On the other, eastern, side of the bulge, Meyer had instructed Kampfgruppe Frey to drive forward on the twenty-eighth, to take pressure off the main Hitlerjugend defensive line and, hopefully, to link up with Weidinger’s troops. Frey was unhappy with the idea of attacking without artillery support and made this clear to Meyer, who waved away his objections with a promise of assistance from the guns of the Hitlerjugend. In Frey’s account, Leibstandarte did not receive the necessary support; Allied artillery and machine-gun fire brought the advance to standstill.13
For the main assault on 29 June, the Germans deployed almost all their Panzer assets to crush the British salient. The main thrust would be supplied by 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions of II SS Panzer Corps, supported by Weidinger’s Kampfgruppe and the Tiger tanks of the 102nd Heavy Battalion. Meanwhile, Wünsche’s Hitlerjugend panzers, Frey’s Leibstandarte Kampfgruppe, the 101st Heavy Battalion, and elements of the 21st Panzer Division would drive forward from the south and east. On the Eastern Front such a concentration of force would have almost certainly guaranteed victory at the tactical level at least, but in Normandy the Materialschlacht feared by many German commanders had arrived with a vengeance: through overarching command of the air, Allied superiority in firepower was allowed to trump German skill in maneuver.
Allied commanders were notified of the proposed German assault—not least from aerial observation of the long columns of armor advancing toward the battle zone—and had temporarily called off their own (Epsom) offensive to dig in and repel the coming attack. Hausser, as with all generals new to conditions in Normandy, was yet to comprehend the paralyzing nature of the Allied war machine. And, unfortunately for Hausser, the twenty-ninth presaged a day of fine weather.
The assault by II Panzer Corps had been scheduled for 6:00 A.M., but as dawn broke Allied fighter-bombers were already having a feast picking off German panzers as they left cover to open the attack. Worse was to come, when Allied artillery—guided by ever-circling spotter aircraft—came into play. Such was the power of the naval and ground artillery fire directed at the German advance that its victims assumed (incorrectly) that they were also under an RAF aerial carpet-bombing attack.14 The II SS Panzer Corps’ offensive was stillborn.
It was only during the midafternoon that Waffen-SS panzergrenadiers and supporting armor were able to advance with any degree of cohesion against the Allied lines. As ever, the tactical skill and bravery of the SS soldiers were sufficient to force back their opponents wherever a weakness was discovered, but these were relatively few. In the tight hedgerows of the bocage countryside, the defenders invariably had the advantage. Elsewhere, the German Army and SS assaults were similarly unsuccessful. The British Army in Normandy has been much criticized for its caution in attack, but no such accusation could be leveled at its resolve in defense. When the Germans made inroads into the British lines, they were typically expelled in brutal close-quarters combat. Weidinger’s Kampfgruppe suffered heavy losses in the attack for limited gains. On 2 July the battered Das Reich troops returned to their parent division, now heavily engaged with the Americans.
In their initial advance during Operation Epsom, the British had crossed the Odon and reached the slopes of Hill 112, and over the following days this modest summit would become a focal point for the battle west of Caen. The Germans were determined to drive the British from the hill and attacked with Wünsche’s panzers and massed artillery that included fifty six-barreled Nebelwerfer launchers. A British officer on the isolated position described the bombardment, which seemed to come from all sides: “A howling and a wailing grew until it filled the sky, rising in pitch as it approached, and ending in a series of shattering explosions all around us. Then more squeals, the same horrible wail, and another batch of 36 bombs exploded astride us, so that the pressure came first from one side, then from the other, then from both at once.”15
On 30 June the Germans took Hill 112 after several more bombardments. Hitlerjugend panzer commander Willi Kandler observed the successful push on the summit from the turret of his tank: “Early in the morning, rockets from our launchers, trailing veils of smoke, howled into the English positions in the small square wood. These launchers decided the success of the attack during the morning. This was our fourth attack on Hill 112, and it was crowned by the capture of the square wood and hill. As we drove up, we saw numerous destroyed vehicles, among them knocked out Sherman tanks.”16
The British had already decided to withdraw from Hill 112 and adopt defensive positions along the whole line. Any expectation of an Allied breakthrough to Caen was abandoned, for which the Waffen-SS formations in Normandy could take the major credit. But, at the same time, the German offensive had also failed. Another German attack on 1 July also came to nothing and confirmed to Hausser that any further progress was impossible, with both I and II SS Panzer Corps forced to hold their ground. On a tactical level Operation Epsom/Third Battle of Caen was something a of a draw, but at an operational level the Germans had been forced to deploy their strategic reserves on the front line and were now at a decided disadvantage. They lacked fresh armored formations to throw into the battle. The Allies knew this and continued to grind down the German defenders.
The gloomy prognoses made by senior German generals for the future of the campaign became too much for Hitler, and on 3 July he replaced Rundstedt as commander in chief in the West with Field Marshal Hans von Kluge. Geyr von Schweppenburg, the Panzer Group West commander and Rundstedt supporter, gave way to General Heinrich Eberbach. The equally despondent Rommel was spared the cull, on the basis that public knowledge of his removal might lower morale.
IN EARLY JULY the British moved the focus of engagement back toward Caen and its Hitlerjugend defenders. On 4 July Canadian forces struck against the Carpiquet airfield, just west of the city. Vastly outnumbered and outgunned, the men of Bernhard Krause’s I/26th Panzergrenadier Regiment held out with remarkable tenacity, but in the end they had to give way.
The British felt they had to further increase their material advantage for the assault on Caen itself, so on 7 July a fleet of RAF heavy bombers turned the northern outskirts of the city into rubble (contributing to a combined figure of 1,150 civilian deaths in Caen).17 Meyer’s troops largely avoided the bombs, however, and when the British and Canadians advanced, they were met by well-organized German resistance amid the ruins of the city. But the weight of the Allied assault eventually pressed the German troops back toward the city center and withdrawal across the Orne, so that on 10 July Meyer held a broken line in Caen’s southern suburbs.
From Meyer’s own highly wrought account of the battle for Caen, it seemed that his division had almost been wiped out. In light of the intense and sustained fighting conducted by the Hitlerjugend, casualties were heavy but not excessive—approximately 5,000 up to 14 July—an indication of the good tactical discipline inculcated in the troops to dig in under fire.18 But Meyer was right in his claim that his soldiers were worn out and must be relieved. Dietrich agreed with his subordinate, and between 9 and 12 June Leibstandarte took over most of the line held by the Hitlerjugend. Leibstandarte panzergrenadier Werner Josupiet and his comrades recalled helping troops from their sister division: “In a cave up on the slope we installed seven men from the Division HJ. They were suffering from total exhaustion. The rumor was that they were the only survivors from an entire battalion. I will never forget how they looked. Their cheeks were hollow, their faces gray, their uniforms caked with lime.”19
During this brief interlude Meyer reorganized the Hitlerjugend Division, dividing it into three flexible Kampfgruppen, each named after their commanders: Hans Waldmüller, Bernhard Krause, and Erich Olboeter. A further (armored) Hitlerjugend battle group, led by Max Wünsche, was still engaged in supporting II SS Panzer Corps to the west of Caen.
Since the start of the invasion, Rommel had repeatedly visited his subordinate commanders to gauge the military situation firsthand. During his meetings with Dietrich, it was rumored that he w
as considering an attempt to make a separate peace with the Western Allies. On 17 July he visited the I SS Panzer Corps headquarters to further sound out the Waffen-SS response to any such a proposal. Kurt Meyer also attended the meeting, and he recalled Rommel declaiming, “Something has to happen! The war in the West has to be ended!”20 It would seem that Dietrich was in broad agreement: shaking Rommel’s hand, he said, “You’re the boss, Herr Feldmarschall. I obey only you—whatever you’re planning.”21
Any possible further developments were brought to a sudden halt on that afternoon, when, after leaving the meeting, Rommel’s car was shot up by a British Typhoon. Although Rommel survived the attack, his severe wounds forced him into a long convalescence in Germany. Three days later the failed assassination attempt on Hitler took place. Rommel was implicated in the plot, and rather than face a public trial and punishment of his family and staff, he accepted Hitler’s offer to commit suicide. The brutal Gestapo clampdown that followed the 20 July bomb plot stopped any further rumblings of discontent. Dietrich escaped any investigation, and while he was disillusioned with Hitler, it seems unlikely that he could ever have brought himself to actively oppose him.
Despite the failure of the SS to protect Hitler against the assassination attempt, Himmler was a major beneficiary of the plot, given increased powers that included command of the Reserve or Replacement Army. As well as filling top posts in the Replacement Army with his own men, Himmler also used this vast reservoir of manpower—up to 2 million strong—to funnel recruits away from the Wehrmacht and into the Waffen-SS.
THE BRITISH CONTINUED to apply pressure on the German line and on 18 July launched Goodwood, the operation British commander General Montgomery hoped would finally crack the German defenses and provide him with a breakthrough into open country. But Montgomery once again underestimated the amazing tenacity of the German defenders, especially those of the Waffen-SS. Despite massive preliminary aerial and artillery bombardments, the offensive soon bogged down, in part through British ineptitude and overcaution but also from the fire of the tanks and guns of Leibstandarte holding the Bourguebus ridge, just south of Caen. Farther to the west, the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg had valiantly held Hill 112 until the British advance through Caen rendered its defense untenable.
Although senior Allied commanders were disappointed at the slow progress made by the British and Canadian forces in the struggle for Caen, the battle did at least absorb the bulk of Germany’s panzer divisions. To the west, the U.S. Army faced lesser opposition. The German Army formations deployed there were of mixed quality, while the elite Luftwaffe paratroop units lacked the heavy support weapons of the panzer divisions. The Waffen-SS contribution comprised just the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen—of only average quality—and the elite 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich.
In Normandy Das Reich was broken up into several Kampfgruppen, fighting alongside 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division and units from the Wehrmacht. From 10 July the SS units adopted an extended defensive position around Périers, which they held for fifteen days. Under the command of Obersturmbannführer Christian Tychsen, the well-dug-in tanks of Das Reich’s panzer regiment took a heavy toll of U.S. armor. Panther tank commander Ernst Barkmann, the best known of the division’s panzer aces, won the Knight’s Cross for his intrepid actions against American tanks and antitank guns.
Unknown to the SS troops, however, Périers was a quiet sector; the main weight of the American breakout from the Normandy beachhead was to be made a little to the east, around St.-Lô. On 25 July General Bradley’s First Army unleashed Operation Cobra. Under mass aerial and ground bombardment, the overstretched German line wavered and then broke. There were no German reserves to plug the gap, enabling the Americans to drive forward at speed and reach Avranches on 31 July.
This was the key action in the Normandy campaign, allowing General Patton’s newly constituted Third Army to exploit the breakthrough. For the first time in the campaign, the Allies began to capture significant numbers of prisoners: 20,000 Germans were taken during the first six days of Cobra, with sixty-six tanks destroyed and fifty-six more abandoned in the retreat.22 The British supported their American ally by launching their own offensive—Operation Bluecoat—which locked in place several German formations, including the two divisions of Bittrich’s II SS Panzer Corps.
The American breakthrough at St.-Lô forced Das Reich and 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division to immediately retreat to avoid encirclement. The advance by the U.S. VIII Corps briefly produced panic among some units of 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division, who broke and ran to the rear.23 Within Das Reich, the confusion of the retreat had been exacerbated by the loss of Lammerding, severely wounded on 24 July, and his temporary replacement by Tychsen. As an officer renowned for his reckless bravery, Tychsen did not last long, killed while driving in his Kübelwagen on 28 July. Command of the division then passed to Otto Baum, transferred from control of 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division—only days after taking up the post to replace the wounded Ostendorff!
As the two SS divisions fell back, individual Kampfgruppen were surrounded by U.S. forces on a number of occasions, but using their battlefield experience they managed to avoid capture and take up a new defensive line on 5 August, just to the east of Mortain, recently captured by the U.S. Army. Both SS formations had suffered heavily, especially the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division, which was formally downgraded as a Kampfgruppe.
The gap forged by the U.S. Army around Avranches allowed Patton’s mobile forces to drive westward into Brittany and, more significantly, advance eastward into the heart of France and threaten the entire German position in Normandy. The German commanders in the West, including Dietrich, pleaded for a strategic withdrawal in Normandy to at least east of the Seine and, if necessary, back toward the Westwall on the Franco-German border.
Hitler—ever the armchair strategist—looked at his maps and saw the potential vulnerability of the Avranches corridor. On 2 August he had ordered Kluge to redeploy his panzer divisions for a counterattack against Mortain, followed by an advance to the coast at Avranches to cut off the American breakthrough at its root. Hitler seemed blithely unaware that his worn-down panzer formations were divisions in name only and that a transfer from Caen westward toward Mortain was exposing them to the real possibility of encirclement by the Allies. Despite his generals’ protests, Hitler was adamant that his plan be carried out, and Kluge instructed Hausser to immediately prepare his Seventh Army for the offensive.
Chapter 27
COLLAPSE AND RECOVERY
THE NEWLY PROMOTED Oberstgruppenführer Paul Hausser pulled together the separate elements of his Seventh Army to carry out the offensive demanded by Hitler, made more palatable with the promise of eight panzer divisions and 1,000 aircraft. The problem with this assurance was the unavoidable truth that most of the panzer formations were now fully committed to battle, with disengagement virtually impossible. As for aerial support, the Luftwaffe managed to cobble together a force of 300 fighter aircraft based at airfields around Paris. On the morning of the offensive, however, the fighters were destroyed or driven off by the Allied air forces. Not a single German aircraft appeared over the battlefield.
Against the initial German objective of Mortain, Hausser could draw upon the army’s 2nd and 116th Panzer Divisions, plus the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich and the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Kampfgruppe. Of the other panzer divisions, deployed against the British, only Leibstandarte could be spared to support the offensive, and its constituent units were dispatched in a piecemeal fashion, some arriving so late that they took no part in the fighting.
Hausser’s plan called for the main attack to be made to the north of Mortain by the two army panzer divisions, their breakthrough to be exploited by Leibstandarte as it arrived. The assault on Mortain was assigned to Das Reich and the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Kampfgruppe. A battle group based on the “Der Führer” Regiment would attack to the north of the town, while a second, m
ore powerful battle group based on “Deutschland” (with the panzer regiment and reconnaissance battalion) would attack from the south. The 17th SS Kampfgruppe was deployed between the two Das Reich regiments and would assault Hill 314. Situated just in front of Mortain, Hill 314 was defended by a battalion of infantry from the U.S. 30th Infantry Division.
Hitler had wanted a steady buildup of forces in front of Mortain, but Kluge, increasingly fearful of Patton’s drive around his southern flank, argued that the assault must open on the night of 6–7 August, a request Hitler reluctantly accepted. It was hoped that a night attack would enable the Germans to break into the American lines before daylight and the arrival of Allied fighter-bombers.
The offensive immediately got off to a poor start. Sudden and bitter arguments between the senior officers of the army panzer formations were an unwelcome development for Hausser, as was the absence of an assignment of tanks for the 2nd Panzer Division. The progress of Leibstandarte units—especially the panzer regiment—seemed to lack urgency. Fritz Kraemer, the I SS Panzer Corps chief of staff, put this down to the absence of their commander, Jochen Peiper, sent back to Germany for health reasons (due either to heart problems or to the aftereffects of air-bombardment concussion).1 General Eberbach, commander of the recently formed Fifth Panzer Army in Normandy, was normally an enthusiastic supporter of the Waffen-SS, but on hearing of Leibstandarte’s progress, he remarked that the division “was worse than ever before.”2
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