Liddell also records that Cramer admitted that he “was not at all looking forward to his interview with Hitler. He would however have to give a full report on the last days in Tunis and on his stay at No. 11 Camp. About the latter he could say nothing but good. He would however, tell Hitler the truth about von Arnim, whose behavior in the camp was the worst possible propaganda for the German army, and Cramer apologized for it to the BAO.”
Wednesday, May 24
This morning, the army group staff at La Roche-Guyon is busy with a number of details. Rommel though, travels to a nearby army ordnance center and watches several demonstrations. He later records his experiences in his Daily Report:
Left to inspect a new “artificial fog” apparatus. The smoke, produced through the mixing of Nebelsäure1 with burned chalk, is thick and suitable for the troops. Unfortunately our supplies of Nebelsäure are limited. On the other hand, I learned that back home several million smoke grenades are stocked up. It is irresponsible on the part of the authorities not to have issued these so far. However, this is another proof that one must always be on the lookout to find things out. If it hadn’t been for this visit, I still wouldn’t have known about the smoke grenades.
Another pleasant experience was the display of a new submersible machine gun used in conjunction with an aiming mirror. I ordered its immediate production. At the Buck factory, I was shown another smoke-producing agent created by the mixing of ammonium and oil with burned chalk. Though not too thick, I ordered its immediate adoption by the troops. There I also saw beach-lighting installations which, built in with the wooden poles along beaches, will certainly have an irritating effect upon the enemy.
He orders a number of them put into service as soon as possible.
Admiral Ruge goes to Paris that afternoon, to visit various headquarters, trying to scare up some cement supplies. Enemy air activity is not too bad for road travel, although reports have shown that the rail centers, bridges, and airfields are getting hit heavily. Ruge’s car has to make a wide detour around one downed bridge because of enemy fighters patrolling nearby.
General Speidel, having been granted leave over Pentecost, departs today for home around 9 a.m. Others of Rommel’s staff spend part of the day talking to various officers at Luftwaffe command specifically, Sperrle’s 3. Luftflötte.. They are trying to secure some flak batteries for coast defenses.
The outgoing mail includes a letter written yesterday by the field marshal, addressed to Alfred Jodl. In it, Rommel asks him to coerce Hitler into starting up the V-1 missile program as soon as possible. This would give the Allies one more reason to attack von Salmuth’s sector, the more heavily defended area of the coast. And, if Rocket Command could somehow direct the missiles at the Allied embarkation points, that would help them a great deal.
That evening, after they have all returned to the château, they hear on the radio that Stuttgart has once more been bombed, and it sounds like the city had taken a pounding. Not surprising perhaps, since the Reich propaganda ministry has maintained the impression to the world that construction of aircraft and panzers, “is going on full blast.” It would be better, if the Reich did not brag so much in the media about production. Perhaps air raids might diminish.
That night, for the first time, large formations of enemy bombers fly right over the château. The staff is forced to go downstairs into the air raid shelters.
Today at the Berghof, Göring has another conference with his senior staff about aircraft production.2 They had taken a pounding yesterday from the Führer over the Me-262 issue, and now, clearly, Göring is on a mission: to reaffirm the Führer’s orders (and of course, clear himself of blame).
His staff estimates that the Me-262’s airframe will have to undergo a major modification to be able to carry a bomb. That might take another five months.
Hearing this, Göring explodes. “You gentlemen appear to be stone deaf, the lot of you! I have referred again and again to the Führer’s order: he doesn’t care two hoots about getting the Me-262 as a fighter but wants it only as a fighter-bomber.”
He pauses and glares at them. “The Führer must have the strangest impression of you. From every side, including Messerschmitt, he was left in doubt about this, right from the start. And then, in my presence, 3 Messerschmitt told the Führer that his company had provided right from the start for it to be manufactured as a Jagdbomber. And now suddenly it is impossible!”
Oberst! Edgar Petersen again repeats the structural problems that the change would entail, and how the engines would have to be redesigned.
Göring asks how soon the Me-262 can start production as a fighter-bomber. Petersen takes a deep breath and in a wild guess to save the situation, replies about three months.
Göring scowls at him. “I would have been grateful had you uttered ten percent of these remarks yesterday!” He pauses. “The Führer says, As far as I am concerned, you can cremate the fighters!’ He needs an aircraft which can force its way through by virtue of its sheer speed, despite the enormous mass of fighters guarding the invasion forces.”
He shakes his head in wonder. “What no civilian dares to do, simply ignoring superior orders, you gentlemen venture to do time after time after time! The most undisciplined bunch in Germany, our own Wehrmacht—and our officer corps!”
In the afternoon, GeneralOberst! Korten tells Göring that he thinks the invasion will not come for a while. He says, “The invasion appears to have been postponed. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be having these big air raids on the Reich again,” referring to the recent American bombings.
Again Göring shakes his head. They still do not get the point…
Today, the Allies, continuing their pre-invasion air strikes, launch a combined Western Allied effort to destroy all the bridges in northern Europe. Those flown in France are designed to further isolate the Normandy area. By D-Day, all 24 major bridges over the Seine between Paris and Rouen will go down, as well as a dozen other river bridges.
1Smoke-acid. A combination of chlorine sulfonic acid and sulfur trioxide. The dense fog that resulted from the mixture could even be used in the winter, since the freezing point of this mixture was well below the coldest European winter temperatures.
2Field Marshal von Richtofen is absent, having returned to Italy.
3At a conference in Insterburg in November.
Thursday, May 25
Rommel stays at his château, tackling some paperwork. The weather today is beautiful, but no particular enemy activity is noted outside of the intense but getting-to-be- common Allied bombing raids. Air targets today are varied: the Longues-sur-Mer naval battery; the rail yards at Blainville, Charleroi and Belfort; a couple of airfields, including the Paris/Orly airport yesterday. Some coastal targets are hit, as well as a few V-1 rocket sites. But the enemy seems to be giving the Seine bridges a break today. That’s good.
So where are the Allies? Where is the invasion?
Around noon, Rommel gets a visit from Oberst! Walter Reinhard, the chief of staff for the 47th Panzer Corps. Reinhard is the advance party for the corps’ headquarters unit. The 47th had once been a powerful panzer corps, and the command staff officers were all veterans of countless battles on the Eastern Front.1 Now this cadre has left Russia, coming westward to France. Their new assignment is to coordinate Rommel’s panzers and to reinforce his command of the army group. The corps is going to organize and take charge of the three panzer divisions of which OKW had finally released tactical command to Rommel—the 2nd, the newly formed 116th, and the “phoenix” 21st, still busily re-equipping itself just south of Caen.
No less experienced than the unit’s chief of staff is its commanding officer, General von Funck.2 He had fought well in Russia, commanding for two years Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division. On December 7 of last year, von Funck had been promoted to acting commander of the 23rd Corps, and on March 5 of this year, he and his staff had been promoted to command the 47th Panzer Corps. Yes, von Funck is one of the oldest and most experienced
panzer commanders in the German Army.
Rommel and Reinhard have a nice visit, and Rommel tells him that he looks forward to seeing his commanding officer tomorrow at a formal luncheon the army group is throwing.
A few hours later, Rommel is told a wild French rumor that he and his staff have packed up and left La Roche-Guyon. He chuckles at that. No, he is not quite ready to leave the lovely château just yet.
On a more serious (and upbeat) note, he is informed that the deadly coastal KMA minefields are to be started shortly. About damned time. Ruge had been pleading with Admiral Krancke for over two months now to accelerate production and distribution of the KMAs. Krancke had resisted, though. He was having sections of the Bay of Biscay mined, and that had to be finished first.
Krancke works well enough with Rommel under normal circumstances. Yet everyone knows that he and Friedrich Ruge do not get along, and because of this, Krancke will drag his feet when it comes to matters of working with or for the army. And as far as he is concerned, Ruge is no longer in the Kriegsmarine; he is just another one of Rommel’s army flunkies.
Rommel makes a note to speak privately with Krancke on that matter. After all, they are all going to have to work together, especially if they are to get out of this mess with their heads still on their bodies.
That afternoon, Rommel tries to take his mind off things by going on an exhaustive but fruitless rabbit hunt. After he returns, he has a brief conference with von Rundstedt’s propaganda chief.
***
At the Berghof, General Hans Cramer has made a report to the Führer. Cramer has been repatriated because of a serious lung problem (contrived, boasts Cramer). He tells Hitler about the vast weapons depots that the British and Americans have shown him.
Hitler is taken in by his report. Dr. Sonnleitner though, Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop’s liaison officer, sees through the sham. The British doctors have allowed him to fool them on his medical condition, he explains to the Führer. There is no way a German general could have faked a serious lung condition, especially to a prison doctor. And why were the Allies so eager to show him all of those weapons centers in southeast England? Sonnleitner, having spent a few years himself as a political prisoner in Austria, knows that no matter how smart a prisoner is, the captors are always smarter. No, he concludes, Cramer has not hoodwinked the Allies. They have hoodwinked him. This has all been staged to lead Cramer into spreading strategically false conclusions to the German High Command.
But Hitler is not so sure. “Whatever,” he replies to Sonnleitner. Still, true or not, no matter what, Rommel needs to hear this story. Cramer is to be sent to see Generalfeldmarschall Rommel and tell him what he has seen. “Especially,” Hitler adds, “the special tanks, and where he had seen the most landing craft.”
Cramer is to leave immediately.
1The 47th Panzer Corps had recently suffered badly in the Soviet Union. Part of the Eighth Army, it was surrounded in Kirovograd by the sudden Russian offensive of January 5. The 47th, tired from recent battles and standing in the center of the Russian advance, bore the full onslaught of the enemy attack, and their command staff was overrun by medium tanks in the early morning hours of January 9.
2See also entry for May 12.
Friday, May 26
At La Roche-Guyon, some reconnaissance photos arrive. Taken on the 24th, they include some good quality shots of the southwestern English ports of Bournemouth, Poole, Portland, and Weymouth, crowded with all sorts of invasion vessels and landing craft. Perhaps Calais will not be the target area, although Rommel still thinks that the Somme estuary will be the invasion area.
Now committed to staying at his headquarters as much as possible, Rommel today holds a special luncheon for General Wolfgang Pickert, the new commanding officer of the III Flak Korps.1
Pickert took command two days ago and established his headquarters just south of Amiens. The flak corps was formed in late February. It consists of about 12,000 men in 24 batteries and features four anti-aircraft (FlakStürm) regiments of40 88mm dual-purpose guns each.2 This is clearly a sizable unit to deploy against the hordes of enemy aircraft that will dominate the skies over an invasion site. Although Göring had back on May 7 refused to allow Rommel to relocate the units to Normandy, Pickert might be persuadable.
Rommel receives Pickert warmly, and they talk over lunch. A little later, they are joined by General der Fallschirmjäger Kurt Student, commanding all the airborne troops. Having dissolved the XI Fliegerkorps, he had in its place formed the Fallschirmjägerkorps and had last March established his new headquarters near Nancy. His parachute school at Dreux3 was now busy with new recruits, eager to learn how to jump out of an airplane (even though there were few to jump out of). Also joining them is General von Funck. A nice social gathering; the men discuss various aspects of the air war and the situation in the West.
They discuss Göring’s refusal to relocate the flak batteries to Normandy, and Pickert tells Rommel that he agrees with the decision. The flak regiments, widely scattered eastward, are protecting the bridges over the Seine, even though, dispersed as they were, they offer little effective power against any Allied air force flying over. Moreover, they also provide some defense against bombers trying to fly into Germany. In addition, a few batteries protect V-2 production centers, a high priority for the Führer.
Pickert tells Rommel he has other concerns. His men have been softened by la belle vie of France (something Rommel sympathizes with). Many of his officers are young, impetuous, usually with no experience in actual combat; certainly not like Pickert has seen on the Eastern Front. While he defends his batteries’ locations operationally, he objects to the fact that most of them are semi-permanently fixed and kept immobile, stagnantly located around other established anti-aircraft sites. Pickert realizes that together, his batteries can potentially pose a much more formidable weapon than at present. They are entirely motorized, one of the few such anti-aircraft units in the Wehrmacht. Still, a good deal of training for combat operations and how to work with ground forces when the invasion comes will be needed.
After the guests leave, Rommel receives a scolding phone call from State Secretary Theodor Ganzenmueller, in the Ministry of Transportation. Rommel tries to tell him that he needs additional transport space for supplies, but is cut off by the state secretary, who proceeds to complain to Rommel about the meddling into the affairs of transportation by Gauleiter Kaufmann on Rommel’s behalf. While Ganzenmueller keeps a civil tone (after all, you do not berate a field marshal and a national hero in the Third Reich—unless of course, you have a death wish), he does tells Rommel to kindly keep Kaufmann (and anyone else Rommel is contemplating) the hell out of transportation matters.
Yes, he admits dully, the Ministry is aware of the acute transportation problem in France right now because of the bombings, but trying to get things done using Kaufmann is not the proper way to do things. From now on, the field marshal is to go through proper channels.
Rommel hangs up disgruntled and grits his teeth. Politicians…
***
Admiral Ruge drives to Paris to the headquarters of Security Area West, and then off to Naval Group West. Luckily, he is already on the northern bank of the Seine and thus does not have to cross over. It is just as well. By now, all the bridges over the river have been hit by Allied air attacks, and all rail traffic across the river is blocked. The Germans of course are trying hard to repair the bridges, but their efforts are infuriatingly being stifled daily by the enemy. The Allies observe repair efforts on these bridges, and whenever a repair nears completion, the enemy bombs it again.4
Ruge finds out from a radar expert at Krancke’s headquarters that the radar installations along the Channel have in the last couple weeks also been hit pretty hard by the enemy, but that of the eleven major radar installations that had been damaged by the bombs, all but one are back in service again.
***
This morning, several key officers of the 12th SS Panzer Division have been
mysteriously summoned to their divisional headquarters at Tillières-sur-Avre.5 Worried, they report to the main building and are amazed to find their wives sitting there. At the orders of the division commander, Brigadeführer der Waffen-SS Fritz Witt, the ladies have been brought from all over Germany to their headquarters for a last liberty with their husbands.
Witt senses that the invasion will come soon and when it does, many in the division will be killed. He magnanimously tells his officers, “Since there is going to be no leave for anybody from now on, you can all go to Paris for two days and then say goodbye at the Gare de l’Est.”6
The men understand only too well. One officer confides to his wife, “We are for it,” and gives her his personal effects—just in case.
***
That afternoon, a number of senior generals are taken to the Berghof for an audience with the Führer. His speech focuses on reinforcing what Himmler had told them before lunch. He starts out comparing the Jews to simple bacteria invading the Reich host, and talks of the problems Germany had been plagued with because of these bacterial Jews. Removing them from their positions of power in the Reich, he points out, has allowed the offspring of thousands of middle-class Germans to move up, while simultaneously cleansing the German revolutionary movement of their taint.
Countdown to D-Day Page 68