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The Last Prussian

Page 25

by Messenger, Charles;


  It was not until after Christmas, on 27 December to be exact, that Rommel presented his findings to von Rundstedt. He concluded that the Allies would most likely make their landings in the Pas de Calais, or between Boulogne and the River Somme. Allied air superiority would make it difficult for central reserves held well inland to get to the coast in time to prevent beachheads being secured. At present, the Atlantic Wall would not stand up to the sea and air bombardment to which it would be subjected, and once the enemy had secured beachheads, it would be very difficult to drive him back into the sea. Rommel therefore concluded that the enemy must be defeated on the beaches. The defences, especially between Boulogne and the mouth of the Somme, must be strengthened and he intended to do this through the laying of extensive minefields and littering the foreshore with obstacles. Two reserve divisions must be positioned close to the Boulogne-Somme coast to react quickly to any landing.71 Von Rundstedt’s own view was not too dissimilar. He agreed that the priority was to defeat the enemy on the beaches. If this failed local reserves should be deployed, but that there should also be a strong mobile reserve to be used to destroy what enemy was left after the local counter-attacks. He also concurred with Rommel that the Boulogne-Somme area was a likely enemy target, but that the Pas de Calais, being the shortest route across the Channel, was equally likely. What concerned him at this time was not Rommel’s ideas for defence but his role in it. Keitel may have confirmed that Rommel was under his command, but he still had direct access to Hitler. Consequently von Rundstedt sought clarification from OKW. The reply confirmed that Rommel was under von Rundstedt’s command, except in the event of an invasion of Denmark or a need to occupy Hungary. In mid-January this was further clarified in that Hitler gave Rommel control of the coast from Holland to the mouth of the Loire.72 Even so, there were still complications, which surfaced when von Rundstedt departed on leave towards the end of January. Sperrle was still officially the Deputy C-in-C West and he, Rommel and Zimmermann all issued orders, which created some confusion.73

  Rommel set to with a frenzy of activity, constantly travelling up and down the coast, and soon began to achieve results. Von Rundstedt, however, had not just the coastline to worry about, but also the situation in the interior of France. Resistance activity was increasing daily. In February 1944 he issued a severe order on the hunting down of ‘terrorists’. In it, he stated that if innocent civilians were shot, it was ‘deplorable’, but the fault lay with the terrorists.74 Many of those arrested for anti-German activities were deported as forced labour to Germany. Up until now, the military commanders in the West had resisted becoming involved in this labour trafficking. The driving force behind it was Fritz Sauckel, Reich Plenipotentiary for Labour Mobilisation, and he operated through the French and German police forces, which were not under control of the military. Originally, a deal had been struck with the Vichy Government by which a French prisoner-of-war would be released for every Frenchman sent to work in Germany. In practice, the proportion was one prisoner for every three workers and the round-ups merely drove many young Frenchmen into the arms of the Resistance. Von Rundstedt himself would later state at Nuremberg:

  ‘Disorderly, irregular behaviour behind the front of the Army must bring very great misery to the population of the country affected. No army in the world can tolerate such conditions for any length of time, but in the interests of the security and protection of its own troops, it must take sharp, energetic measures. But this should be done in a correct and soldierly manner.’75

  Even so, his alleged involvement in the deportation of labour would form yet another of the war crimes charges against him.

  By March 1944 the strategy for the defence of the West had become the subject of a bitter debate. The particular subject was the handling of the mobile reserves. Directive No 51 had been followed and von Rundstedt now had eight Panzer and two Panzergrenadier divisions. Hitler had appointed Geyr von Schweppenburg to command the armour, which was formed into Panzer Group West and directly subordinated to von Rundstedt. At this time, OKW had begun to consider that areas other than the Pas de Calais and Boulogne-Somme coast were likely invasion targets. They viewed Normandy especially to be at risk, but there might also be feints on other coasts, notably the Mediterranean and Atlantic. Rommel, however, continued to demand that the mobile reserves be deployed close to the coast. Geyr von Schweppenburg totally disagreed with this, proposing that Panzer Group West remain in the Paris area, with all the armour concentrated under his control, ready to mount counterstrokes in any direction. Friction between the two grew rapidly and Rommel admitted to his wife that he had had to be ‘very rough’ with the Panzer Group commander.76 Von Rundstedt, in an effort to heal the split, compromised by allocating some of the mobile divisions to each, but this satisfied neither, although Hitler expressed general agreement with what C-in-C West had done. Eventually, Hitler himself was forced to step in at the end of April and ruled that Army Groups B and G would have three divisions each while the remaining four would remain under Geyr von Schweppenburg, but the Panzer Group West divisions could not be moved without Hitler’s permission. Thus, in theory at least, von Rundstedt had surrendered direct control of all his mobile forces. This, however, did not mean that he stood idly by. In the British POW camp at Wilton Park in Summer 1945, there was a revealing eavesdropped conversation between Blumentritt and von Thoma, erstwhile commander of the Deutsches Afrika Korps, who had been captured at the end of Second el Alamein. Blumentritt was describing how von Rundstedt objected to Rommel’s deployment of 2nd Panzer Division, one of the mobile divisions given to him. Rommel wanted to place it astride the Somme, while von Rundstedt believed that it would be better kept concentrated in the Amiens area. According to Blumentritt:

  ‘When Rommel met von Rundstedt he always came in like an unlicked cub. He [von Rundstedt] always called him “cub”, he would say “Feldmarshal Cub is ambitious, you see. In Africa things didn’t turn out well for him and he would dearly like to be somebody. Take it easy.” Then they had a row which old Rundstedt started by saying: “You know, my dear Rommel, I’m too old for these things. Once upon a time we learnt a bit too. This set-up at Abbeville [2 Pz Div astride the Somme], half a division on the right, and half on the left bank, is no good. It ought to be there [sic – Amiens], but as far as I’m concerned, do your own blasted business in your own way.” That was that. Rommel just looked at him and went out.’77

  Rommel, on the other hand, had developed a healthy respect for the Western Allies in North Africa and considered that the Eastern Front generals were grossly underestimating the quality of threat that they were facing in the West. Fritz Bayerlein, who had been with him in Africa and was now commanding the Panzer Lehr Division in France, recalled Rommel commenting to him:

  ‘Our friends from the East cannot imagine what they’re in for here. It’s not a matter of fanatical hordes to be driven forward in masses against our line, with no regard for casualties and little recourse to tactical craft; here we are facing an enemy who applies all his native intelligence to the use of his many tactical resources, who spares no expenditure of material and whose every operation goes its course as though it had been the subject of repeated rehearsal. Dash and doggedness no longer make a soldier, Bayerlein; he must have sufficient intelligence to enable him to get the most out of his fighting machine. And that’s something these people can do, we found out in Africa.’78

  What Rommel feared more than anything else was the overwhelming air superiority that the Allies were likely to enjoy. On 23 April, he made this plain in a letter to Jodl: ‘With the heavy enemy air superiority we can expect, any large-scale movement of motorised forces to the coast will be exposed to air attacks of tremendous weight and long duration.’79 There is no evidence that von Rundstedt or his staff really appreciated this point. But not even Rommel really woke up to how the Allies were using their airpower in spite of his warning to Jodl. Apart from attacking all Luftwaffe airfields within range of Normandy, they had launched
a prolonged attack against communications designed to cut Normandy off from the remainder of France. Yet, in spite of their clashes, Rommel and von Rundstedt did become reconciled. It is probable that this was at a lunch given by Rommel for C-in-C West on 20 May. Rommel’s naval liaison officer, Ruge, noted that von Rundstedt was ‘visibly pleased with the invitation. In addition to many service matters, we talked about Karl May and detective stories …’80

  Von Rundstedt’s irascibility at this time was not merely because of irritation with Rommel. Probably more wounding to him was that his very loyalty to the Fatherland had been called into question. It began with one of the Generals who had been captured at Stalingrad, von Seydlitz-Kurzbach, a corps commander under Paulus. A number of senior officers in the Sixth Army had, partly through Russian pressure and partly through resentment that Hitler had abandoned the defenders of Stalingrad, agreed to take part in an anti-Hitler propaganda campaign. Von Seydlitz himself wrote letters to a number of senior commanders on the Eastern Front, including Model, Lindemann and von Küchler, pleading that they stop the war against Russia and join the Free Germany Movement then being fostered in Moscow. For a time their authenticity was doubted, but Hitler and OKW became convinced that they were genuine. Hitler now became concerned over the loyalty of the most senior German commanders as a whole. Schmundt, in order to reassure him, decided to draw up a written declaration of loyalty and to get six Field Marshals – von Rundstedt, Rommel, von Kleist, Busch, von Manstein and von Weichs – to sign it. Schmundt flew to Paris on 3 March and saw von Rundstedt, who apparently ‘having made up his mind that there was no doubt’ over the authenticity of the von Seydlitz letters, signed the declaration. That evening he went on to see Rommel, who also signed,81 before then travelling to the Eastern Front to get the others to do likewise. Von Manstein was the last to sign what he later termed this ‘rather curious document’, and did so because the others had signed and refusal to do so would imply that he supported von Seydlitz. ‘All the same, I told Schmundt that I considered the declaration quite unnecessary from a soldier’s point of view.’82 Worse was to follow. On 19 March the signatories were summoned to Berchtesgaden and ordered to declare their view of von Seydlitz to Hitler. Von Rundstedt then read out the declaration and handed it to him in the presence of a gathering of senior members of the Wehrmacht. According to von Manstein, ‘Hitler appeared deeply moved’.83 Von Rundstedt, and possibly the others, were supposedly invited to stay for tea. Apparently, after some five minutes, having hoped to raise the situation in the West, he stormed down to Berchtesgaden railway station muttering: ‘What’s the point? The Führer wouldn’t let me open my mouth, so I walked out on him.’84 Yet some were still taking von Rundstedt’s name in vain when it came to loyalty to Hitler. The movement for deposing Hitler had grown since Stalingrad. It remained centred around Beck and Goerdeler, but had drawn in an increasing number of other individuals, both civilian and military. Von Rundstedt’s predecessor, von Witzleben, remained deeply implicated, as were von Falkenhausen and the military governor of Paris, von Stülpnagel. Among the younger members of the movement, although it must be emphasised that one of its major weaknesses was lack of organisation, were Helmuth von Moltke, a lawyer working in the war ministry, and Adam von Trott zu Solz, a Foreign Office official and kinsman of von Rundstedt’s wife. Von Moltke made repeated attempts to gain American support, while von Trott, who had been a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, did the same with the British. The latter, in particular, or at least the British Foreign Office, regarded the resistance movement as of little consequence. Nevertheless, von Trott persevered and, at the beginning of May 1944, made contact with Allen Dulles, who ran the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) base in Switzerland. Goerdeler had also recently talked to Dulles and among the names they mentioned as being implicated in the opposition to Hitler was von Rundstedt.85 There is no evidence that von Rundstedt ever showed the slightest willingness to support the aims of the plotters, whom, as we shall see, he regarded as traitors. Von Neubronn recalled a conversation he had with him in August 1943:

  ‘Our plan had been to declare the Army in the West autonomous, as had happened a few times under the Roman Proconsuls, and to march against Berlin with it. Through the mediation of the English ambassador to Madrid, Sir Samuel Hoare, we hoped to reach an understanding with the Allies. But this possibility had to be left unconsidered because the troops were not secure enough in the hands of the leadership. Thus, as I reported to von Rundstedt, only the means of direct intervention with Hitler remained. Rundstedt listened to me calmly and replied that Falkenhausen had suggested the same to him a few days earlier. These proposals were useless. It was impossible to put Hitler under pressure. “I’ll be executed. But with that you won’t advance one step.” I urged him still more: “Herr Feldmarschall, the German people will one day call you to account if you don’t act now.” But neither this argument nor the repeated statement I made to him not on my own but on behalf of several generals could shift him from his view that the situation would not be improved by his intervention with Hitler and that the sacrifice of his person would not lead to success.’86

  One can only presume that von Trott mentioned von Rundstedt’s name in the hope that it would impress the Allies and that he might be able to win him round through the family connection.

  In contrast, Rommel was prepared to do something. According to his chief of staff, Hans Speidel, von Stülpnagel and he met at a country house near St Germain on 15 May 1944. Von Stülpnagel deplored von Rundstedt’s resigned attitude to the situation and said that Rommel was now the only officer of sufficient standing to act as the figurehead for the ‘autonomous army’ concept. Rommel agreed to this and brought his subordinate commanders into the secret. He had a further meeting with von Falkenhausen on 2 June, but the Normandy landings took place before the plans for opening negotiations with the Western Allies could be completed.87

  The waiting for the invasion to take place was probably getting on von Rundstedt’s nerves, as it had done before Dieppe. With the waiting, the uncertainty as to where the Allies would land also increased. On 8 May, he produced a lengthy appreciation of the situation. He noted that most agents forecast the invasion for the first half of May. He considered that the Allied preparations were complete and that the first wave would comprise 20 divisions. The main force concentrations were between Southampton and Portsmouth and landings could be anywhere between the Scheldt and the tip of Brittany, although the most likely area was Boulogne-Normandy.88 The Allies were not, of course, as advanced in their preparations as von Rundstedt and his staff believed, and he himself relaxed a little once the danger time had past. There are several indicators of this.

  On 19 May the Field Marshal visited Pétain at the Chateau Voisons at Rambouillet, not far from Paris. He brought with him an invitation to the French Marshal to accompany Rommel and himself on a tour of the Atlantic Wall on the following Sunday, the 21st. Martin du Gard:

  ‘Military curiosity uppermost, Pétain accepted; he would have also inspected the last English dispositions before the landing! The political aspect of the trip escaped him. When Tracou pointed out to him the meal that Nazi propaganda would make of his visit, the confusion that it had provoked among his followers, he realised his heedlessness. It was necessary to cancel the engagement. The danger must be emphasised, the possible bombardment. And von Rundstedt, who himself had thought only of the pleasure of discussing military art with a “colleague”, did not insist’.89

  Nevertheless, von Rundstedt was probably disappointed as he had become fond of Pétain, but the fact that he had proposed such a trip indicated a belief that the danger period for the Allied landings had passed. Furthermore, on 30 May he informed Hitler that there was no indication that the invasion was ‘immediately imminent’.90 In the light of this, von Rundstedt agreed that Rommel could return to Germany for a few days leave, which he did on 5 June, intending also to go and see Hitler and request the transfer to the West of additional forces.91 Von R
undstedt himself planned a four day inspection trip around the southwest part of the Cotentin peninsula. It was to begin on 6 June.92 Eugen Dollmann, commanding Seventh Army, summoned most of his senior commanders to a map exercise at Rennes on 5 June.

  OKW was not, however, quite so confident that the time of high threat had passed. On 2 June Keitel sent von Rundstedt an order reminding him that in January and February Hitler had declared certain islands and coastal areas as Festungen (fortresses) and that their commanders were answerable only to him – another restriction on C-in-C’s authority. On the same day OKW asked von Rundstedt why he had not increased the alert state. The Field Marshal replied that if he did it would only really affect the French railways. All rolling stock would become dedicated to transporting reinforcements and supplies and this would mean that the French themselves would be left with nothing. This would surely damage the economy and lead to increased unrest. He therefore preferred to delay this step as long as possible. In all other respects, he assured OKW, his command was prepared and ready for invasion.93

  As Rommel left for Germany, Eisenhower, who had been forced to postpone D-day by 24 hours because of bad weather, made his final decision. The Normandy landings would take place in the early hours of the following morning, Tuesday 6 June.

  10

  Normandy and the Bomb Plot

  AT 2115 HOURS on 5 June the French Service of the BBC began to broadcast its nightly set of coded messages for the French Resistance. Included in them was the following announcement:

  To-day the Supreme Commander directs me to say this: In due course instructions of great importance will be given to you through this channel, but it will not be possible always to give these instructions at a previously announced time. Therefore you must get into the habit of listening at all hours.’1

 

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