Desmond Young - Rommel, The Desert Fox

by Unknown

  As in Africa, “too little and too late” was the crime of the German High Command. For weeks before the invasion Rommel had begged to be allowed to move the 12th S.S. Panzer Division, theHitler Jugend , to the mouth of the Vire, near Carentan. It was near Carentan that the Americans landed. Carentan was one of the three points which General Montgomery had predicted that Rommel would try to secure. When it was thrown in at Caen, the division fought desperately under its fanatical Nazi leader, Kurt Meyer. It might not have stopped the landing but that was the way Rommel had planned to stop it. Rommel was refused the division by von Rundstedt. Yet von Rundstedt was not to blame. He could not move it without permission from Jodl and Jodl could not move it without permission from Hitler! No general could control a battle under such conditions.

  It was very shortly after the bridgehead had been secured that Rommel and von Rundstedt found themselves for the first time in complete and open agreement. Asked by Captain Liddell Hart long afterwards whether he had hopes of defeating the invasion at any stage after the landing, von Rundstedt replied: “Not after the first few days. The Allied Air Forces paralysed all movement by day and made it very difficult by night. They had smashed the bridges over the Loire as well as over the Seine, shutting off the whole area. These factors greatly delayed the concentration of reserves there-they took three or four times longer to reach the front than we had reckoned.” The word “we” did not include Rommel, who was thus posthumously proved correct in his diagnosis, if not in his proposed treatment. The story was told by von Rundstedt's Chief of Staff, General Blumentritt, to the author ofDefeat in the West how, towards the end of the month, Keitel called up von Rundstedt and asked desperately, '“What shall we do?” To which von Rundstedt replied impassively: “Do? Make peace, you idiots! What else can you do?” and hung up. Admiral Ruge relates that, much earlier, Rommel told him that the war must be brought to an end at all costs.. “Better end this at once, even if it means living as a British Dominion,” he said, “rather than see Germany ruined by going on with this hopeless war.” “On June I Ith we talked for about two hours. I said that in my opinion Hitler ought to resign and open the road to peace. As an alternative I said that he ought to commit suicide. Rommel replied, 'I know that man. He will neither resign nor kill himself. He will fight, without the least regard for the German people, until there is a house left standing in Germany.' ”

  Rommel's reports were only slightly more discreet. On June 12th he sent forward an appreciation of the position on the previous day. After a conventional reference to the obstinate resistance of the German troops in the coastal sectors, which had delayed the Allied operations, he went on in a vein of almost unrelieved pessimism:

  The strength of the enemy on land is increasing more quickly than our reserves can reach the front.... The Army Group must content itself for the present with forming a cohesive front between the Orne and the Vire and allowing the enemy to advance.... It is not possible to relieve troops still resisting in many coastal posi- tions.... Our operations in Normandy will be rendered exceptionally difficult and even partially impossible by the extraordinarily strong and in some respects overwhelming superiority of the Allied Air Force and by the effects of heavy naval artillery.... As I personally and officers of my staff have repeatedly proved and as unit commanders, especiallyObergruppenf�hrer Sepp Die- trich, report, the enemy has complete control over the battle area and up to sixty miles behind the front. Almost all transport on roads and in open country is prevented by day by strong fighter-bomber and bomber formations. Movements of our troops in the battle area by day are also almost completely stopped, while the enemy can move freely.... It is difficult to bring up ammunition and food.... Artillery taking up positions, tanks deploying, etc. are immediately bombarded with annihilating effect.... Troops and staffs are forced to hide during the day.... Neither our flak nor the Luftwaffe seems to be in a position to check this crippling and destructive operation of the enemy Air Force.... The effect of heavy naval artillery is so strong that operation by infantry or panzer formations in the area commanded by it is impossible.... The material equipment of the Anglo-Americans, with numerous new weapons and war material, is far superior to the equipment of our divisions. AsObergruppenf�hrer Sepp Dietrich informed me, enemy armoured divisions carry on the battle at a range of up to 3,500 yards with maximum expenditure of ammunition and splendidly supported by the enemy Air Force.... Parachute and airborne troops are used in such large numbers and so effectively that the troops attacked have a difficult task in defending themselves.... The Luftwaffe has unfortunately not been able to take action against these formations as was originally planned. Since the enemy can cripple our mobile formations with his Air Force by day while he operates with fast-moving forces and airborne troops, our position is becoming extraordinarily difficult.

  I request that the F�hrer be informed of this.

  ROMMEL

  If Rommel imagined that the F�hrer could be induced to accept this “defeatist” view by references to his Nazi favourite, Sepp Dietrich, he was very much mistaken. On June 17th von Rundstedt managed to persuade Hitler to come to a conference at Margival, near Soissons. It was held at the headquarters, built in 1940, from which Hitler was to control the invasion of Britain. Von Rundstedt took Rommel with him. The two Field-Marshals both spoke out and left the F�hrer in no doubt what they thought about the prospect of throwing the invaders back into the sea. So far from that being possible, the only hope of preventing a break-out was to withdraw behind the Arne and continue the line to Granville, on the west side of the Cotentin peninsula. Such a line, running through the “bocage,” close country with huge hedgerows, in the east, and thence over wooded hills, might perhaps be held with infantry. The remaining armour could then be reorganized and kept in reserve. Hitler's reply of “no retreat” was almost automatic. Rommel did not improve the atmosphere by protesting to Hitler against the “incident” of Oradour-sur-Glade, which had occurred a week before. Here the S.S. division,Das Reich , had, as a reprisal for the killing of a German officer, driven the women and children into the church and then set the village on fire. As the men and boys emerged from the flames, they mowed them down with machine guns. Afterwards they blew up the church and some six hundred women and children with it. It was unfortunate, they admitted, that there were two villages named Oradour and that they had inadvertently picked the wrong one. Still, reprisals had been carried out. Rommel demanded to be allowed to punish the Division. “Such things bring disgrace on the German uniform,” he said. “How can you wonder at the strength of the French Resistance behind us when the S.S. drive every decent Frenchman into joining it?” “That has nothing to do with you,” snapped Hitler. “It is outside your area. Your business is to resist the invasion.”

  When, greatly daring, von Rundstedt and Rommel tentatively broached the question of making overtures to the Western Powers, the conference quickly broke up. The farewells were not cordial on either side. Shortly afterwards a homing V1 hit the headquarters. There were, unfortunately, no casualties.

  Rommel's reports for the next few weeks were strictly factual. No opinions about the future were expressed. “Army Group B will continue its attempt to prevent all efforts by the enemy to break through” was as far as they went. In reporting losses of 100,089 officers and men between June 6th and July 7th, as against 8,395 replacements brought to the front and 5,303 warned for transfer, Rommel merely commented: “The replacement situation gives grounds for some anxiety in view of increasing losses.” He was, in fact, “browned-off.” On June 29th he and Field-Marshal von Rundstedt had been summoned to Berchtesgaden. There the F�hrer had announced that mobile warfare must not be allowed to develop because of the enemy's air superiority and superabundance of motor vehicles and fuel. A front must be built to block him off in his bridgehead and he must be worn down by a war of attrition. Every method of guerrilla warfare must be employed. For Rommel's special benefit he added, in front of Keitel and Jodl, that “everything
would be all right if you would only fight better.” Rommel returned, furiously angry, to his headquarters at La Roche Guyon and handed on this bouquet to his Chief of Staff, Generalleutnant Dr. Hans Speidel, who had succeeded Gausi at the end of April.

  Since General Speidel was to play and was, indeed, already secretly playing a much more important part in Rommel's life than that of a Chief of Staff, he requires special mention. In appearance astonishingly like the then British Secretary of State for War, Sir James Grigg, with the same somewhat owl-like expression and the same prehensile nose, he had (and has) an equally clear and exact brain and a somewhat more equable and philosophical temperament. This is not surprising since he is that very rare bird, a professional soldier who is also a professional philosopher. After joining the army in 1914, at the age of seventeen and serving throughout the war on the Western Front, part of the time in the same brigade as Rommel, he remained in it between the wars and started to study for the Staff College. At the same time he contrived to read philosophy and history at T�bingen University and became a Doctor of Philosophysumma cum laude in February, 1925. If this “double” is not a record, it must at least be rare.

  As a staff-officer, Speidel, with his precise and analytical mind and his card-index memory, was marked for success, particularly as he combines with them warm, if well-concealed, human feelings and a mildly satirical sense of humour. Assistant Military Attache in Paris in 1933 (he speaks impeccable French), he was made chief of the western section when he returned to Berlin. After seeing the French manoevres in 1937 he wrote a pamphlet in which he said that the French army was not ready for a modern offensive war but that it and its leaders could be counted on for a desperate resistance if France were invaded. “Fortunately-or perhaps unfortunately-I was wrong,” he remarked.

  1A (G1) of the 9th Corps at Dunkirk, he confirms that it was Hitler's direct order which prevented von Rundstedt from using the two armoured corps of Guderian and von Kleist against the embarking British. “Had they been put in,” he says, “not a British soldier could have left the coast of France.” Shortly afterwards he was sitting in the Hotel Crillon in Paris drafting, with General Dentz, the terms of the French surrender. Since we always regarded General Dentz as a monster of duplicity for his behaviour in Syria and the French condemned him, first to death and then to life imprisonment, it is perhaps of interest that General Speidel thinks that he did the best he could in the circumstances and was “a patriot and a good soldier of France.”

  Speidel next became Chief of Staff to General von St�lpnagel, Military Governor of France, and held the appointment until the winter of 1941. Then, when he saw that all power was passing into the hands of the S.D., the security police of the S.S., he asked to be relieved of it, a fact which throws some light on his character and subsequent behaviour. So does his long friendship with Colonel-General Beck, the former Chief of the General Staff.

  From France, he went to hold various high staff appointments in Russia. In front of Moscow with the 5th Army, he was later largely responsible for the planning of the southern offensive of the summer of 1942, which brought the Germans to the very verge of victory. As Chief of the General Staff of the 8th (Italian) Army throughout 1943 and the early months of 1944 he took part in all the great battles of that fateful year. Fatuously enough, I asked General Speidel about conditions in Russia. The cold must have been very severe? “Very severe, indeed,” he agreed blandly, “the only thing to be said for it was that it made it almost impossible for staff officers to write.” As for the causes of the ultimate failure: “Too many Russians and one German too many-Hitler.”

  Dr. Speidel, still only fifty-one, is now lecturing on philosophy at T�bingen University. As will be seen, he reached that peaceful haven after a somewhat stormy and adventurous voyage. Meanwhile, amid all the tumult of the Normandy fighting, he was the trusted adviser of the Commander-in-Chief of Army Group B on other than purely military matters. On July 17th, the Allied Air Force at last overtook Rommel. There was nothing unusual in what happened to him. His staff-car was only one of thousands of German vehicles shot up on the roads of Normandy in July, 1944. Captain Helmuth Lang, who was in the car with him, gives the facts. From his statement it is clear that they were unlucky in picking a road along which our aircraft were operating.*

  [* In an article summarised in theReader's Digest , the Countess Waldeck makes the suggestion that the aircraft may have been German with British markings, ordered by Hitler to eliminate Rommel because he had sent an “ultimatum” to the F�hrer on July 15th. There is no evidence to support this suggestion and so many improbabilities inherent in it that it need not be taken seriously. In any case, the “ultimatum” had not reached Hitler by July 17th. It was not forwarded until July 21st.]

  “As he did every day,” writes Captain Lang, "Marshal Rommel on July 17th made a tour of the front. After visiting 277th and 276th Infantry Divisions, on whose sectors a heavy enemy attack had been repulsed the night before, he went to the headquarters of the 2nd S.S. Armoured Corps and had a conversation with Generals Bittrich and Sepp Dietrich. We had to be careful of enemy aircraft, which were flying over the battlefield continually and were quickly attracted by dust on the roads.

  "About 4 P.M. Marshal Rommel started on the return journey from General Dietrich's headquarters. He was anxious to get back to Army Group B headquarters as quickly as possible because the enemy had broken through on another part of the front.

  "All along the roads we could see transport in flames: from time to time the enemy bombers forced us to take to second-class roads. About 6 P.M. the Marshal's car was in the neighbourhood of Livarot. Transport which had just been attacked was piled up along the road and strong groups of enemy dive-bombers were still at work close by. That is why we turned off along a sheltered road, to join the main road again two and a half miles from Vimoutiers.

  "When we reached it we saw above Livarot about eight enemy dive-bombers. We learnt later that they had been interfering with traffic on the road to Livarot for the past two hours. Since we thought that they had not seen us, we continued along the main road from Livarot to Vimoutiers. Suddenly Sergeant Holke, our spotter, warned us that two aircraft were flying along the road in our direction. The driver, Daniel, was told to put on speed and turn off on to a little side road to the right, about 300 yards ahead of us, which would give us some shelter.

  "Before we could reach it, the enemy aircraft, flying at great speed only a few feet above the road, came up to within 500 yards of us and the first one opened fire. Marshal Rommel was looking back at this moment. The left-hand side of the car was hit by the first burst. A cannon-shell shattered Daniel's left shoulder and left arm. Marshal Rommel was wounded in the face by broken glass and received a blow on the left temple and cheek-bone* which caused a triple fracture of the skull and made him lose consciousness immediately. Major Neuhaus was struck on the holster of his revolver and the force of the blow broke his pelvis.

  [* Apparently from the pillar of the windscreen.]

  "As the result of his serious wounds, Daniel, the driver, lost control of the car. It struck the stump of a tree, skidded over to the left of the road and then turned over in a ditch on the right. Captain Lang and Sergeant Holke jumped out of the car and took shelter on the right of the road. Marshal Rommel, who, at the start of the attack, had hold of the handle of the door, was thrown out, unconscious, when the car turned over and lay stretched out on the road about twenty yards behind it. A second aircraft flew over and tried to drop bombs on those who were lying on the ground.

  "Immediately afterwards, Marshal Rommel was carried into shelter by Captain Lang and Sergeant Holke. He lay on the ground unconscious and covered with blood, which flowed from the many wounds on his face, particularly from his left eye and mouth. It appeared that he had been struck on the left temple. Even when we had carried him to safety he did not recover consciousness.

  "In order to get medical help for the wounded, Captain Lang tried to find a car. It
took him about three-quarters of an hour to do so. Marshal Rommel had his wounds dressed by a French doctor in a religious hospital. They were very severe and the doctor said that there was little hope of saving his life. Later he was taken, still unconscious, with Daniel to an air-force hospital at Bernay, about 25 miles away. The doctors there diagnosed severe injuries to the skull-a fracture at the base, two fractures on the temple and the cheek-bone destroyed, a wound in the left eye, wounds from glass and concussion. Daniel died during the night, in spite of a blood transfusion.

  “A few days later Marshal Rommel was taken to the hospi- tal of Professor Esch at Vesinet, near St. Germain.”

  Early in July, no doubt as the result of his advice to Keitel to make peace, Field-Marshal von Rundstedt had been relieved of his command. He was replaced by Field-Marshal G�nther von Kluge from the Russian front. Undeterred by this warning to defeatists, Rommel decided to make one more attempt to bring Hitler to reason. In consultation with General Speidel, who drafted it, he had sent a report to von Kluge two days before he was wounded and asked him to forward it personally to the F�hrer. It was along the same lines as his analysis of June 12th but even more pessimistic.

  “The position on the Normandy front,” he began, “is becoming daily increasingly difficult and is rapidly approaching its crisis.” There followed references to the Allies' superiority in artillery and armour; to the heavy German losses and lack of reinforcements; to the inexperience of the divisions brought up; to their inadequate equipment; to the destruction of the railway network by air attack and the difficulty of using the roads; to lack of ammunition and the exhaustion of the troops. On the other hand, the enemy were daily providing new forces and masses of material, their supply lines were not challenged by the Luftwaffe and pressure was continually increasing. “In these circumstances,” concluded Rommel, "it must be expected that the enemy will shortly be able to break through our thinly-held front, especially in the 7th Army Sector, and push far into France.... There are no mobile reserves at all at our disposal to counter a break-through. Our own air force has hardly entered the battle at all.