Countdown to D-Day

by Peter Margaritis

  Tuesday, April 11

  Generalfeldmarschall Rommel goes on tour again, this time headed for Brittany. He travels over to St. Malo and discovers a number of problems needing correction. He continues on to several coastal towns and ports, noting details, amending directives, issuing counter-orders. He seems indefatigable, always on the move. His irritation grows as he continues to hear reports of so-called “experiments” being conducted over and over to see how effective offshore obstacles are. He is also fed up with the pessimistic attitude of some unit commanders. Mind and body need to focus for all of these men if they are to defeat this enemy. The orders, he grumbles, must be “executed precisely as given by the army group.”

  He moves on to the key U-boat ports of Brest and Lorient, covered by the 344th and 265th Infantry Divisions respectively. Overall, he is satisfied to see enthusiastic participation and adequate defensive construction results, despite supply hardships.

  This brings up another problem today: sabotage. The Brest port area has been repeatedly harassed by local Resistance units.1 There are many days when supply trains cannot get through because of damage to the rail line. And when that happens, the local SS lashes out, and the populace in turn reacts to their actions. One officer equates these actions to the savagery in Russia.

  Rommel tackles this problem head-on. Reprisals against the people, he says, are not to be made. He orders heavier guards for supply depots and convoys, and more diligence on the part of the security forces. But he wants it clear that there are to be no atrocities.

  The local SS authorities report these counter-instructions up the SS chain of command.

  ***

  A major improvement occurs in the West. Because the crisis on the Russian Front has abated somewhat for now, OKW now starts transferring mobile reserves from the East back to France to refit and await the invasion. After all, spring is beginning. If the Allies invade now and there are no panzers to push them back…

  As part of this good news, OB West is informed that the élite 1st SS Panzer Division is returning to France. The bad news though, is that not much is coming back. The division had taken severe losses in February, furiously assaulting the Russian Korsun pocket. Then in late March, as part of General Hans-Valentin Hube’s First Panzer Army, the unit took a severe pounding in southern Russia. Encircled by a massive Soviet offensive, the soldiers had fought desperately to break out.2 With the help of the newly arrived 2nd SS Panzer Corps, Hube’s men had finally struggled out of the entrapment, fighting furiously as they retreated, losing or abandoning equipment right and left.

  The trapped divisions had indeed finally escaped the pocket, but their desperate struggle breaking out, like their other recent engagements, had exacted a heavy toll. The 1st SS Panzer Division was shattered as a unit. It had started withdrawing to Belgium to refit, leaving just a Kampfgruppe.3 It though, was in turn enveloped and forced to withdraw. Now its remnants will be joining the others in the West to recuperate and await the invasion.

  This is the fourth time now that this division has come out of Russia in such a battered condition. Only last summer, after having been smashed in the battle of Kursk, it had been transferred to Italy to refit, leaving all its armor, transports, and equipment behind to be used by the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, which had to stay and operate against the Russians. LSSAH became part of Rommel’s Northern Italy command, until the Italian political situation was resolved. Once the Germans had again taken firm control of the Italian countryside, the Leibstandarte had been transferred back to Russia again, right into the thick of battle. Now they were returning to France once more.

  SS Brigadeführer Heinz Lammerding’s Das Reich has fared even worse. It had been prepared to leave Russia for Italy as well after the Kursk campaign had failed. But an unexpected Russian drive towards Kharkov that autumn had kept it, the 5th SS Panzer Wiking, and the 3rd SS Panzer Totemkopf in Russia to deal with a powerful, determined, advancing enemy. Eventually surrounded along with the LSSAH’s remaining Kampfgruppe, Das Reich too had fought its way out of the pocket.

  Most units had left their equipment and vehicles behind and had been sent off (as a sort of Christmas present) to recover and refit, first to Germany, and then in early February to southern France. The remaining ad hoc battle group of some 5,000 men (less than one-quarter the size of the original division), had then continued on fighting a series of desperate, retreating actions. First the Soviet winter offensive, and then their spring offensive, had forced the weary battle group time and time again to meet the threat of an advancing enemy spearhead, moving frantically around like an overworked, battered fire brigade.

  Now it is coming back to France, a shattered unit of only some 2,500 men. This is a far cry from the 19,000-plus that it had once mustered, not taking into account the thousands of casualties that had transferred into and out of the division during that time. The unit is not even rated as a panzer division anymore, merely as Panzergruppe Das Reich. So these remnants are being moved to southern France to rest and be refitted.

  Von Rundstedt succeeds in getting LSSAH transferred to the Beauvais, about 70km north of Paris, and only 90km behind the coast. Unfortunately though, the new location is not near enough to the Channel to suit Rommel. He calls OKW and argues that this is still too far away from the coast. He wants the division moved next to the beaches.

  This, Jodl replies tonelessly, is just not going to happen. He points out patiently, almost paternally, that these large mobile formations are their reserves, and therefore must be deployed strategically, not tactically. Besides, he argues, Rommel has to admit that this closer positioning is still an improvement.

  Rommel agrees, but believes that it does not better assure them of success. It would still take a long time for them to reach any invasion site, and they would still get roughened up considerably before reaching there, even assuming that the invasion takes place nearby.

  Along the same line of thought, he mentions that 12th SS Panzer is too widely dispersed inland. In the face of heavy enemy air attacks, it will take them at least 48 hours just to concentrate and move up to Caen. And 2nd Panzer is over 85km from the Somme sector where it is garrisoned on the coast. The units would take quite a pounding from the air as they slowly struggled to reach the English Channel.

  1French underground units in urban areas were usually referred to as the Resistance (der Widerstand). Those guerrilla groups in rural and mountain areas around the country were usually referred to as the Maquis.

  2The so-called Kamenets-Podolsky Pocket or Hube’s Pocket. Two Russian fronts had cut off GeneralOberst! Hans-Valentin Hube’s 1st Panzer Army just north of the Dniester river.

  3A loosely assigned improvised battlegroup varying in size from a battalion to a division, and created from other combat units. It was traditionally named after its commander.

  Wednesday, April 12

  Rommel continues his tour of the Brittany area. Just outside the strategic port of Brest, he watches a demonstration of a new type of offshore mine, manufactured locally. The trigger mechanism is a lever that extends from the concrete block enclosing the mine casing. When a vessel strikes the lever, the explosive is detonated.

  The linkage design seems well engineered, and he approves. Now, if only the mine can remain operable for long periods of time underwater and withstand the currents.

  In the area there are five centers that create and assemble the iron rail tetrahedrons that are going into the offshore barriers. They have averaged over 1,200 assemblies each. Again, Rommel looks for short cuts.

  He later confides to his aide, “I have only one real enemy now, and that’s time.”

  ***

  Von Rundstedt spends the day in his villa going over reports. For the last few nights, Allied bombers have conducted heavy air raids on French railyards, including those at Charleroi Montignes. Although damage is fair to moderate, this new strategy bears an ominous foreboding.

  In talking to Blumentritt about the 2nd SS Panzer tra
nsferring from Russia, he is told the division is to be rebuilt with some 9,000 new recruits. The old Prussian snorts. Untrained boys, they are.

  He turns his attention to other matters. Ah, the 65th Army Corps is conducting a V-1 war exercise at the corps’ Paris headquarters…

  ***

  Today, the Führer has no time to discuss the situation in the West. He is again in deep trouble in the East. The lull has unexpectedly ended. The threat is now down south. The 3rd Ukrainian Front is smashing deep into Romania, and the German southern flank is threatened. The Führer and his command staff search desperately for more units to plug the gap. Now that it is almost too late, he orders that the Crimea be evacuated. But at this point, the only escape route for his men is by sea from Sevastopol.

  Undoubtedly, many will not make it.

  During the day, some 450 enemy heavy bombers escorted by another couple hundred fighters bomb various targets in southern Germany and Austria, including Rommel’s old residence, Wiener-Neustadt. Some 30 German aircraft are destroyed attacking the formations, against the loss of a dozen enemy aircraft.

  Rommel, it turns out, was wise to move his home to Herrlingen.

  Thursday, April 13

  Today, Rommel is near the tip of Quiberon Bay at Plouharnel, inspecting 4/264, a naval battery made up of four old French 340mm guns. The Germans have mounted them on railway cars since the area has an excellent railway network. He is impressed with their 30km range.

  Onward to the U-boat base at St. Nazaire. The units there have been working hard, and progress on the many barriers looks good. The landward defensive perimeter has been pulled in so that the 7,500-man contingent can better defend it. Over half of this force is made up of anti-aircraft personnel.

  He moves on, traveling westward to the port town of La Baule, some 18km away. Good progress here, too. Rommel makes a few stops, then retires here for the evening, Word has been received that there will be a possible partisan raid this evening, so his quarters are heavily guarded throughout the night.

  ***

  At La Roche-Guyon, Generalleutnant Gause is trying to stay busy and to justify his last few days at headquarters. He calls Günther Blumentritt at OB West and is told that OKW has given new orders: there will be no more motorized units transferred to the West. Blumentritt then tries to reassure him that von Rundstedt does understand the need to defeat the enemy at the shoreline if at all possible, and on this, the two commanders are in complete agreement.

  Gause is glad to hear this. He is looking for some sort of good coup to go out with.

  In the meantime, besides Gause leaving, the army group’s headquarters staff is undergoing a few other personnel changes. The intelligence section has been permanently turned over to unpretentious Oberst! Anton Staubwasser. Hans Lattman, Rommel’s artillery specialist, has been promoted to Generalmajor. Other additions to the staff include Luftwaffe Oberst!leutnant Wolfgang Queissner, who will be Rommel’s liaison with air operations (few as they are). Oberst!leutnant Olshausen has been assigned as their deputy transport officer. In addition, several staff officers, adjutants, clerks, communications specialists, and even a few historians are added to the growing staff. Things are getting busy these days.

  ***

  Adolf Hitler has a conference with GroβAdmiral Karl Dönitz, head of the Kriegsmarine. The admiral complains that more resources must go into the U-boat program if they are to have any hope of countering the Allied invasion and making a dent in the Battle of the Atlantic. Hitler refuses, telling him that what he needs more than anything are tanks and fighters, the former to counter that “verdammte russische Offensiven” and still equip the panzers in the West, and the latter to combat the hordes of enemy bombers over Germany. “That’s the alpha and omega of it,” he says simply.

  Priorities…

  Today, American and British tactical assets begin to target coastal defenses along northern France. These are preliminary strikes for the upcoming invasion.

  Friday, April 14

  Today, Rommel starts out with a simple breakfast in his quarters at La Baule in Brittany. Then he is off eastward, past the port of St. Nazaire again to look at the positions in Nantes on the Loire River. Work there has progressed well, and after a few stops, he moves on further inland to the town of Angers. There he looks in on the Engineering School. After that, he has a brief talk with 10th Air Corps commander Generalleutnant Alexander Holle. The man reports proudly that his men are ready to fight.

  A couple more inspections and Rommel begins his return. He stops once more at Le Mans to confer there with General Dollmann. Then it is back to La Roche-Guyon.

  ***

  Generalleutnant Dr. Hans Speidel is at his home at Freudenstadt, Germany. After leaving Berchtesgaden early in April, he had gone home for a well-deserved leave. Tomorrow, he will report as chief of staff to his new command—Headquarters, Army Group B.

  Speidel is a solid member of one of the conspiracy groups bent on overthrowing the Nazi regime. Most members simply want to kill Hitler. Others want him tried and convicted. A few desperately hope he just steps down.

  By now, the conspirators are not just a few circles of dissatisfied Germans; they have grown into a full-scale underground movement. Because many of these collaborators are highly placed within the civilian or military organizations, their collective influence is somewhat powerful but unfortunately, also uncoordinated. Speidel had found out early on that, within the scope of secrecy and reason, they could manipulate or influence certain appointments to promote their own interests. So it was no coincidence that his name had been one of the two chosen by the General Staff to replace Alfred Gause. And for Rommel, who was a fellow Swabian and had known him as an infantry student a couple decades ago, he was a natural choice. Thus, he had been ordered to report to OKW immediately.

  Speidel, a one-time assistant to dissident General Beck, 1 wants the Führer dead— period. Oh, to be sure, he had at one time tolerated Hitler and his schemes. But after Stalingrad, Speidel, working for General Hubert Lanz, became convinced that their leader had to go. And the more Speidel involved himself in the conspiracy, the more he had realized that Hitler had no other recourse but to die. So today, he receives a visit from a co-conspirator, none other than Karl Strölin, the Oberbürgermeister of Stuttgart. The mayor, who still calls on Frau Rommel from time to time, has also been in contact with members of the Goerdeler-Beck group, 2 and the the distant Kreisau Circle. All of them were part of what was being called by some in the SS investigating them as the Schwartz Kapelle.3

  Strölin, on behalf of the rest of his group, has a specific task for Speidel: he is to win over Rommel to their cause. The field marshal must be ready to commit to whatever action the conspirators undertake, and be willing to represent Germany to the Western Allied commanders as needed. A true hero, the field marshal is one of the few men the West would listen to seriously.

  Speidel agrees to sound out the field marshal in good time, although he admits it will not be easy. Strölin gives him some suggestions on how to approach this covert subject. The Stuttgart mayor of course knows the field marshal well, having, at Goerdeler’s suggestion, already approached the field marshal to join them back in February. The French military governor General Stülpnagel, another plotter, is also a friend of Rommel’s, having served with him at the Dresden Infantry School under Falkenhausen. Strölin suggests coordinating his efforts with him.

  Caution must cover everything, though. Speidel must be very wary in his endeavors. The Gestapo is closing in on many of them. There already have been several arrests, and some of these have resulted in the imprisonment (and all that implies) of key members of the different groups. And those arrested might break down and implicate others at any time. Retired General Beck himself was rumored to be under a 24-hour watch by the Gestapo.

  Speidel grimly listens to the mayor, determined, but apprehensive. The field marshal will not be easily won over.4

  ***

  Today at the daily war conf
erence at the Berghof, in contrast to the depressing news on the Eastern Front, positive reports on the defensive buildup in the West partially offset the Führer’s depression. It seems that Rommel’s optimistic spirit is back.5

  Propaganda Minister Goebbels observes:

  The Führer is very enthusiastic about Rommel’s work. Rommel has worked with exemplary effect in the West. He has an old score to settle with the British and Americans, is on fire with anger and hate, and has put all his cunning and intelligence into the perfection of the defensive works there. Rommel is the old fighter again.

  1GeneralOberst! Ludwig Beck, retired now. General Beck had resigned his position as Chef der Generalstab in 1938, to protest Hitler’s occupation of Czechoslovakia. Now he was one of the leaders of the conspiracy.

  2Dr. Karl Goerdeler avidly hated the Nazis. A professional civil servant, he had at first acquiesced to the new National Socialist principles back in 1933. He had even under their new regime become the Reich Commissioner of Prices in late 1934. However, Goerdeler had resigned in protest the next year, because the Nazis would not accept his advanced ideas of reforming local governments. Even more importantly, Goeredeler had strongly disagreed with their methods of asserting authority. And his refusal to fly the swastika from his office at the Leipzig city hall only furthered the friction.

  In 1936, he was re-elected as mayor of Leipzig for another 12-year term. Despite his pointed criticism of them, the Nazis had still backed his appointment. Months later though, he found himself defying Berlin directly. He had been ordered by the party to remove the city’s monument to the world-famous composer Felix Mendelssohn, a native of Leipzig, because Mendelssohn had also been Jewish. Goerdeler had bluntly refused the removal order. Mendelssohn he declared, had honored his home city greatly with his beautiful music.