Countdown to D-Day

by Peter Margaritis

  One final briefing with his group, Wahle, 88th Corps Commander General Reinhardt, and Admiral Kleikamp, the naval commandant for the Netherlands. The field marshal again stresses the need to move units inland closer to the coast. Again Kleikamp tells him that even in the event of a landing, the Kriegsmarine High Command will still refuse to dispatch naval training units to any combat areas—as if they will be able to continue training with full-scale combat going on nearby.

  The meeting finally concludes, and the inspection party returns to the Park Hôtel, which by now has been totally emptied of guests to accommodate Rommel’s inspection party, something Rommel had not at all intended. Because of these evictions, word has leaked out of his presence, and upon their return, they find a good-sized crowd of onlookers waiting to see him. As soon as the officers get out of their vehicles, a pair of fulltime armed guards is assigned to each one of them, opening their rooms for them, and accompanying them everywhere.

  Rommel sighs. That’s the price of popularity in a war. But it does not bother him too much.

  1This included the 1st SS Panzer Division, Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.

  2About 170km southeast of Berlin.

  3Keitel later testified at Nuremberg that he had tried to keep the report of the escape from Hitler to keep him from “reacting vengefully,” but Himmler had already told him. He also claimed that it was he who convinced him not to have all the recaptured prisoners shot.

  4Of the 76 prisoners who escaped, only three ever made it to freedom. The rest were recaptured, and 50 of them were eventually coldly executed in small groups. The breakout later became the basis for Paul Brickhill’s famous book, The Great Escape, which in turn was made in 1963 into the blockbuster United Artists movie.

  5“The Hook of Holland.” Officially designated a fortress, it boasted a concentration of anti-aircraft weapons, used to regularly fire at the Allied bombers coming and going across the Channel on bombing raids inland.

  Monday, March 27

  OKW today again has little time to address issues in the West, being still heavily involved with the crisis on the Eastern Front. Feldmarschall von Kleist, following in von Manstein’s footsteps, goes to the Berghof and begs Hitler to let him withdraw his own Heeresgruppe A away from the massive Russian attacks. Today, Hitler decides to hell with them. He replaces both generals.

  Later that morning, the Operations deputy chief of staff, Warlimont, gets yet another call from the Heeresgruppe B chief of staff. Gause starts by reminding Warlimont that he had talked to his aide-de-camp two days ago about the panzer issue. Gause then plays his ace. He reminds Warlimont that the Führer had promised both Rommel and Gause personally at the Berghof a week ago that he would give the field marshal control of the panzers, instead of leaving them under strategic control of PanzerGruppe West in Paris. Gause adds tactfully that OKW has to get off its administrative butt and make the decision official.

  Warlimont manages to stall him again. He replies that “the OKW is determined to regulate command relations in accord with the Führer’s decision.” However, OKW has not yet received a copy from OB West of the actual orders putting PanzerGruppe West under his direct authority. They were prepared to wait until such time as they received these orders by courier before making any changes to them.

  Warlimont is obviously buying time. The Führer seems to be vacillating on his decision—helped, no doubt, by the minions around him, and clouded by more pressing problems in the East and in Italy.

  ***

  Rommel and his staff, having spent the night in their specially set-aside hotel in Amsterdam, start off early again.

  First, a trip to the headquarters of the 88th Corps.1 There they hear the report of the local corps commander, General der Infanterie Hans Reinhard. His big problem is that Amsterdam is a major strategic port. Although it is occupied by over a hundred units, most of them are small, and altogether only about 13,000 men are committed to its defense. And the outer defenses, where much of the ammo and food supplies are stored, can only be guarded by a few security units. So the port’s defensive perimeter will just have to be tightened.

  Reinhard has flooded some of the city suburbs in the northwest, and this had helped; but a better defensive plan is needed. And for safety reasons, the minefields preventing access to the critical mouth of the Scheldt River are almost all dummies.

  The conference goes on, and a mix-up in the schedule is discovered. The 165th Infantry Division is scheduled for inspection, but the 48th is inspected instead.2

  And on the way to the 48th, Rommel makes an unscheduled stop to inspect the totally unprepared units of the 712th Infantry.

  Caught unawares, they suffer a number of inspection “hits.” Rommel examines a beach that he had looked over back in January, and finds only a slim line of Belgian gates installed. In harsh language, Rommel orders the commander to have thousands of wooden stakes installed immediately, with mines attachéd to the tops. The hapless commander tells him that there is not enough wood around to do the job, and Rommel roars in anger. He wants no excuses. Just results. The commander finally backs off. Fortunately, the entourage’s army photographer has the good sense to not photograph Rommel chewing the local commander out.

  They travel down the coast through Belgium. Things look better at the 48th Division, and Rommel’s mood improves. They finally dine at the soldiers’ mess in Adinkerque, 3 and Rommel loosens up. He invites the local naval commander, Konteradmiral Frisius, 4 to join the inspection party.

  They continue southwest down the coast to Calais. They find the work in progress there adequate. This is logical, since it is here that the High Command believes the invasion will come.

  At one stop, the members of the group get out of their cars to have a particular defensive position shown to them. Suddenly, out of the blue a motorcycle with a sidecar approaches them, barreling down the road hell for leather.

  As it speeds towards them, the group sees that the motorcyclist is a young army soldier. Riding in the sidecar is a beautiful young local woman. The enlisted man, drawing near, spots the entourage of senior officers stopped alongside the road and slows down.

  Although several officers smile, a number of them grimace at the sight of this open fraternization. Taking it all in and thinking fast, the corporal brings the motorbike to a gravel-rattling halt. He and the girl dismount, and he hands control of the bike over to her.

  Turning around, he hesitates, then gives Rommel a crisp, boot-camp salute and barks, “Herr Generalfeldmarschall! Gefreiter Schmidt and the regiment’s laundress on their way to work!”

  Aware of the slack-jawed, astonished looks around him, Rommel fights back a chuckle, and with a twinkle in his eyes, he solemnly returns the salute. The corporal gives him a big, adulatory grin, and with that, he and the girl jump back on the motorcycle. They take off in a flurry of small pebbles before anyone else can recover and reply—or ask embarrassing questions.

  Shaking their heads (some of them still smiling), the group continues the inspection. They go on to Abbéville, then back to the beaches at the town of Ault to call on another unsuspecting unit, the 348th.5 They inspect more open dunes. More notes and more terse instructions. Then it is back to La Roche-Guyon.

  That night, Rommel writes to Lucie:

  Back for two days in my quarters. Lovely spring weather. My little dog is really coming along. He now reports when someone comes. The little fellow is so cute. I must often laugh over him. Much work and trouble! Everything just doesn’t work out the way one thinks and then one must face the issue, and that means burning up extra energy…

  Rommel has little idea of how both the job and the dog are going to vex him in the next couple of weeks.

  As he writes though, some frustration comes out:

  Things just aren’t going as I would like, and this means I’ve got to use my elbows, which really takes it out of me.

  1Admiral Ruge, in his notes, mistakenly refers to this as the 89th Corps.

  2Daser’s 165
th Infantry had been slated for the inspection, but when the message went out, as part of the coding, only the sum of the division’s digits was broadcast. Since the sums of digits for the 48th and for the 165th are identical (12), the mistake was understandable.

  3In Belgium, along the coastal road, about 3km from the French border.

  4Forty-nine-year-old Frederick Frisius. Kommandant of the naval fortifications at the Pas-de-Calais. Six months later, he would lead the 226th Infantry Division in defending Festung Dunkerque successfully until the end of the war (he was promoted to Vizeadmiral for doing so).

  5The 348th Infantry Division, Generalleutnant Paul Seyffardt, commanding. Part of the 67th Corps.

  Tuesday, March 28

  It is another busy day at La Roche-Guyon. Rommel’s chief of staff tries unsuccessfully to reach Warlimont at OKW for another follow-up to their conversations yesterday and back on the 25th. Gause is determined to get OKW’s acknowledgement of the Führer’s promise to give the field marshal control of the panzers. Rommel tells Gause to press the issue and try again.

  Unfortunately, Warlimont is still unavailable. It seems he is avoiding Gause.

  ***

  Actually, Warlimont had discussed the issue with Jodl a few times yesterday. Today they discuss the matter again. Jodl flatly does not want to turn the panzers over to Rommel, trusting seasoned von Rundstedt’s judgment instead. Obviously, they have to get Hitler to change his mind.

  Warlimont does not know how to take his Operations chief. Professionally, they have worked with each other since 1939. For five years they had seen the Reich go to war, triumphing over Poland, Scandinavia, Europe, and the Balkans, only to watch it slowly stop and retreat, bleeding over North Africa, Italy, and the vast plains of Russia. And with the Americans in the war, things are much worse.

  On a personal level, the two men do not get along that well. Warlimont does not care too much for his boss. For one thing, Jodl definitely tries to cover his butt, and he does it well, too. So he sometimes has a hard time making a decision, often postponing one until the solution becomes painfully obvious. His chances of being right increase the longer he hesitates to make a pronouncement, and therefore he does not look bad in the Führer’s eyes.

  Warlimont does not like that Jodl tries to model his OKW Operations staff after Hitler’s own personal staff. He has tried to surround himself with subordinates who generally agree with him and are not supposed to have thoughts different than his own. They exist merely to carry out the orders that are given. While this is most efficient, it clouds good judgment. Unfortunately, since Warlimont is somewhat self-willed, occasional friction arises between them.

  There had been one such conflict recently. A few months ago, Warlimont had received a coded warning from an industrialist relative of his who happened to be close to Reichsmarschall Göring. The warning was that the Reichsmarshal had been overheard claiming that he had been informed of some disturbing news about both Warlimont and Feldmarschall von Manstein. Supposedly, the two of them were leading secret lives as members of some Catholic freemason society. According to the claim, their covert organization was trying to undermine the Nazi party.

  Warlimont had of course found this charge preposterous. Hell, von Manstein was not even Catholic. Still, der Dicke (“Fatso”) must have put some credence in the information, because Warlimont found that the big man had begun to avoid him. When Warlimont one day greeted him with a warm “Good morning, Reichsmarschall,” Göring just ignored him.

  Warlimont had worried about this for a few days, and finally decided to tell Jodl about it. That was a mistake. Warlimont went to his superior’s office and related the entire story. The operations chief listened in stony silence. Warlimont finished by asking Jodl to personally straighten things out on his behalf.

  Instead of agreeing to do that though, Jodl, who possibly had also heard the rumor, unexpectedly replied in a frosty tone, “Well, if it’s true, your place is in a concentration camp, not in the Führer’s headquarters.”

  Warlimont was caught off guard, because he had expected a sympathetic ear and support, not this accusatory, curt tone. He looked his superior in the eyes and asked him point blank if he believed the rumor.

  True to form and pressured to commit himself, Jodl hesitated. He finally answered, “Well… I am not saying that I believe it. I am only saying that if it is true, I think that you belong in a concentration camp.”

  Warlimont was disgusted with this reply and abruptly stood up. Turning to leave, he curtly remarked, “That was hardly the answer that I expected from someone that I had worked for so long with.”

  Jodl, seeing his open anger, relented somewhat. “Look,” he began, apparently trying now to mollify. “Maybe you’d better talk about it to Bodenschatz.”1

  Opening the door, Warlimont briefly glanced back and replied coldly, “Fine. I will.” He then strode out, closing the door none too gently behind him.

  Bodenschatz had been more sympathetic than Jodl, and the Luftwaffe liaison officer had started to try to clear up the misunderstanding with Göring. Still, Warlimont had remained angry over the entire affair, mostly because of Jodl’s reaction. Still flushed with anger, Warlimont had gone to their superior, Feldmarschall Keitel, and requested that he be transferred from OKW immediately. Keitel politely but firmly denied the request. Times were rough, he explained. Quoting the Führer, he stated that staff officers like Warlimont were desperately needed if OKW was to be able to efficiently continue conducting the war.

  While the explanation was actually a compliment, Warlimont had not been satisfied. Still, he had resigned himself to the fact that that was the best answer he was going to get. So he had thanked the field marshal and had departed.

  Since then, Warlimont has kept his distance from Jodl and watched his own backside. Now, knowing how Jodl feels about the panzers in Europe, he is not going to push Gause’s argument.

  1Fifty-three-year-old General der Flieger Karl-Heinrich Bodenschatz. He was Gôring’s liaison officer with the Führer.

  Wednesday, March 29

  It is another day of reports, phone calls, and administrative duties at La Roche- Guyon. One concern of Rommel’s is over recent reports that he has been receiving about Allied air raids on the French railway system. The attacks have stepped up noticeably in the last three months, and March so far has turned out to be far worse than the previous two. Rommel sees a coordinated air effort going on here to stymie the German supply system to the outlying units.

  A prelude to the invasion? Maybe.

  Today, he receives a special visitor. It is 61-year-old General Herman Geyer again, who has recently retired from active service.1 He is on his way back to Germany, and has stopped off to bid farewell.2

  Rommel invites him to stay for lunch, and afterwards, they go on to discuss a number of things: territorial claims of the Soviet Union, especially towards Turkey and Iran; the Italian fleet, and its general failure as a fighting force; the merits of certain strategic bases in the Mediterranean; the old Zeebrügge raid of April 1918; the question of the best coastal defense strategy, which the army and the navy kept bandying about with each other. They talk about Admiral Gladisch, 3 and later, Geyer tells Rommel some interesting stories about a recent festival in Ulm that he attended.

  The conversation turns to the defense of the coast, and Rommel is pleased to learn that Geyer feels as he does—destroy the enemy at the water’s edge.

  Geyer finally departs, and later that afternoon, some more officers arrive for meetings. The adjutant to the commander of the 10th Minesweeper Flotilla arrives to see Ruge and his assistant Peters about training and weapons supplies. Meanwhile, Rommel meets with some senior engineering officers and they talk about special assignments and better support. Rommel stresses the need to increase their effort on the defensive efforts going on in their respective areas.

  It has been a busy day.

  ***

  This evening, after having dined with his son Hans Gerd, von
Rundstedt hears air raid sirens go off. A short time later, Zimmermann4 reports that enemy aircraft have been spotted dropping flares over St.-Germain. Obviously, their bombers are approaching. He asks the field marshal to go down into his new air raid shelter. Although he has vowed to never go down into that verfluchtes Kaff next to his garden, his son, after a good deal of cajoling, persuades his father to go; for the safety of both of them. Grumbling, the old man heads down to the shelter.

  The subsequent air raid never hits St.-Germain. Zimmermann gets on the telephone. With several calls to field, he stays on it for some time and totally forgets about the field marshal. About an hour later, just as he gets off the phone, it rings again. Answering it, he hears von Rundstedt’s voice. The field marshal (surprisingly) politely asks him, “Zimmermann, can I please come out now?”

  1See entry for Wednesday, January 26.

  2Geyer survived the war, but committed suicide in April 1946.

  3Sixty-two-year-old Walter Gladisch, a World War I veteran, commanded the Kriegsmarine from October 1, 1931 to September 30, 1933. Retired by the time World War II began, he served as a Reich Commissioner until he was permanently retired in June 1943. He died in March 1954.

  4Fifty-seven-year-old Oberst! Bodo Zimmermann, the OB West Ia (Operations Officer).

  Thursday, March 30

  Today at the Berghof, another ceremony is held and promotions awarded. General Ferdinand Schörner is promoted to GeneralOberst!1 and General Walther Model is promoted to Generalfeldmarschall. The Führer personally presents him with his baton.

  In August, Model will be transferred to the Western Front and take over not only Rommel’s job, but von Rundstedt’s as well.

  ***