains and then holds on tenaciously with excellent support from his superior air arm and naval guns, the observers for which direct the fire from the front line.
With the coastline held as thinly as it is at present, the enemy will probably succeed in creating bridgeheads at
several different points and in achieving a major penetration of our coastal defences. Once this has happened it will only be by the rapid intervention of our operational reserves that he will be thrown back into the sea. This requires that these forces should be held very close behind the coast defences.
If, on the other hand, our principal reserves have to be brought up from well back inland, the move will not only require a great deal of time which the enemy will probably use to reinforce himself at his point of penetration and either organise his forces for defence or press the attack farther inland but will also be under constant danger from the air. Bearing in mind the numerical and material superiority of the enemy striking forces, their high state of training and tremendous air superiority, victory in a major battle on the continent seems to me a matter of grave doubt. British and American superiority in the air alone has again and again been so effective that all movement of major formations has been rendered completely impossible, both at the front and behind it, by day and by night, and our own air force has only on very rare occasions been able to make any appearance in support of our operations.
I therefore consider that an attempt must be made, using every possible expedient, to beat off the enemy landing on the coast and to fight the battle in the more or less strongly fortified coastal strip. This will require the construction of a fortified and mined zone extending from the coast some five or six miles inland and defended both to the sea and to the land. The existing minefields, fenced in with wire, present little or no obstacle and wide lanes would be cleared through them in a very short while. The proposed mined zone would consist of numerous mine fields, each several kilometres wide and deep, constructed according to a planned layout, between the coast and a line six miles inland. I fully realise the enormous number of mines which such a scheme would require. For the present, however, it would suffice if the fields were mined at the coastal and inland fronts only, with the remainder laid out as dummies.
Certain strips within this mined zone, mainly parallel to the coast and along the roads leading up to it, would have to be kept clear for our counter-attack. We have learnt in our engagements with the British that large minefields with isolated strong points dispersed within them (field positions) are extremely difficult to take. Moreover, mined zones of this kind lend themselves particularly well to garrisoning by auxiliary troops or reserve formations.
Hence the divisions employed on the coast will have two tasks, to defend the coast against the enemy sea landing forces, and to hold the land front five or six miles inland against airborne troops. If it happened that the enemy dropped his airborne troops within the mined zone, they would not be too difficult to destroy there.
One thing which is necessary, even if it is only to reduce the effectiveness of the enemy bomber attacks and sea bombardment, is to increase the depth of the defended area. The commander of a coast-defence division will need to have his command post in the middle of his mined zone, as he will, in a sense, be fortress commandant of the zone.
In the event of one of these zones escaping attack, the division holding it could easily be pulled out and be replaced, circumstances permitting, by auxiliary or holding units. Even when only thinly held, these mined zones still possess great defensive strength.
The number of anti-tank weapons and rapid-fire machine-guns in the forward sector of the main coastal battle area is far too small. Since everything must be directed towards destroying the enemy landing force while it is still on the water, or at the latest during the landing itself, the defensive strength in the forward part of the division’s main battle areas must be made much greater than at present. For defence is a comparatively simple matter so long as the enemy assault boats and landing-craft are on the water. Once they have beached and disembarked their troops and weapons, their fighting power multiplies many times over.
It will therefore be necessary, in the worst-threatened sectors, to have heavy anti-tank guns, self-propelled guns and anti-aircraft combat troops standing ready in the forward part of the defence zone, whence they can be rushed up to the coast to engage the enemy while he is still disembarking.
I regard it as urgently necessary to have two reserve divisions held a short distance to the east of the coastal defences, along the worst threatened stretch of coast between Boulogne and the mouth of the Somme, so that they can intervene in support of the coast-defence divisions, as soon as possible after the main centre of the enemy attack has been identified, and thus prevent the creation of any enemy bridgehead. It will be less a question of a formation action than of the piecemeal destruction of the disembarking or disembarked enemy by small combat groups. The battle for the coast will probably be over in a few hours and, if experience is any judge, the rapid intervention of forces coming up from the rear will be decisive. One condition for the success of this counter-attack by the reserves will be for all available Luftwaffe tactical air forces to support the attack and, above all, fight off the enemy bomber formations.1
Rommel’s analysis was based on his own combat experience in North Africa, which he believed gave him a special insight into the British military mind, and technical, order of battle data from Army Group B’s intelligence chief, Anton Staubwasser, who had joined the field marshal’s staff after three and a half years’ service with the FHW. The recent lessons learned at Anzio and Salerno suggested that at least five panzer divisions, deployed well forward, could mount a swift and decisive counter-attack without the need to wait for the arrival of distant reserves. In any event, he argued, just two panzer divisions were insufficient for the task, ‘and about as much good as a fire brigade’.
If we are not at the throats of the enemy immediately he lands there will be no restoring the situation, in view of his vastly superior air forces. If we are not able to repulse the Allies at sea or throw them off the mainland in the first forty-eight hours, then the invasion will have succeeded, and the war will be lost for the lack of a strategic reserve and naval and Luftwaffe support.2
Opposing Rommel’s preferred strategy was von Rundstedt’s approach, which largely depended on the Luftwaffe to suppress an Allied naval bombardment. However, the flaw in this plan was a precondition of good flying weather, and the availability of suitable aircraft, when neither could be relied upon.
On 20 March Hitler revealed his strategy to the three commanders-in-chief in the west, von Rundstedt, Admiral Theodor Krancke and Luftflotte 3’s Hugo Sperrle:
It is evident that an Anglo-American landing in the West will and must come. How and where it will come no one knows. Equally, no kind of speculation on the subject is possible. Whatever concentrations of shipping may exist, they cannot and must not be taken as any evidence, or any indication, that the choice has fallen on any one sector of the long Western front from Norway to the Bay of Biscay, or on the Mediterranean either the south coast of France, the Italian coast or the Balkans. Such concentrations can be moved or transferred, at any time, under cover of bad visibility, and will obviously serve as feints. At no place along our long front is a landing impossible, except perhaps where the coast is broken by cliffs. The most suitable and hence the most threatened areas are the two west coast peninsulas, Cherbourg and Brest, which are very tempting and offer the best possibilities for the formation of a bridgehead, which would then be enlarged systematically by the mass use of air forces and heavy weapons of all kinds.
By far the most important thing for the enemy will be to gain a port for landings on the largest possible scale. This alone gives a wholly special importance to the west coast ports and orders have therefore been issued designating them Fortresses, in which the Commandant alone will be responsible for the training and operations of all three services. He has the task of doing everything possible to make the fortress impregnable. He is personally responsible for ensuring that the fortress is held to the last round of ammunition, the last tin of rations, until every last possibility of defence has been exhausted.
The enemy’s entire landing operation mus
t under no circumstances be allowed to last longer than a matter of hours or, at the most, days, with the Dieppe attempt as a model. Once the landing has been defeated it will under no circumstances be repeated by the enemy. Quite apart from the heavy casualties he would suffer, months would be needed to prepare for a renewed attempt. Nor is this the only factor which would deter the Anglo-Americans from trying again. There would also be the crushing blow to their morale which a miscarried invasion would give. It would, for one thing, prevent the re-election of Roosevelt in America and, with luck, he would finish up somewhere in jail. In England, too, war-weariness would assert itself even more greatly than hitherto and Churchill, in view of his age and his illness, and with his influence now on the wane, would no longer be in a position to carry through a new landing operation. We could counter the numerical strength of the enemy’s about 50 to 60 divisions within a very short time, by forces of equal strength. The destruction of the enemy’s landing attempt means more than a purely local decision on the Western front. It is the sole decisive factor in the whole conduct of the war and hence in its final result.
The 45 divisions which we now have in Europe, excluding the Eastern front, are needed in the East, and will and must be transferred there so as to effect a fundamental change in that situation as soon as the decision in the West has been reached. Thus, on every single man fighting on the Western front, as representing the decisive front of the war, depends the outcome of the war and with it the fate of the Reich.
This realisation of the decisive importance of each individual’s effort must at all costs become part and parcel of the thought process of every officer and man.3
Thus Hitler, invariably despised as a second-rate strategist, relished the chance to inflict a devastating defeat on the Allies, with all that such a debacle would imply. Militarily, he thought it would deter another invasion attempt; politically, he predicted that neither Roosevelt nor Churchill could survive the catastrophe. The Führer’s enthusiasm was largely shared by Rommel, although his vision of a quick victory on the beaches was predicated on a swift, robust armoured counter-attack. On 23 April Rommel wrote to Jodl pressing the case for a mobile armoured reserve positioned close to the beaches:
