The pattern for the next two years was being set. The Soviets could amass in any area an attacking force so overwhelming that it could drive through the German defences, but their logistic back up was so poor that they were unable to keep an advance supplied for more than two or three weeks. As a result, startling breakthroughs of the type the Germans had achieved in 1941 and 1942 were beyond the abilities of the Red Army. Instead, the Russians pushed one attack until it ran out of supplies, then built up another in a different area. In this way, the Russians kept up continual pressure on the Germans, forcing them to move reserves back and forth between danger points. It was no way for the Russians to win the war quickly or easily. But Stalin had vast reserves of manpower and was willing to lose hundreds of thousands of his men in the slow grind that promised ultimate victory.
On the German side, Hitler had his attention engaged elsewhere. In July 1943 Mussolini was ousted as dictator of Italy by his own Fascist Party, which promptly made peace with Britain and the USA. Allied troops poured into southern Italy. Hitler’s longstanding fear that southern Europe would prove his weak spot was becoming reality. He organised a swift and successful capture of many of the Italian armed forces, some of whom were shot by the Germans, and also the strengthening of the defences in Italy and Greece.
On 3 November 1943 Hitler issued War Directive 51. Most of it was concerned with the war in the Mediterranean and the West. The Eastern Front, where the bulk of German forces were engaged, merited just one sentence. ‘In the East, the vast extent of the territory makes it possible for us to lose ground, even on a large scale, without a fatal blow being dealt to Germany.’
The trouble for the German generals on the Eastern Front was that when they tried to put this policy into action, Hitler intervened. Manstein wanted to evacuate his men from beyond the Dnieper, but Hitler refused permission until it was too late. Thousands of men were killed or captured who could easily have escaped the closing Russian trap.
By the end of 1943 the majority of the generals and professional army officers realised that the war was lost. In 1918 the army had reached the same conclusion and informed the civilian government that peace should be made as quickly as possible to avoid useless casualties, foreign invasion and the utter ruin of the Fatherland. In 1943 Hitler’s secure grip on the military command structure and on civilian government made such a move impossible. Some officers tried to persuade Hitler, some simply did their duty. But some began to consider a radical alternative: the assassination of the Führer.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Western Front
As 1944 opened Hitler was faced by serious military problems which would have daunted almost any other military commander. Hitler, however, was so convinced of his own superiority and ultimate victory that he simply refused to believe that Germany was in serious trouble and, instead, looked for a way out of his difficulties.
Hitler looked to the past and the future for solutions. In the past he found the figure of King Frederick the Great of Prussia, a man with whom he was increasingly coming to identify. Frederick had won a series of brilliant victories in the mid-18th century before finding himself faced by a monumental coalition of forces in the Seven Years War, which began in 1756. By 1762 Prussia was facing invasion and crushing defeat when the Czarina Elisabeth suddenly died. Her successor pulled Russia out of the anti-Prussian coalition, allowing Frederick to defeat his remaining enemies and win the war by 1763.
As 1944 progressed Hitler was to refer to Frederick time and again as an example of how a leader can snatch victory from defeat. His comment to Rundstedt in July was typical: ‘Under all circumstances we will continue this battle until, as Frederick the Great said, one of our damned enemies gets too tired to fight any more.’
But Hitler did not look only to the past, he was also looking to the future. In 1943 Hitler had unleashed the new panzers, the Panther and the Tiger, which were proving to be the best tanks in the world. In January 1944 a new panzer began to roll off the production lines. This was the Panzer VI Königstiger, or King Tiger, a radical upgrade of the Tiger. The new tank was bigger, heavier and equipped with thicker armour, and it had the powerful 88mm L71 tank gun, able to knock out any enemy tank at a range of over a mile. This formidable new weapon entered front line service in time to take part in the battles on the new Western Front, opened up in 1944. Fortunately for the Allies, the King Tiger was never produced in great enough numbers – less than 500 between January 1944 and the end of the war.
King Tiger, Paris, 1944
Hitler also had other weapons in planning and production, and he referred to these darkly as his Vengeance Weapons. The first of the V weapons to go into action was officially known to the British as the V1, but those who were on the receiving end knew it as the doodlebug. The Germans named it the FZG-76. This was, effectively, an unmanned aircraft powered by a simple ram jet and carrying a warhead of 2,000 pounds of high explosive. The guidance system was crude, but effective. The V1 was launched from ramps which pointed in the rough direction of London, after which gyroscopes linked to the rudder kept it flying in a straight line. It fell to the ground and exploded when the fuel ran out. The damage these bombs could inflict was terrible, but their low speed and low height made them vulnerable to both barrage balloons and fighter aircraft. Of the 12,000 V1s launched against cities in southern England, only about 3,500 reached their target.
More dangerous was the V2. This was a ballistic rocket, the ancestor of the missiles which dominated the Cold War: its inventor, Werner von Braun, was to play a large part in the development of the US ICBM arsenal after the war, as well as the NASA space programme. The V2 was capable of carrying a 2,000 pound warhead over 225 miles. Unlike the V1, the V2 was invulnerable to defences as it flew on a parabolic arc over 50 miles high and fell almost vertically onto its target. The only warning experienced by victims was a sonic boom seconds before impact. Fortunately for the intended victims, the V2 suffered from difficulties with accuracy caused by electrical problems in the gyrocompass guidance system. Nevertheless many arrived in suburban England. Some 1,100 V2 were fired at Britain, and hundreds more were fired at the advancing allies after D-Day.
Potentially more deadly still was the atomic bomb being developed by the Germans. Before the war began, German skill in theoretical physics was among the best in the world. Hitler established a top secret team of scientists, under Werner Heisenberg, to look at nuclear physics research and decide what, if any, of it could be used to benefit Germany. At first the team worked on producing a nuclear electricity generator, but later began to explore the possibilities of an atomic bomb. In late 1941, Hitler ordered funding for the research to be cut drastically. The German army had acquired vast coalfields by conquest from Russia and had access to the Rumanian oilfields, so nuclear energy was simply not necessary. Nor, since Hitler thought he had won the war, was a nuclear weapon needed.
By late in 1943, after the German defeats at Stalingrad and Kursk, the need for a devastating weapon was growing and Hitler’s thoughts returned to the atomic bomb. Heisenberg and his team were still struggling with the practical problems of controlling a chain reaction of nuclear fission. They replied that a bomb would take at least three years to develop and would cost a vast sum of money. Aware of the problems they were encountering, they told Hitler that the Allies could not possibly develop an atomic bomb for many years. The whole idea was shelved.
By the spring of 1944 it was obvious that all the weapons which had been developed would be needed to face the expected assault on Western Europe by the British and American allies. Hitler actually welcomed the prospective invasion, as it suited his strategic view of the war in the early months of 1944. Some 60 German divisions and numerous Luftwaffe squadrons were tied down in France waiting to face the Allied attack. Hitler was confident the coming invasion could be defeated, as had the Allied landings at Dakar and Dieppe. He discounted the successful Allied landings in Sicily and North Africa as these had been virtually unoppos
ed. Once the landings were thrown back into the sea, Hitler reasoned, the western Allies could be pummelled by the new V weapons. They would be unable to launch another attack for at least a year. He could then move his divisions to the Eastern Front to destroy the Soviets.
As so often before, Hitler had a firm grasp of the strategic needs of Germany. But by 1944 the Wehrmacht was not the all-powerful force it had been. Hitler’s sucess would depend on defeating the Anglo–American invasion of France and that meant correctly foretelling the answers to two questions and solving a problem. Hitler needed to anticipate where and when the attack would come, then formulate plans to defeat it.
Occupied France and the Atlantic defences were under the command of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, though the armies along the north French coast were under the operational command of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. The two commanders agreed that the Allied attack was most likely to occur in May or June and that it would be launched in the area around Calais where the sea route to Britain was shortest and landing beaches were available. They also agreed that supply logistics would be crucial to the Allies, so the major ports in the area were fitted with demolition charges to be blown if there was any danger of them being captured.
Beyond that, Rundstedt and Rommel disagreed profoundly about how to defeat the invasion. Rundstedt had little faith in fixed fortifications, preferring to fight with panzers and infantry. He saw the coming invasion in terms of a land battle fought some miles back from the sea. As a consequence, Rundstedt wanted relatively few men on the coast, instead massing his forces inland ready to deliver a powerful counterattack which would overwhelm the landing forces.
Rommel, on the other hand, believed the invaders would be most vulnerable on the beaches. He wanted to fortify all possible landing beaches with mines, pill boxes and artillery to slow down the initial disembarcations. Any bridgeheads established would then be attacked later that same day by whatever panzers could reach the beaches. The panzers would throw the invaders back into the sea before they could pour ashore in dangerous numbers. Such a plan required the armoured units and reinforcements to be divided up and placed close to possible landing sites.
Unable to resolve their differences, Rundstedt and Rommel put their ideas before Hitler. Hitler’s growing indecision and his refusal to make difficult choices was reflected in the way he solved the dispute. Rommel, he said, should fortify the possible landing beaches and was allocated the money and weapons necessary for the job, but the panzers would be held back. Moreover, Hitler insisted, the panzers would not be allowed to move without his personal approval. Hitler was concerned that the first landings might turn out to a feint to divert the panzers away from the real landing grounds. By attempting to find a compromise between the two plans, Hitler managed to throw away the advantages of both.
In late March, Hitler went even further in reducing the Germans’ ability to defeat the coming invasion. He moved three panzer divisions and one infantry division from France to the Eastern Front to defend the passes through the Carpathians and so safeguard the precious Rumanian oil for the German war effort.
In May, Hitler interfered again, though this time to better effect. On 2 May the Führer sent a message to Rundstedt and Rommel announcing that the Allies would attack in Normandy and instructing them to make their preparations accordingly. In particular, Hitler ordered, that three crack panzer divisions were to be moved to Normandy from Calais. Hitler gave no reasons for this change, and it remains unclear whether this was simply one of his inspired guesses or if he had firm knowledge of Allied plans.
Although Hitler had correctly anticipated the Allied invasion plans, when he went on to make relevant decisions, he once again compromised. When Rundstedt objected to the redeployment on the grounds that the main attack would be near Calais, Hitler allowed him to keep 15 infantry divisions in the Calais area. And when Rommel asked for the panzer divisions to be moved close to the most likely invasion beaches in Normandy, Hitler refused on the grounds that the panzers might need to race back to Calais after all. He then compromised again by moving the 21st Panzer Division to Caen, but holding the rest in reserve to the south.
On 4 June 1944 the weather in the Channel was windy and the sea was rough. Deciding that no Allied invasion was likely for several days, Rommel left his command post and travelled to Germany for his wife’s birthday. Likewise the panzer commander, General Leo Geyr, slipped off to take part in a staff training exercise in Belgium.
Just past midnight on 6 June Allied paratroops began to land in Normandy and seized bridges and road junctions from the German garrisons. German commanders on the spot organised localised counter attacks, but more and more Allied troops arrived by parachute and by glider. As dawn broke a vast armada of ships was seen in the Channel. Battleships and cruisers opened up with gunfire aimed at Rommel’s beach defences and by the time it was light hundreds of Allied landing craft were coming ashore with thousands of troops.
At 4am a telephone call reached Rommel from his headquarters. Rommel told his staff to use infantry reserves to oust the Allied airborne units and to send the panzers to the beaches. Then he got in his car and raced back to Normandy, stopping at frequent intervals to get radio and telephone updates. Rundstedt, meanwhile, was also busy. As well as trying to gain a true picture of what was happening, he was responding to the various landings being reported to him.
By 6am, Rundstedt was convinced that he was faced by a major landing, if not the full invasion force, not by just a large raid or feint. He ordered his chief of staff, Gunther Blumentritt, to call Hitler for permission to move the panzer reserves forward to Caen. Hitler was at his mountain retreat in Bavaria the Berghof above the village of Berchtesgaden. As usual, the combined staffs of Germany’s armed forces, OKW, were installed in temporary accommodation close to Hitler.
Blumentritt’s call was taken by General Alfred Jodl, the chief of staff at OKW. In response to the request, Jodl asked Blumentritt to ascertain the true situation before calling back. As the hours ticked by, the situation in Normandy became increasingly clear to Rundstedt and to Blumentritt. Phone call after phone call was made to OKW asking for the panzer reserves to be unleashed, but Jodl simply asked for more details before the Führer could make a decision.
In fact, Hitler was not even aware that Blumentritt was calling. He had been up until 3am enjoying the company of Josef Goebbels, Eva Braun and others. Jodl was reluctant to wake Hitler unless he had firm news to give him. It was not until 9.30am that Jodl finally accepted that the landings in Normandy were serious and large scale in nature. Even then he did not dare wake Hitler until almost 11am. At first Hitler, like Jodl, suspected the landings might be a trick to draw German reserves away from the real landing area. He demanded more reports and more information.
It was at a conference of OKW staff that Hitler finally approved the release of the panzers. It was 2pm and it was already too late. The 21st Panzer Division had shown what could have been achieved. Attacking directly towards the British landing on Sword Beach the panzers crashed into the advancing troops, driving them back to the sea in the area around Luc-sur-Mer before swinging left to take the Canadians landing on Juno Beach in the flank. It was a crucial moment, but unsupported by other forces the 21st Panzers had to fall back.
By nightfall on 6 June 130,000 Allied soldiers were ashore. Rommel’s attempts to defeat them on the beaches had failed. Two weeks after D-Day it was clear that Rundstedt’s plan to defeat the Allies once they were ashore was also failing. Montgomery had 20 divisions ashore in Normandy, while his old adversary Rommel had just 18 to oppose him. On 17 June Hitler visited Rommel and Rundstedt at Marginal, ironically at the command post built in 1940 for Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain. Rundstedt had barely begun explaining the situation when Hitler interrupted and began a long tirade of abuse at the way the campaign had been conducted. When Rundstedt asked for the 15 divisions around Calais to be moved to Normandy, Hitler refused on the grounds that they were needed
to guard the bases of the V weapons. ‘Perhaps’, said Rommel, ‘it is time to end the war.’ Hitler turned pale with rage, and stormed out, hurling abuse at his favourite general.
For the following month the battle to contain the Allied landings continued unabated. On 1 July, Rundstedt sent Rommel his last reserves, but the Allied advance continued. Rundstedt had lost 90,000 men. He phoned OKW to tell them that he could keep the Allies penned in Normandy for only a few more days. After that, said Rundstedt, it would just be a matter of a slow retreat eastwards and an inevitable Allied invasion of Germany itself.
‘My God,’ replied Jodl. ‘What can we do?’
‘Make peace, you idiot!’ replied Rundstedt and slammed down the phone. Next day Hitler removed Rundstedt from his command and replaced him with Hans von Kluge. On 17 July Rommel was injured when his car was strafed by an RAF fighter. Operational command passed to Kluge.
Despite the change of high command, the campaign in France went very much the way Rundstedt had predicted. Hitler’s continued interference consistently made things worse than they might have been. At Cherbourg, Hitler ordered the besieged garrison commander von Schlieben to abandon the inner defences for the outer defence perimeter which had been ordered, but never completed. Once again, Hitler was refusing to allow a tactical withdrawal to prepared defences. The lessons he had learned in the trenches of the First World War had become an obsession. The result was a foregone conclusion. Cherbourg, which could have held out for weeks, was overrun in eight days. The German garrisons in Lorient and St Nazaire stuck to their prepared defences and held out until the end of the war.
In early August, Hitler intervened again. With the Americans racing into Brittany and south towards the Loire, Kluge wanted to fall back to the line of the Seine River, a more easily defended position than the open fields to the west. Hitler refused and instead told Kluge to launch an attack from Falaise to drive through the base of the American advance and so cut off the armoured spearhead from their supply base in Normandy.
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