Countdown to D-Day

by Peter Margaritis

  As commander of the occupying army, Blaskowitz had been in charge of setting this up. Knowing that the Führer himself would visit them, and in what Blaskowitz thought was in line with the spirit of the elaborate fanfare of the parade, he had decided that a more festive occasion was warranted. So taking some initiative, he had told his people beforehand to make considerable efforts to spice up the “atmosphere” in the hangars with some bright tablecloths, flowers, decorations, banners, and extra benches.

  While the parade had been going on, Hitler’s pilot, Generalleutnant Hans Baur, had seen the fancy layout and had warned the major in charge of the hangar that the Führer might not be too thrilled with the arrangement. After all, he was at heart a simple, unpretentious man and preferred simple meals. The major, following Blaskowitz’s lead, had replied that it was simply unthinkable to let the Führer eat off an uncovered table.

  Sadly for Blaskowitz, his strategy had backfired. Hitler, arriving around 4 p.m., had taken in the elaborate fanfare, including the pretty tablecloths, the bowls of fresh flowers, the large banners, and other garnishes. He had immediately asked in an irritated tone on whose authority all of the decorations had been made. Hitler had grumbled in a sarcastic voice, “Isn’t there a war going on here, or did someone schedule a state dinner?!?”

  The culprit was of course the unsuspecting Blaskowitz. Hitler was already irritated with him because of an inadvertent slur he had made earlier that day regarding the élite SS unit in his command.9 General von Brauchitsch, panicking, had tried to get Hitler to sit down and dine in the hangar, but to no avail. The Führer had instead decided to walk over to the actual field kitchens outside. Sitting down among them, he had shared a little soup with the men out there, laughing with them and swapping stories. Many felt that this had mostly been done for show. Still, the Führer did as a rule prefer unpretentious meals. Others later theorized that the culmination of seeing recent city images of destruction, in contrast to the pristine, celebratory theme of the hangar (and of course, the impression this would have on both the national foreign journalists, and thus the rest of the world), brought on this remonstrative display. In any event, the snub to the planning staff had been real, especially when the Führer had then immediately departed for Berlin. Blaskowitz had again taken the blame.

  In the months afterward, as the Eastern Theater commander, Blaskowitz had witnessed firsthand the atrocities that were soon being committed en masse in Poland. These often unspeakable policies carried out by the SS and the Gestapo had simply horrified him. His repeated complaints, first through the chain of command and then eventually around it, had finally stirred up a hornet’s nest. He had caught the attention of the senior Army command, senior Nazi party leaders, the international press, Western leaders, and even the Swiss Red Cross.

  Blaskowitz concludes that he, naturally, had incurred the wrath of the SS and eventually of Hitler himself, who had never really taken a liking to him anyway. Relieved of his post and exiled to the German Western Frontier, Blaskowitz had sat back and as a bystander, watched the entire Western Campaign of 1940. Even von Rundstedt’s steady support and influence had only managed to land him a backwater army command, where he had wasted the rest of the war watching global events unfold.

  “And it has continued,” Blaskowitz adds. “Last July was my 60th birthday, and my 40th year in the army. As you know, most senior officers get a write-up and their photograph in the papers. And of course, a special letter and gift from the Führer. I got nothing. Nothing.”

  Rommel sympathizes with his host.

  ***

  Today, Adolf Hitler has a long talk with Heinrich Himmler about Admiral Canaris’ counterintelligence group, the Abwehr. He is irritated over the fact that this intelligence service had failed to warn them about recent Allied landings in the Mediterranean, especially Salerno and the latest one, Anzio. Kesselring had reported that he did come across a few indications of an upcoming landing around the middle of last month (a week before the Anzio landing), but Canaris had concluded that these signs were wrong. And now in the last few days, a critical Abwehr agent and his wife in Istanbul have disappeared, presumably going over to the enemy. This has essentially shut down most counterintelligence sources in Turkey.

  Hitler, disgusted at this clear lack of support, now tells Himmler that he is fed up with Canaris and that he thinks the man should be dismissed. They need a viable, effective counterintelligence bureau if they are to have any hope of finding out about the upcoming invasion in the West.

  Himmler tells him that he will look further into the matter and get back to him in a day or two. He leaves, satisfied that Canaris’ days are numbered.

  1Fifty-seven-year-old General der Infanterie Hans von Obstfelder.

  2Now Le Boutique Hôtel, Bordeaux.

  3General Blaskowitz until now had an interesting wartime career. Leading the Eighth Army during the invasion of Poland, it had been his units that had marched on and occupied Warsaw. Afterwards, when von Rundstedt had turned the appointment down, Blaskowitz had been appointed Befehlshaber, Oberost (Commander-in-Chief, Eastern Theater). Eventually transferred to the West, he sat out most of the war commanding the First Army.

  4Blaskowitz was the only general left in the German army who carried that rank at the beginning of the war and who had not been appointed a field marshal.

  5Generalmajor Rommel at the time commanded the Frontgruppe der Führerhauptquartier Truppen. The unit later evolved into the Führer Begleit Battaillion.

  6Walther von Brauchitsch was head of OKH, GeneralOberst! Erhard Milch had commanded the Luftwaffe units in the invasion, and Generalleutnant Walther von Reichenau commanded the Tenth Army, which had assisted in the capture of the city.

  7Charades.

  8Peter Hoffmann claims it was the Dutch embassy.

  9In the capture of Warsaw, Blaskowitz had commanded the better part of Hitler’s personal SS unit, the motorized regiment SS Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler. During the day’s victory procession, when the SS unit had marched past the grandstand, Hitler had with a smile asked Blaskowitz how his namesake unit had performed in combat. Blaskowitz was like von Rundstedt, a Prussian aristocrat, never one to flatter or brownnose. So he had replied perhaps a bit tactlessly that, “It was an average unit, still inexperienced, with no unusual qualifications.” Hitler’s smile had immediately gone away, having of course taken the remark personally. Reichsführer Himmler and the unit commander Sepp Dietrich became infuriated upon hearing about the remark.

  Thursday, February 10

  Rommel has breakfast with General Blaskowitz, and they discuss more of the general’s past dealings with the Führer.

  After finishing breakfast and some more talk, Rommel finally leaves the general and continues with his trek through Southern France, now heading towards the Atlantic. Leaving Bordeaux at 8 a.m., the two cars, rejoined now with the other cars that had been short on fuel, drive on to the Gironde estuary. There they inspect a number of defensive positions along the Atlantic, including an unusual unit consisting of “free” troops from India. The field marshal examines the fortress position south of the river mouth, where they are joined by the naval commander for the Gascogne area, Konteradmiral Michahelles.1 The southern fort is well equipped with a few good-sized batteries.

  At the port of Le Verdon on the southern tip of the Gironde, they stop and have lunch at a field kitchen. Then they traverse the river mouth to get to Royan on the northern bank. The crossing takes an hour, and the westerly wind, combined with some heavy swells, makes a few of the landlubbers in the inspection party somewhat seasick.

  As they travel along the northern side of the river, the inspection party, now joined by Kapitän Lautenschlager, 2 finds that the strongpoints there are over 3½kmapart, manned by Russian contingents—Cossacks, to be exact.

  The inspection group winds up somewhere near La Rochelle for the night.

  ***

  Today, at von Rundstedt’s winter quarters in the Hôtel Georges V off the Ch
amps-Élysèes, the field marshal’s staff holds a small soiree for the OB West chief of staff, who is celebrating his 52nd birthday. The officers all enjoy the short party. Then several junior officers leave to continue their festivities in the Parisian nightlife. Blumentritt himself goes up to his room and retires for the night.

  1Forty-five-year-old Konteradmiral Hans Michahelles, appointed the Seekommandant (Commandant of Sea Fortifications) for the Gasçogne area in late August.

  2Kapitän R. Lautenschlager, the commander of the 4th Security Division.

  Friday, February 11

  As usual, Rommel is up early. After a simple breakfast of tea, bread and jam, he and his entourage depart and begin looking over the defensive positions around La Rochelle, one of the principal U-boat bases on the Atlantic. Considerable work has been done in the port area, and Rommel is satisfied to see the progress that has been made so far.

  The Mediterranean tour pretty much over at this point, Rommel’s inspection party departs for home. First though, a long drive northward to Le Mans, headquarters of the Seventh Army. They are expected there for a conference with the commanding officer, General Dollmann. Soon after they arrive, Admiral Ruge leaves them to call on the FdU West at Lorient, Kapitän Rösing.1 They are to discuss the role the submarines should play when the invasion begins. With the enemy’s advanced techology in anti-submarine warfare, and their control of the seas, only those boats that have snorkels are expected to have a chance of surviving.

  Rommel stays long enough to have his conference with Dollmann and is happy to learn that construction of obstacles and minefields along Seventh Army’s sector is now in full swing.

  The field marshal leaves and finally arrives back at his headquarters in Fontainebleau early in the evening. He is tired from the trip, understandably, since he has traveled over 2,200 kilometers in less than a week.

  Inevitably, a lot of paperwork has piled up in his absence. Though night has fallen and he is fatigued, he nevertheless begins tackling the piles. He takes time out though, to call General Jodl at OKW and report to him the findings of his tour.

  He tells Jodl that the coastal areas in his opinion are too thinly defended. He recommends that more units be brought up from the inland areas northwest to the Bay of Biscay for the First Army and southward to the Mediterranean shore for the Nineteenth.

  He complains that before von Rundstedt had gone on leave, the old man had ordered that an artillery division be created out of existing coastal batteries. Rommel tells Jodl that he objects to this, since it makes no sense. The units would not be able to act as a cohesive unit, and more importantly, they had no transport to move them, either as a unit or individually. They would thus not be able to travel a long distance to the invasion area, and even if they could, they would be cumbersome on the road and vulnerable to attacks by partisans or by air. Better to put them in strategic locations in suspected landing areas.

  He segues into complaining once again about their nebulous chain of command. With von Rundstedt on leave, Rommel is effectively in charge of the defense of France. Technically though, the job is being held by the deputy OB West, Luftwaffe General Hugo Sperrle. And administratively, each branch of service controls its own units. So with orders, directives, and policies coming from Rommel, Sperrle, Blumentritt (OB West chief of staff), Himmler to the SS units, Krancke to the naval shore commands, and Geyr von Schweppenberg to the panzer units, a good deal of confusion is being created.

  Jodl replies by telling him that he will bring this command issue to the attention of the Führer.

  Rommel then gives Jodl some good news. He informs him that their supply of mines is now better, and they are now being laid down more quickly in a greatly expanded program. Lastly, he gives Jodl a thorough report on his travel arrangements for the upcoming visit to the Führer’s headquarters in March.

  ***

  At the Supreme Headquarters, currently located at the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, Hitler has a late-morning talk with Hermann Fegelein, Reichsführer Himmler’s liaison to the Führer. Several days ago, Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop2 had complained to the Führer that acts of sabotage by the Abwehr on British ships moored in Spanish ports were endangering their relations with neutral Spain. In response, on February 8th, Hitler had ordered that all such destructive acts, well-meaning or not, were to be stopped immediately. Now today, in incoming messages, he learns that a massive explosion has occurred on a British ship docked in Cartagena, Spain. The vessel was reportedly carrying nothing but oranges.

  The Führer is enraged, especially when he learns from the reports that the sabotage was most likely carried out by Abwehr agents, in either direct defiance or ignorance of the new order. The Führer and Fegelein discuss this and other recent intelligence failures of Canaris’ organization. Fegelein points out in contrast that it was improved SS covert assets that had originally found out the secret place where Mussolini had been whisked off to by the Italian traitors after they had arrested him in late July 1943. And it was the SS who had subsequently sent in a strike team and freed him in late September.

  Taking advantage of Hitler’s anger, Fegelein suggests that he might want to turn over the entire incompetent Abwehr organization to the SS. Hitler thinks about it, looks at him, and nods. He sends for Himmler and they talk.

  Himmler has long considered the intelligence section of the Heeres to be in direct competition with his own SS/Gestapo network, and while he does not consider Canaris a political enemy (like von Ribbentrop), his concerns about the admiral’s loyalties have deepened considerably with each military setback.3 At the beginning of last month, the Reichsführer had pressed Hitler to consolidate all of the intelligence units into one organization. This would make them more efficient, and rectify the problems in the Abwehr. The Reichsführer would run the organization, of course.

  Admiral Canaris in turn had protested, claiming that his recent intelligence failures had been a result of mistakes, superseding, or gross meddling by either the SS or von Ribbentrop’s foreign ministry. Himmler’s evidence of course shows this is not true, and his information, faked or not, is considerable. Unlike the devoted SS, the loyalties of key Abwehr members are questionable. Dr. Hans von Dohnanyi for instance, the resourceful young lawyer in charge of its special projects, had been arrested last April for treason. Another Abwehr traitor, Hans Oster, had been suspended from military duty and placed under house arrest. To make matters worse, several of Canaris’ key leaders had disgustedly left the Abwehr to serve, of all places, on the Russian front.

  There were operational letdowns as well. There was the Army’s failure to find out beforehand about the landings at Salerno. On the contrary, they had quite recently reassured Kesselring that he could only lightly defend the Italian coast around Nettuno. The Abwehr had totally failed to detect the massive enemy landings on January 22, and the three Allied divisions that came ashore were met by only two German battalions. (When the Führer had asked Kesselring why he had been caught unawares, the field marshal had made dammed sure the blame went to Canaris.)

  To make matters even worse for Canaris, less than two weeks ago, Argentina had suddenly broken off formal relations with Germany. Not only had the Abwehr agents there not seen this move coming, but, unknown to them, their secret network had been accidentally discovered by the Argentine government, and this had brought on the official break. Several of their agents, spies, and contacts had been subsequently arrested, their spy ring broken.4 The Führer had been livid at this sudden, critical setback.

  Perhaps though, the final nail in the admiral’s coffin came when several recent reports from their ambassador to Spain arrived.5 The man indicated that the Abwehr organization there was so worthless, top-heavy, generally lazy, and obnoxiously arrogant that the Spanish were now leaning towards joining the Allies. Canaris, he added, is to blame for this, adding that the admiral, far from being the Reich’s main influence in keeping the Spanish neutral (as the Führer had thought), was actually hinting to Franco
that Germany was losing the war and that he might want to think about saving himself and Spain from the calamity that would probably follow. Spain, heretofore leaning to the side of Germany, had suddenly issued a statement of strict neutrality eight days ago on February 3. A coincidence?

  Now Himmler’s seemingly reluctant disclosure of Admiral Canaris’s fiascos confirms the Führer’s suspicions. Already having had a recent confrontation with Canaris, 6 Hitler is now disgusted with him, and decides to sack the man. The Abwehr, he instructs, is essentially to be dissolved. Himmler will take over all counterintelligence activities, and is granted permission to take over the Abwehr and create a new combined intelligence service out of it and its SS counterpart, the Geheimdienst.

  The Führer will sign the order as soon as a plan for assimilation can be worked out. Himmler is pleased.7 The plan for merging the two agencies will actually be carried out as an assimilation.

  Canaris, who has already been under suspicion of treason by the SS for months, is now clearly a marked man.

  1Führer der Unterseeboote, Western Theater (Senior U-boat Officer, Western Theater), 48-year-old Hans-Rudolf Rösing. A Knight’s Cross recipient for his exploits commanding U-48, Rösing was finally posted back to Lorient where he became FdU West. His “command” consisted of several flotillas out of the major ports in the Atlantic. For a number of reasons, Rösing was disliked or even hated by the U-boat skippers. Historians have often wondered why this position even existed, except perhaps in a strictly advisory or administrative role. All decisions regarding operational orders, tactics, and deployment were issued by Dönitz’s staff.

  2He had long been a stiff adversary of Canaris over intelligence operations in North and South America.

  3Some historians speculate that Himmler despised Canaris but did not want to move against him because he feared that undisclosed damning information on him, Heydrich, or the SS might suddenly come to light. One had to be very careful about who one wanted to move against in the Third Reich—even the Reichsführer.