Countdown to D-Day

by Peter Margaritis

  Sperrle tries to interject a positive note. When the invasion takes place, ten Geschwader, 4 now in Germany undergoing refitting and a good deal of intensive reorganization (which more than likely that means an influx of new, green kids) would immediately be moved into the area to begin operating against the enemy.5

  Clearly, Field Marshal Sperrle is planning a long campaign,

  Rommel gets the feeling that Sperrle has already decided that they are going to lose the war. Tomorrow, Rommel will call on the Kriegsmarine. Maybe they will be more optimistic.

  1Marie de Medici (1575–1642) was a French queen, second wife of King Henry IV and part of the influential House of Medici. When the king was stabbéd to death in 1610, she became regent for her son, Louis XIII for seven years, until he came of age.

  2Deputy Commander, Western Theater.

  32nd Air Corps.

  4An air wing, ranging from 80 to 120 aircraft.

  5By D-Day, the 2nd Air Corps would still be without aircraft; eventually, some five or six wings arrived, piecemeal. They were thrown into the battle that way, and therefore did little to change the situation on the ground.

  Wednesday, December 29

  The Führer at his Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia holds his daily noontime war conference. After the many problems of the Eastern Front are discussed, he turns to the subject of the Western invasion. Three critical issues are discussed:

  1.Is all the bombaast being broadcast by the Allies about an invasion this year even to be taken seriously? The many victory speeches that are being made—the speculative articles being written in magazines and newspapers—was this all to be taken for real? Or was it just an elaborate hoax to lure units away from the Eastern Front or prevent Germany from reinforcing that front at the crucial moment of the Soviet winter offensive?

  2.Is perhaps the invasion threat to France a hoax to cover another landing to take place somewhere south in the Mediterranean? Perhaps in Crete, Rhodes, the Aegean, or via Turkey, or both? The Turks might have decided to throw their lot in with the Allies and agreed to let them go through her territory. Or maybe the Allies with their huge naval forces are working on a number of landings in any of those areas.

  3.Might the invasion be a hoax to cover a possible landing in the north? Maybe Denmark or Norway.

  All agree that the danger in the West is just as serious as in the East. While the Russians have a much larger ground force than their Western counterparts, and it is in direct contact with Germany’s forces, the Reich can afford to give up large expanses of land if they must to retreat and regroup. As his earlier Directive No. 51 of November 3 states:

  Not so in the West! … I can therefore no longer tolerate the weakening of the West in favor of other theaters of war.

  There are only a few bright points in the conference. One is Turkey’s persistent, stubborn refusal to declare war on the Reich. German intelligence confirms the angry protests that have been lodged by the British and Russian governments to the Turkish leaders.

  Hitler, thinking again later about the inevitable invasion in the West, exclaims, “If only they would land half a million men and then foul weather and storms cut them off in the rear—then everything would be all right!”

  ***

  Rommel today continues his official report to Hitler about the condition of the Atlantic Wall. Among other things, he requests that he be given the command of the northern units along the coast, so that his recommendations could be carried out faster. This is a polite way of asking to be let back into the fray.

  He then writes a quick letter to Lucie, adding:

  Yesterday the end of the war and turned into a defensiveay I was in Paris again and had a conference with Field Marshal Sperrle. The prospects here aren’t good at all. From all I had heard previously, I expected a lot more from this branch of the services. We’ll have to make up for that deficiency in some other way. Today I am going to see the navy.

  A couple hours later, accompanied by Admiral Ruge and their adjutants, he drives to Paris to call on Admiral Krancke.1 As Befehlshaber (Commander) Marinegruppenkommandos West, 2 he is essentially von Rundstedt’s naval counterpart, and as such directly answerable only to Dönitz and OKM. Krancke’s headquarters is a nicely furnished building along the Bois de Boulogne.

  Rommel’s group stays through lunch. The visit goes well enough, although the two naval officers intensely dislike each other. Krancke, a fervent Nazi, cannot see what Ruge is doing attachéd to an army command, and Ruge, not so ardent politically, resents the undertone that he should be serving at sea or as a flunky on someone’s naval staff.

  Krancke tells Rommel that there is very little “navy” left in the West. Bismarck has been gone for two and a half years now. Her sister, Tirpitz, is living on borrowed time, hiding in the Norwegian fjords. The battlecruiser Scharnhorst was sunk off North Cape only a few days ago, and her sister ship Gneisenau is still under repair, having been badly crippled by British air raids back in April 1942.3 The few surviving cruisers still commissioned in the Kriegsmarine have been delegated to critical (and safer) jobs in the East.4 The main force of U-boats is deployed in the Atlantic. What German Navy is left in the West consists of the light cruiser Emden in Norway, a couple destroyers, some eight fleet torpedo boats, 5 eight or nine squadrons of E-boats, 6 a number of mine trawlers, and various auxiliaries. There are also some three dozen coastal U-boats, although of course, they are under Dönitz’s direct command. Existing minefields can be updated and some new ones laid, but only if the mines are available to do so, and that may not always be the case.

  Rommel leaves Paris dejected. He sees that the navy, like the air force, will not be able to do much when the invasion comes. Clearly, the army is on its own.

  1Fifty-year-old Admiral Theodor Krancke was a torpedo boat veteran of World War I and as such had participated in the Battle of Jutland. When World War II began, this successful Kriegsmarine officer gave up running the Naval Academy to take part in naval operations. As chief naval advisor to Admiral Raeder, he oversaw planning of the 1940 invasions of Norway and Denmark. Two months later, he was given command of the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer. In late October 1940, he began a successful 5½-month North Atlantic raid, capturing three merchant ships and sinking a total of 13 merchant vessels and the auxiliary cruiser HMS Jervis Bay. He later served as a naval advisor at OKW before being appointed commander of Naval Forces West on April 20,1943. Captured by the British in late August 1945, he was released in October 1947. He died on June 18, 1973.

  2Supreme Commander, Naval Forces, Western Theater. See Glossary.

  3Gneisenau would never again sail against the enemy. She was eventually towed to Gdynia, Poland at the end of the war and turned into a defensive blockship.

  4Heavy cruisers Prinz Eugen and Admiral Hipper, the light cruisers Nürnberg and Leipzig, and the pocket battleship (Panzerschiffe) Admiral Scheer. One additional vessel, the pocket battleship Lützow, was currently being refitted in Germany and would soon join them in the East. The light cruiser Köln was decommissioned in the winter of 1943.

  5Equivalent to a US Navy destroyer escort.

  6Mainly a mixture of R-bootes of 100—200 tons and smaller S-bootes. See Glossary.

  Thursday, December 30

  Von Rundstedt has recommended to OKW that Rommel’s Army Group B headquarters be subordinated to OB West, and that the Seventh and Fifteenth Armies be then put under Rommel’s command. Rommel of course wants this too.

  Hitler is not crazy about the idea of giving Rommel direct command of Army Group B under von Rundstedt. He and Jodl had discussed the idea in early November and had decided on sending Rommel out just as an inspector. Hitler had then balked at the idea of eventually giving Rommel any actual command. For one thing, he was not sure that Rommel had overcome his defeatist depression from North Africa. No, let him just go out there for now and look around.

  On the other hand, if they did relent and let Rommel eventually take charge of the threatened area, H
itler himself could take charge of the battle, since Rommel could remain directly subordinate to OKW, bypassing OB West. Von Rundstedt would be furious, but that would be too bad. Rommel after all was a man of action, and von Rundstedt had been sitting around in Paris too long. Creating competition between the two commanders, one of Hitler’s favorite ploys, would inspire them both to greater efforts. He thought that this was a necessary expedient. After all, he had split commands like that before.

  Jodl of course, predictably (but respectfully) opposed the idea. For one thing, the theater command OKW would be bypassing was just too important. And von Rundstedt was too senior a general to be subjected to such a ploy. The officers of all the services in the West would be simply furious at this blatant breach of etiquette. Anyway, Rommel’s staff was too small to be directly controlled by Supreme Headquarters.

  Hitler finally agrees to put Rommel under von Rundstedt. However, he states that he reserves the right to transfer Rommel and his Army Group B headquarters staff to the Russian Front if he ever really needs them there. Von Rundstedt has absolutely no problem with that.

  ***

  Generalfeldmarschall Rommel continues writing his report to Hitler. He has sadly concluded that von Rundstedt had been right in his original assessment. The great Atlantic Wall was indeed a joke, or as he aptly described it, a “figment of Hitler’s Wolkenkuckucksheim.”1 Its main effect seemed to be propaganda in nature, and to deceive the enemy too if possible. Rommel had smiled when he had heard that the grouchy von Rundstedt had claimed that this charade was “...more for the German people than for the enemy.” Pausing, he added dryly, “And the enemy, through his agents, knows more about it than we do.”

  Now he looks over some of what he has down so far:

  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 V1 and V2 attack rockets on England and central London will be launched…

  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 unfavorable 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…

  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 many warships, with simultaneous heavy-bomber attacks. In addition to the seaborne landing, airborne troops will probably be dropped close behind the coastal defenses in the main attack sectors, to break up the defenses from the rear and create a major bridgehead in the shortest possible time.

  On the coast, our defense line, thin as it is at present, will suffer severely from the enemy bombs and artillery, 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 armored 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.

  Rommel, with the exception of pointing out Calais as a likely target, is writing his army group’s fate.

  ***

  At the Wolfsschanze headquarters in Eastern Prussia, the Führer has a conference with several officials about the deteriorating socio-political situation in Denmark. Those present include the three German leaders for Occupied Denmark: head Gestapo leader SS Gruppenführer Günther Pancke, the German plenipotentiary for Denmark Dr. Werner Best, and the Wehrmacht military governor and supreme commander for Denmark, General der Infanterie Hermann Hannecken. Also present at the meeting are SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, SS Reichssicherheitshauptamt leader Ernst Kaltenbrunner, OKW Chief of Staff Keitel and Operations Chief Jodl, von Ribbentrop of the German Foreign Office, and the German Army adjutant, General Rudolf Schmundt.2

  As the meeting begins, the Führer is in an angry mood. The reports that he has been reading of the Danes paint a dark picture of a traitorous local populace, resentful and rebellious; clearly not the attitude of a people who are supposed to enjoy a close affinity to their German cousins.

  The question of sabotage and the recent execution of several Germans by Danish terrorists are brought up. General Pancke and Dr. Best propose they swiftly try the accused in either open or secret courts. Hitler strongly disagrees, stating in a heated tone that there can be absolutely no question of judging saboteurs in a courtroom. He adds that such a policy will only glamorize the defendants and make them heroes. No, there is only one way to deal with this scum: to execute them, preferably right when they commit the act, or just afterward. If not, then kill them when they are arrested.

  Keitel speaks up and supportively proposes that the entire country be punished for collaborating with these traitors by lowering their relatively generous food rations to the level of those in Germany. The three Danish leaders, Pancke, Best, and Hannecken, object strenuously, pointing out that this measure would only inflame the people even more. That was certainly something that the Reich did not need at this point in time.

  Hitler relents on this line of reasoning, but he is inflexible on the saboteur issue. He personally orders Pancke and Best to undertake a series of “compensatory” murders, targeting suspects and possible accomplices. General Pancke points out that it is not easy and is often risky to shoot people when they are arrested, because one cannot be sure at that point in time if the people arrested are the actual saboteurs.

  Hitler snaps back that he does not care. He wants reprisal executions in the ratio of five-to-one. For every German killed, five Danes must die.

  The meeting goes on, and General Hannecken reports on the military situation. Hitler tells him that he is no longer to treat the Danes as Reich citizens. Instead, he is to treat them as a sullen, occupied enemy, like the French.

  As the discussion ends, Hitler once more reminds the Danish representatives of his reprisal order. They will get the order in writing shortly.

  After this meeting, Dr. Best goes off to talk to von Ribbentrop, while SS General Pancke meets privately with his superior, Himmler. The Reichsführer reminds him again of this new order, and that the Führer himself has just instructed him on how Pancke is to act when he returns. His Gestapo is to be harsh and unrelenting toward the Danes. They are to round up suspects and close friends, and destroy their homes. Himmler adds (no doubt, as a veiled show of support) that he personally is confident that he can rely on Pancke to carry out the Führer’s order. And it had been the Führer himself who had personally directed him to brief Pancke. Up until now, Himmler points out, he had only been carrying out Himmler’s orders. Now it was the Führer himself who was commanding him.

  Himmler’s instructions are quite clear. Pancke is to now be ruthless to the Danes—or else.

  1“Cloud cuckoo-land.”

  2Forty-three-year-old Generalleutnant Rudolf Schmundt had been a major back in 1938, when he had been called on to personally serve the Führer. His predecessor, Oberst! Friedrich Hossbach, had held this critical position since August of 1934. Hossbach though, was dismissed in January 1938, after he launched into a heated debate with Hitler over charges of homosexual misconduct against army commander General Werner von Fritsch. Schmundt was a likable fellow, compassionate, competent, and not at all manipulative. However, he also lacked self-assurance and was not the sort to stand up against anyone. He found a hero to look up to in the Führer, and thus was not inclined to stick up for the army ranks in any debate with his superiors or senior officers of other services.

  Friday—New Year’s Eve

  Rommel finishes his report to the Führer on the condition of the Atlantic Wall. He writes:

  We can hardly expect a counterattack 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…

  With the coastline held as thinly as it is at present, the enemy will probably succeed in creating bridge-heads at several different points and in achieving a major penetration of our coastal defenses. 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 defenses.

  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—time which the enemy will probably use to reinforce himself at his point of penetration and either organize his forces for defense 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... victory in a major battle on the continent seems doubtful. [Allied] superiority in the air alone has again and again been so effective that all movement of major formations has been rendered completely impossible... and our own air force has only on very rare occasions been able to make any appearance in support of our operations…

  Rommel senses that he is dead on.1

  He finishes by asking that he be given full command over all ground elements along the coast—including naval and air ground units—and be allowed to incorporate defensive measures that he has in mind. A bit brazen perhaps, but the lack of preparedness that he has seen has disturbed him.

  When the report is finished, he joins his staff in celebrating the coming of the New Year with two modest glasses of claret. Then he goes to bed.

  1He was.

  January 1944