Countdown to D-Day

by Peter Margaritis

  Included are several interesting guests. Among them are General Wagner, Colonel List who had served in OKW, Consul Pfeiffer, and Speidel’s brother-in-law Dr. Max Horst, who works in military administration. There is “war reporter” and good friend Major Wilhelm von Schramm. Speidel told him when he phoned, “We can really have a night discussing things.”

  There is also outspoken author/philosopher Ernst Jünger, now a captain serving with the military governor of France. Jünger brings with him the finished secret 30-page peace manifesto that he has written, entitled Der Friede.11 It details a plan on how the conspirators intend to make peace with the Allies after Hitler is either overthrown and imprisoned—or just killed. It also envisions a plan to create a new united Europe, something Rommel himself has spoken favorably about at times.

  The dinner must be delayed because Jünger, the key guest, is late arriving. Having discovered the main bridge at Mantes is down, he has had to take another route to the château. He does not arrive until 9 p.m.

  The get-together makes for an interesting evening. Both before and during dinner. a number of discussions and conversations are held on a variety of subjects, Closer to the main theme of the evening, they also talk about “the insufficient development of Hitler’s future plans.” After the sumptuous repast, about half of the guests take a stroll through the château and around the grounds, while a colonel relates a number of amusing stories in one parlor.

  At about 9:30, the others go up to Speidel’s quarters in the Norman tower and begin going over Jünger’s written 30-page peace proposal, to be given to the Allies after Hitler’s demise. Plans involving the field marshal are also discussed privately between Speidel and Jünger. The plotters need his name to give credence to their coup if and when it occurs.

  Just after 10 p.m., Speidel is told that he has a call from the Operations desk. It is Staubwasser, the Ic. He tells Speidel that the second verse of the Verlaine poem has been intercepted, and that von Salmuth has put Fifteenth Army on alert.

  Speidel excuses himself from his guests, walks down to Operations, and discusses the message with the intelligence chief. Should Seventh Army be put on alert too? Speidel suggests that he call OB West and adds, “Go with what they say.” He then casually returns to his guests.

  Staubwasser calls and reaches Operations Officer Bodo Zimmermann, who tells him that, because of the weather, Seventh Army need not be alerted. So Staubwasser hangs up and forgets the matter.

  The army defending Normandy is not being put on the alert.

  ***

  At Seventh Army headquarters, Max Pemsel is getting concerned. There is a Kriegspiel12 planned for the next day at Rennes, which was scheduled back on May 26. Despite Pemsel’s recommendations, too many key officers have departed this evening, citing the weather and Allied bombing as excuses for leaving early. Even General Dollmann had departed, but he soon returned to headquarters. He planned on leaving a couple hours before dawn for Rennes, so that he could help Mendl set up the scheduled wargames.13 Even Rommel, perhaps the key figure in the command chain, is at home with his family. So is his operations officer. Most of Seventh Army division commanders are gone. Von Schlieben, commanding the 709th, Hellmich, commanding the 243rd, Falley, with the 91st Air Landing Division… The list goes on.

  After some deliberation, he drafts a message:

  COMMANDING GENERALS AND OTHERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND THE KRIEGSPIEL ARE REMINDED NOT TO LEAVE FOR RENNES BEFORE DAWN ON JUNE 6TH.

  It was strong enough, but not too harsh. And any evidence of a possible landing would surely be detected before daylight, although dawn would be the critical time. Not that anyone expected anything, especially with the storm that had hit the Channel.

  The chief of staff shakes his head. It is going to be a long night.14

  Around 10:30 p.m. (BDST) in England, hundreds of C-47s start their motors. The sky is dark, and heavy clouds are hiding the moon. Destination: Normandy.

  German radar operators at the still-functional installations in Normandy soon begin to notice that their units are being heavily jammed. Operators in the Calais area note a number of strange radar returns. They are probably ghost echoes from the heavy seas. Surely they cannot be large numbers of many ships and aircraft approaching the straits. Still, the information is passed on up the chain of command and to the Luftwaffe.

  ***

  Generalfeldmarschall von Rundstedt is enjoying an evening with his son at his villa on Rue AlexAndré Dumas. He has had a nice Monday. Getting up around 11 a.m., he found the weather rainy and overcast. He washed and dressed, and finally entered his villa’s first floor study around noontime. There, he quickly went through the day’s business, finding nothing unusual. Dr. Strobe had phoned in a weather report calling for rain and gusting winds. Good. The old man’s schedule would be light, and he would soon be free to spend the rest of the day with his boy.

  He held a short meeting with Blumentritt to finalize their “Estimate of Allied Intentions,” the weekly report that they had to sent to OKW that day. Earlier, they had received from Foreign Armies West the latest situation report of the enemy status:

  The enemy command is continuing its endeavors to conceal its invasion plans by all means of the war of nerves. Dissemination of items pointing to a postponement of the invasion due to political differences alternates with announcements of imminent attack. The presumable objective of these machinations is a gradual blunting of German vigilance in order to create the conditions required for a surprise success.

  Against this must be stressed as the only concrete, but decisive fact, the state of preparedness for the take-off of about 60 enemy major formations in the South of England, of about ten in the central zone of England, and from five to six in Scotland. There is as yet no evidence that embarkation has begun, though considerable concentrations of shipping have been noted.

  Movements along the lower Thames indicate that formations (among them the Ninth Armored Division) are being moved towards the large harbors in that area, which will be used, perhaps, to relieve the harbors on either side of Dover which lie within the range of German gunfire.

  Von Rundstedt looked over the report that he and Blumentritt had written, based on everything that had come in. He read:

  The systematic and distinct increase of air attacks indicates that the enemy has reached a high degree of readiness. The probable invasion front still remains the sector from the Scheldt to Normandy… and it is not impossible that the north front of Brittany might be included…[but] it is still not clear where the enemy will invade within this total area. Concentrated air attacks on the coast defenses between Dunkirk and Dieppe may mean that the main Allied invasion effort will be made there…[but] imminence of invasion is not recognizable.

  Although his estimate mentions the enemy’s high level of readiness, it does not bother him. He is echoing what OKH is implying, while still keeping his own conclusions vague. The Allies are ready to move, and can land just about anywhere; but as yet, there is no immediate prospect for the Grossinvasion.

  The weekly estimate over with, the old man went over his travel plan with Blumentritt for tomorrow. Finished with the itinerary, he was done for the day. He told Blumentritt with a smile that he and Hans-Gerd were going to dine at one of his favorite restaurants—the Coq Hardi, near Bougival.15

  Father and son departed by auto for the restaurant at around 1 p.m. They spend the next couple hours dining in luxury. With the meal over, they did a bit of shopping in the small local stores before returning to St.-Germain under drizzling skies. They retired for a relaxing late afternoon and evening in the field marshal’s sumptuous château. Tomorrow, they will begin his tour of the Atlantic. He plans to leave his villa in the morning. The first day, they will tour the Normandy section.

  ***

  Around 10 p.m., after Hans-Gerd has gone to bed, Blumentritt walks in on the old man with a special message. Meyer-Detring has received a communication from Fifteenth Army Intelligence. The second line of t
he Verlaine poem has just come in. If Army Intelligence (now under the SS) is correct, the invasion is only one or two days away. Blumentritt needs to know if von Rundstedt wants to alert the two armies along the coast.

  Von Rundstedt looks skeptically at his chief of staff without even looking at the message. He doubts that there is any truth to it. He does not believe in any of this spy nonsense anyway, and he sure as hell does not believe that the enemy would risk tipping the Germans off that they are coming, just to get some Widerstand fighters active.

  “Blumentritt,” he growls, “do you think that a commander like Eisenhower would announce the invasion over the BBC?”

  Of course, when the Old Man put it that way… “Well, sir,” the chief replies, “Even so, von Salmuth is alerting the Fifteenth Army.”

  The field marshal snorts derisively. He pauses and looks up. “Well, pass the information on to OKW and to Blaskowitz.”

  “Shall we order a general alert?”

  “No,” the field marshal barks. “Especially not in this weather.”

  Thousands of Resistance fighters, alerted by hundreds of special coded messages that have been broadcast by the BBC (including the Verlaine verse), prepare to execute dozens of different missions against their four-year oppressors. They uncover hidden explosives, guns, knives, and other weapons or equipment that they will need in the next 48 hours.

  Each of their missions has some significance to the upcoming invasion. Many of them will have to do with cutting communication links, while others will attack transportation routes. They will damage bridges, block roads, or cause breaks in rail lines, including the Avranches, Cherbourg, and Caen rail lines into St. Lô.

  All of these missions are designed to further isolate western France.

  This afternoon, the Führer is getting a fecal examination by his doctor for his meteorism.16 That evening, they will hear Roosevelt on the radio, broadcasting the liberation of Rome.

  ***

  While von Rundstedt enjoys his evening in his villa, Oberst! Bodo Zimmermann is in the OB West senior officers’ mess, located in a spacious French residence some 300 meters away. This home had also been appropriated when the field marshal had first relocated his headquarters to St.-Germain-en-Laye. The ground floor had been turned into a mess hall and recreational area, while the bedrooms upstairs had been converted into quarters for some of the senior officers, including Zimmermann.

  Bodo Zimmermann is in his mid-fifties, about 5’8” tall and of medium-slim build. He considers himself good-looking and fit for his age. A concise and precise officer, he is usually relaxed and confident, although some consider him to be arrogant at times. Well, perhaps he is.

  Tonight, after changing clothes in his quarters, he had come downstairs, and he and some 30 other officers had sat down at the long dinner table to a common meal.17 There had been the simple salad and the beef course (extra vegetables, of course, cost an individual extra), along with some French cheese and an adequate red wine. The conversation had been heated and centered, as usually was the case, around the upcoming invasion. But the officers, he has noticed, seem decidedly pessimistic in their views, and he finds that disturbing. The Allies have gone to great lengths to display their total command in the last month. Supply lines, one logistics officer pointed out, were being regularly strafed and bombed. Around this time last year, a daily average of 200 supply trains would enter the Parisian rail network. Now that daily average is down to less than ten.

  Most of the officers (just like the old man) express little confidence in their famed Atlantikwall. It is a paper tiger, a bluff that the Allies will soon deliberately and determinedly call. The predominant opinion at the table was that the Schwerpunkt would be somewhere along the beaches between the Vire and the Orne estuaries, weakly defended by a hodgepodge of second-rate units, undermanned, underqualified, and unreliable.

  “And,” one officer had added, “it’s a good bet that the Allies know it, too.” Zimmermann, smoking a cigar as he often did, had to agree.

  That point had been driven home in early April. Zimmermann had been studying some recent aerial recon photos that the Luftwaffe had been lucky to have taken along England’s southern coast. Studying the photos, he had noted on a couple of them some unidentified flat-surface vessels that were being towed. They seemed to resemble some type of floating platforms, an analyst had noted. Well, it was obvious that they were somehow tied in to the invasion. But how? Weapons platforms? Perhaps to ferry tanks across the Channel? No one in the headquarters knew.

  Sometime later, a connection had unexpectedly come to mind. He remembered back to a trip that he had taken before the war to Algiers. There he had noted with interest similar type concrete platforms, being used offshore to unload cargo. These makeshift wharves were being used as a sort of offshore “artificial harbor.” The concept had been a novel one, and because of that it had stuck in his mind. After viewing the photos, Zimmermann had later sent a detailed report of his analysis to Admiral Krancke at Naval Group West, but Krancke had dismissed the idea of portable harbors as “unrealistic and highly improbable.”

  Zimmermann is still in the dining room, talking with some fellow officers around 9:30 p.m., when an orderly comes in and informs him that Major Doertenback has arrived and urgently needs to see him. Zimmermann follows the orderly into the adjoining anteroom. There Doertenback is standing, agitated and out of breath. The major reports in an excited tone that their counterintelligence men have deciphered a message from the BBC to the French Underground, a sort of call to mobilization.

  Zimmermann is skeptical. Normally a traditionalist, he distrusts most spy reports, just like his boss. He is tempted to dismiss the Verlaine poem warning.

  A short time later, Major Brink arrives and tells Zimmermann that Colonel Reile has intercepted other recent trigger messages. He sees the threat of a landing soon. Now Zimmermann decides it is time to act.

  Picking up the phone there in the anteroom, he puts in a call to General Blumentritt at the field marshal’s villa. He tells him about the deciphered message. They already know, having been warned by Meyer. Wearily, while not initiating an alert, von Rundstedt authorizes the transmission of a warning message to all commands. Drafted, it reads:

  Several phrases known to us since the autumn of 1943 to give brief notice of the start of the invasion, were broadcast for the first time today by the British radio.

  While we cannot expect that the invasion itself will be announced in advance by radio, it is to be anticipated that the sabotage acts prepared against our transport and communications networks in connection with the invasion, and perhaps armed uprisings as well, are to be set off by these messages.

  The message goes out to all commands.18 The copy for Heeresgruppe B is addressed to the attention of Hans Speidel.

  Phone calls from OB West go out to all major Western European commands stating that code words broadcast by the BBC will summon French Resistance units to rise up in the next night or two, and that this should be considered a general warning. Heeresgruppe B is to go to Alarmstufe II. All other commands are to increase their vigilance. The phone calls are followed up by confirming messages.

  ***

  Admiral Hennecke in Cherbourg has spent a relaxing day, bolstered by the forecast his staff has given him that the weather will continue to be foul for several days. That means that the next date on which similar conditions of tide, moon and overall weather situation necessary for a landing would coincide would not be until the second half of June.

  He has therefore enjoyed a relaxing, informal day. After all, he deserved it. Last night had given him some jitters. That radar report from that coastal station had shaken him up. And the tides and the moon phase for the next three days would be ideal for an amphibious landing. What if the Allies decided to go anyway, despite the bad weather? He had been relieved that everything had turned out for the best. The radar contact had faded away into the night.

  So today the headquarters enjoys a nice day
of bad weather. That evening, since no alerts have been received, he attends a small social function. Having gone to a concert given by a German “USO” troop, he has asked a number of performers back to his villa. He is now listening with his wife to one of his senior lieutenants playing Schumann’s “Papillons.”

  As the music wafts on, the admiral hardly notices that one of his lieutenants is called to the phone. The call is from the battle headquarters in the tunnel below the villa. They relay a report for the admiral. The staff member returns to the room and comes over to him with the message.

  “Some very heavy air raids on towns and roads in the coastal area, Herr Admiral. Other strong bomber formations are reported from the Calvados coast.”

  The admiral, his eyes never leaving the musicians, gently nods his head in acknowledgment and calmly glances at his watch. It is 11:30 p.m.

  About ten minutes later, another message is relayed to him. Luftwaffe headquarters in Paris has reported that 50–60 twin-engine aircraft are approaching the Cherbourg peninsula from the west. Could this be the long-awaited invasion? The musical performance is immediately broken up.

  ***

  It is ten minutes before midnight. Just north of the town of Picauville near the Douve River is château Haut, the headquarters of the 91st Air Landing Division, recently arrived in Normandy. The commanding officer, Generalleutnant Wilhelm Falley, is getting ready to leave for the wargames in Rennes.19 He has stated that he is not worried about any possible Allied activity tonight. “There’s nothing to fear in this filthy weather,” he had snorted to his Operations officer earlier.

  Despite his sarcastic crack though, he does have some concerns. The presence of several enemy aircraft flying overhead worries him. So as an afterthought, he leaves orders for his men to be especially alert tonight. Then he and his logistics officer, Major Joachim Bartuzat, climb into his staff car with its pennant of black, white and red flying off to the side, his driver, Gefreiter Baumann, also a paratrooper, at the wheel. The car moves off with a rattle of stones under its tires, bound for Rennes.