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D-Day Countdown The German Perspective Tuesday, 6 June, 1944 - Part One

It is midnight (GCT). Thousands of Allied aircraft swarm towards the northwestern coast of France, following the routes the pathfinders have taken an hour ago. From the northwest come planes carrying the advance elements of the American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions. From the northeast come paratroops of the British Sixth Airborne.

On the ground, thousands of the French Resistance make their contribution to the war effort. Cities all over northern France begin experiencing communications problems.

At 12:15 A.M. An hour after the pathfinders and the dummies have arrived, the airborne troops are jumping into France. The overcast, gray-black skies fill with hundreds of silk chutes as paratroopers fall into the dark of night. ---------

Speidel's party finally breaks up after midnight..The guests finally thin out. At 1 A.M. Speidel turns in to go to bed. Admiral Ruge decides to stay up a while.

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Just after 2:09 A.M., a couple of the surviving German radar stations are seeing large areas of "snow" all across their screens for a good part of the night. There appears to be two very large bomber groups headed for Germany. And a number of vessels have been picked up by surface radar, apparently headed for Le Havre.

In the next hour, these contacts turned out to be a hoax as they disappeared back into the English coastline. But now, one of the repaired radar sets, has picked up a large number of ships in position off the Normandy shoreline. Naval Group West in Paris is contacted.

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General Marcks is at his headquarters in St. Lo. The quick, modest birthday celebration given to him at midnight by his staff is now over, and he is wrapping up his plans for tomorrow's -kriegspiel- at Rennes. But there are other things to explore. Like all these enemy aircraft flying slowly overhead. Airborne troops? Probably.

At 1:10 A.M. (GCT) he gets a call from the operations chief of the 716th Division headquarters in Caen. Marcks' whole body stiffens as he is told of airborne landings east of the Orne estuary, around Ranville. The enemy objectives appear to be the Dives and Orne River bridges.

After a moment of silence, Marcks' Intelligence Officer tells him, "Sir, this is the invasion." Marcks puts his corps on alert and contacts Pemsel at Le Mans.

Over the next five hours, they plot the landing reports and issue orders, but in their minds, they have no doubts about what is happening, and where the landing will be.

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After a brief rest, Speidel is woken up and told about the airborne reports. He notifies all major commands. Reports now coming are perplexing and often contradictory. Some are illogical. Not having a clear picture yet, he decides to wait and see what develops. It will pretty much be his drill for the whole night.

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By 1:30 A.M., reports are reaching General von Salmuth, at 15th Army headquarters in Tourcoing. Supposedly, enemy paratroops were landing near the 711th's head- quarters at Cabourg on the coast, and that fighting was going on all around the buildings.

To von Salmuth, this sounds crazy. His army was on full alert, and enemy air raids were hitting Calais, but nothing much else seemed to be going on. So he calls Reichert at Caen. Finally getting through, he growls, "Reichert, what the devil is going on down there?!?"

Reichert replies plaintively, "My General, if you'll permit me, I'll let you hear for yourself." Von Salmuth waits a moment, listening sullenly, his eyes rolling upwards. Suddenly, he distinctly hears from the receiver machine gun fire in the background. "Thank you," he promptly responds, and hangs up. He calls Speidel and tells him that, at the headquarters of the 711th, "the din of battle can be heard."

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OB West first gets the word at 1:23 about the paratroop landings from Naval Group West, and that LXXXIV Corps is on full alert. Blumentritt and von Rundstedt are woken up at their villa.

They monitor the incoming messages for the next three hours, before von Rundstedt decides that it is time to bring up the panzers. He orders -Panzergruppe West- at 0425 to "reconnoiter in force into 711th Division sector." Keeping OKW informed, they first call and inform them of what they are doing, and then follow up with a message at 0445, formally requesting that the panzer reserves be released.

Panzer Lehr and 12th SS are already starting to move, when Jodl, at OKW, refuses to release the panzers. He too wants to wait and see what develops. Von Rundstedt, infuriated, throws his hands up in disgust and walks outside to prune his flowers.

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Around 2:50 A.M., Admiral Theodor Krancke, is awakened in his hotel room down in Bordeaux by a phone call. It is from Admiral Hennecke, in Cherbourg. Hennecke reports that airborne landings are occurring in the Normandy area, close to the St. Marcouf naval battery. Krancke tells him to alert his forces.

Krancke calls for an update from his headquarters in Paris, orders a full alert and naval sortie, and then makes imme- diate arrangements to return. He will get there around noon.

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At 3:15, General Kraiss, commanding the 352 Infantry Division, summons his regimental commanders. Telling them about the airborne drops, he turns to -Oberst- Meyer, commanding the 1700 men in his reserve regiment, the 915th. He orders him to lead his away from Bayeux locality and probe inland behind the division's left for paratroopers. The companies would have to load up, some by tired old French trucks, some on confiscated bicycles, and many simply on foot. They are to head towards the Cerisy Forest.

One thing is critical, Kraiss adds. If Meyer's men do not meet any real resistance and the invasion comes, they are to return as fast as possible to augment the men on the coast. So Meyer is going to have to stay in contact with division headquarters by radio Meyer acknowledges, and promises to stay in touch.

It will take him almost an hour to move all of his men out. He will in the course of his movements get lost, stay out of contact, and withhold vital reserves for the beachfront defenses for many hours.

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By 3:40, .Max Pemsel is busily filtering messages as they came in to 7th Army headquarters. A major airborne drop has come down along the Orne River on the right, and another has landed over on the left, near the Vire and Merderet Rivers. Marcks is probably right. Chances are, the landing will be on the coast, somewhere in the middle.

A dispatch is passed to Pemsel. Communications have been lost with Ste.-Mère-Église.

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Dawn at Berchtesgaden. It is about 5:45 A.M., and the birds are just starting to sing.

At Jodl's headquarters, von Rundstedt's message notifying them that he is releasing the panzers has been received. He has also received a number of calls from General Warlimont on the other side of town. Not sure at all of what is going to be landed and where, he decides to hold off releasing the reserve panzers, knowing that is what the Fuehrer would do, and reserving for him the option of letting them go. True, OB West is mad as hell, but that's too bad. They are the Fuehrer's to use, and it will be HIS choice as to whether they go into combat, or wait and see what is going on. This could be a ruse. If von Rundstedt wants to go over his head, let HIM wake Hitler up.

At the Berghof, Admiral von Puttkamer, Hitler's naval aide, has been told about the airborne drops. Does he wake up Hitler after only a few hours rest?

Hitler at this point in his life is an insomniac. He staysup into the early morning hours, and then only turns in when he can no longer stay awake, to sleep fitfully for a few hours. On the evening of June 5th, as was his custom of late, he had stayed up well into the early morning hours, entertaining Eva Braun some of her young female friends with his stories and trite chit chat. He had finally gone to bed at 3 A.M. To make sure that he slept well, his personal doctor Professor Morell (ll.149) had given him a sleeping potion. Obviously, the Führer would be in no mood to receive any news, good or bad, after less than three hours sleep. And the admiral felt that Hitler should be in good spirits before hearing about some paratroop landing in France.

He decides not to wake him. "Besides," the admiral comments, "there isn't much to tell him anyway."

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By now the Allied fleet and air force has pummeled the target beaches, and thousands of Allied troops are hitting the shores of Normandy.

D-Day has come. =======

* In an interview after the war, General Richter told Cornelius Ryan that he himself had made the call.

It is quiet at the Rommel home in Herrlingen. Dawn has broken. The peaceful silence of another day in a small town.

The field marshal is up early. Manfred, home on leave a Luftwaffe anti-aircraft defence unit in Stuttgart, is still asleep. This is a special day. It's Lucie's 50th birthday. He has arranged with the servants to have bouquets of sweet-smelling flowers from the fields in each of the rooms. The night before, he had carefully gathered his wife's presents into the drawing room table.

Later that morning, he would lay them out and prepare them, putting last minute touches here and there. Naturally, the handmade Parisian shoes that he has bought for her will be the centerpiece of the gift array. They are a special edition of platform-style, gray sued pumps, with black heels. And of course, they are her size: 5-1/2. 

Some time around 6:20 A.M., the phone rings. Surprised, Rommel answers it, still wearing his dressing gown.

It is Speidel at La Roche-Guyon. Rommel He goes numb as his chief of staff reports that `some sort of an attack' has been made. There have been a number of airborne drops in the Normandy area. Speidel concluded that he was not sure whether or not this was just a `Dieppe-type' of raid (possibly to divert their attention) or the actual invasion.

Rommel replied tersely, "Well, find out --- and FAST."

An invasion? In lousy weather? Can it be? Rommel calls Lang and tells him to pack, they may have to go back. In the meantime, Speidel calmly calls Tempelhoff in Munich.

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Staff members at Rommel's headquarters are optimistic about this whole landing thing. Many of the staff, up most of the night, have gone to bed.

OB West has ordered the reserve panzer divisions towards the coast. No one knows that Jodl and OKW have counter- manded the order.

The 21st Panzer Division, alerted since midnight, is now moving towards their jumpoff points against the enemy.  The target is the British paratroopers on the east bank of the Orne, holding the two bridges near Bernville. The 21st units are,awaiting Feuchtinger's word to advance. So in addition to the units mobilized and ready on the coast, three full panzer divisions are thought to be on their way into the troubled area.

Unfortunately, no one remembers General Pickert and the rest of his III Flak Corps, on the other side of the Seine. The flak units would not get the word until mid-afternoon.

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8 A.M. General Feuchtinger is mad as hell. He and his men had just begun to engage the British on the east bank of the Orne.. Now it was all for nothing! He had just gotten off the phone with General Marcks. That one-legged bastard had told him that he had spoken to Berlin, and that the 21st Panzer was now a part of Marcks' Corps, and his to command. That being the case, Feuchtinger was now to turn his entire division around and to go back to Caen  (which was probably a traffic madhouse by now), because it was being threatened by the British landing at the beaches. From there he was to advance towards the British beachhead and crush it. The beachhead, Marcks tells him, is the highest priority. The paratroopers will have to wait.

When Feuchtinger snidely pointed out that somebody has to keep the airborne troops at bay, Marcks agrees. Reconsidering, he allows him to leave behind one panzer recon company from the 22nd Panzer Regiment. Feuch- tinger leaves one, but he also decides to leave von Luck's 125th Panzer-Grenadier Regiment behind as well. No matter what, a lot of time will be wasted as the rest of the division moves back, southeast to Caen, where it will cross the river and the canal and then move up along the WEST bank towards the beachhead.

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At 8:30, General Marcks talks to General Kraiss, commanding the beleaguered 352nd Division. Kraiss is nearly frantic. His units are taking heavy casualties and are starting to run low on ammunition. It is true that the enemy is still well-pinned down on the beaches, but he does not think that he could keep them there. The enemy has taken severe casualties, but they just keep landing, jamming themselves at the base of the cliffs. Sooner or later, the Americans are going to break out.

Kraiss tells him with disgust that Meyer's group is lost, and Meyer's radio must not be working. Kraiss has scouts out looking for them. Marcks shakes his head, and orders Kraiss to keep him posted.

In front Marcks, the enemy has apparently landed in five main areas. The two areas on the left are American, and of the three on the right, two are British, and the third is either British or Canadian. The assault troops are supported by a massive fleet, whose size hax dum- founded his observers. The hundreds of aircraft flying overhead gave testimony to the air support that the enemy has committed.

At 9:00 A.M. Baron von der Heydte, commanding the 6th Parachute Regiment, calls Marcks. His men are moving towards Ste-Mere-Eglise. He has seen the invasion fleet, and is stunned by its panorama.

"This is the invasion," von der Heyte tells Marcks.

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At 09:10, Pemsel at Seventh Army calls Speidel. He has been calling all night with reports, trying to get Speidel to understand what is happening. Finally, he stirs the man out of his complacency by tensely reporting that a massive landing had taken place on the Normandy beaches, and that the beach defence zone has been breached in several areas. They discuss what to do for a good half hour.

A few minutes later, Blumentritt calls to tell them that Jodl has again forbidden movement of the reserve panzers until Hitler releases them. Still, Rommel's headquarters stays optomistic.

At 10:10, Speidel decides that it is time to call Rommel back and tell him the news.

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At Herrlingen, the hours go by slowly. Trying to kill some time, Rommel fusses with the gift arrangements on the table. The more he tries to act normally, the more con- cerned he becomes. He had no appetite, so he talks some with Manfred, trying to explain to the boy what is going on.

Finally, at 10:15, the phone rings. It is Speidel. It is  10:15 A.M. He confirms Rommel's worst fears. The invasion had begun. It was in Normandy. As the Chief adds some early details, Rommel listens in silence, the blood draining from his face. He must return at once.

He hangs up and tells Lucie the shocking news. Standing there, still stunned, he finally comments softly, "How stupid of me... How stupid of me."

Regaining his composure, he yanks the receiver up again. He calls OKW and tells them where he is at, and that he was returning to France at once. Then he tells his servant to call Lang and tell him to meet Rommel at Freudenstadt at noon, instead of 11 A.M. Tempelhoff will just have to manage to somehow return on his own.

Rommel is out of the house in fifteen minutes. Lucie, still in shock, will later discover that the birthday shoes do not fit her.

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Some time after 9 A.M., General Schmundt, Hitler's army adjutant, had woken the Fuehrer up to tell him about the landings. Hitler calmly listens to Schmundt's report, and then sends for Keitel and Jodl. By the time they arrive, he is dressed, but not so pleasant. They talk about the little information that has come in. It seems though, that between Le Havre and the port of Cherbourg some large enemy landings have occured in the early morning. Jodl added that more were expected, but they did not know where.

Jodl also tells him of von Rundstedt's order to move the reserve panzers forward, and that he personally has countermanded the order until they have a better overall  picture of what is happening, and the F=FChrer can decide himself where to move them.

Hitler approves of that, and Jodl is relieved to hear it.

The F=FChrer at this point is not sure if this is the primary landing. Twice he had said, "This is NOT the main invasion," and once that it might be.

The briefing quickly over, he suddenly looks up at them. "Well?!?" he barks, "Is it or isn't it the invasion?!?" Before they can reply, he turns and walks out of the room.

Later, as he is being driven to Klessheim Castle for his formal briefing, he is back in a good mood, bragging about how he would destroy the Anglo-Americans.

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By late afternoon, things have reached a strange pinnacle. At OKW, optimism reigns. NOW the enemy  would pay for daring to step ashore on occupied Europe!  Happy, Hitler releases the reserve panzers at 3:30 P.M.   Now ordered to move in broad daylight, they will be  harassed and pummeled mercilessly from the air by an overpowering enemy air force as they struggle up roads they could have travelled easily the night before.

Rommel has picked up Lang and is being driven hell- bent-for-leather back to his headquarters. Crazy with impatience and concern, he will stop once to get an update, before he finally arrives back at La Roche- Guyon some time after 9 P.M., too late to do much of anything until the next morning. His staff is now crushed over the day's events - except for Speidel, who stays calm and above it all.

At the front, the Germans have played their last card at destroying the beachhead. The 21st Panzer Division, finally in place to attack the British late in the afternoon, surge ahead into the long-awaited counterattack, with Marcks himself leading one of the columns into battle.

Von Oppeln-Bronkowski's panzers attack on the right,  and Rauch's 192nd Panzer-Grenadiers fan out to his left.** The tanks themselves are stopped cold by a well- protected, well-camouflaged, ridge of enemy tanks and  anti-tank guns. Von Oppeln's own tank is shot out  from under him, as are a couple dozen new but antiquated PzKw IVs.

The 192nd though, gets lucky. Breaking through between the Canadians on the left and the British on the right, they smash through to the sea, relieving some beleaguered units there. But no help comes to support  their advance, and sitting out there on the beaches, they feel exposed.

Stopped on the right, von Oppeln has not given up. Part of his men were dug in and the rest were ready to follow the 192nd up the middle. Oppeln ordered his defensive line to hold their position, and he began to  brief the other group of nearly 50 panzers on how to follow the panzer-grenadiers to the shoreline. General Feuchtinger comes up and agrees with his plan.

But Feuchtinger's confidence goes away at about 8 P.M. when, looking up, he sees the unmistakable sight of hundreds of parachutes falling in front of and behind the dug-in forward positions of his panzers.***  He panics, thinking that this is an airborne attempt in reaction to his counterattack, with the paratroopers intending to cut his men off. Concerned about his rear, he calls off the entire attack on the beachhead, and orders the withdrawal of the 21st to a new position behind them.

Marcks's men cannot stop the enemy coming ashore. Even at Omaha, the crisis ends as the Americans manage to get off the beach. The clearing weather makes it worse, as the Allied air force and navy pitch in to support the men beneath the cliffs. The Germans, low on ammo, shocked by the day's fighting, and seeing little relief, slowly begin to fall back.

Von Rundstedt, infuriated over the panzer episode, is in bad temper all day as he struggles to get a hold of the situation.

And on the beaches, the Allies, far from being in a celebrating mood, move at breakneck speed to consolidate their beachheads. They are pretty sure that they are there to stay, but you just never know. The wise ones keep looking over their shoulders for a swarm of German tanks to descend upon them. 

Besides, there is not much to celebrate at this point. There is a long road ahead of them, the fight has just begun in France, and thousands of their comrades already lay dead or dying at their feet.

 

* Many sources, including Speidel himself, state that he made the first or only phone call between 6 and 6:30 A.M. The headquarters war diary logged only one call to Rommel, at 10:15; But interviews by Cornelius Ryan with Manfred Rommel, Lang, and Tempelhoff bear out that there was indeed an early morning phonecall, and that the second one came at the generally-acknowledged time of 10:15. This 10:15 time is given further credence by the fact that General Speidel was only informed by Pemsel of the naval bombardment at 06:15, but not notified of any actual landings until Pemsel called him around 0910. Other unsupported works support the 10:15 call time. David Fraser (Knight's Cross) erroneously maintains that Speidel first called Rommel at 06:30 to tell him about the airdrops, and that Rommel later called HIM back at 10 A.M. Some other accounts are too wild to be given any credence. 

** Von Luck's 125th Panzer Grenadiers were left on the east bank to deal with the British paratroopers there.

*** The parachutes seen by Feuchtinger and von Oppeln are merely a pre-scheduled airborne supply drop containing canisters of supplies. The drop was merely misplaced, and landed in the wrong. Added to this to Feuchtinger's right is a misplaced 250-glider contingent of the British 6th Airborne that is reinforcing, also according to schedule, the two parachute brigades that had been dropped in the early predawn hours. The force will only lose one aircraft.

The German Perspective EPILOGUE

Field Marshal Rommel will spend the whole night of June 6th-7th getting updated on the military situation, and then spend the next couple days trying to organize some type of counterattack against the beaches. He will not be able to; for although a few components of the 12th SS Panzer Division will arrive, it will not be nearly enough to make any kind of a dent in the beachheads. And besides, the panzers will have been worn out by then. The line units are, for the most part, either shattered or barely holding on.

The after-story is one of three factors: total Allied aerial supremacy over the beachhead, a men and material meat grinder (where fresh men and material come in on one side and leave the battlefield either dead or wounded on the other), and the ultimate failure of the German military command.

With regards to the aerial supremacy. Fritz Bayerlein's -Panzer Lehr- Division is given the infuriating orders by General Dollmann to move out around 4 P.M. on the afternoon of the 6th. His men, waiting now for some fifteen hours, are finally forced to move in daylight. The cloudy skies of the morning have cleared, and the Allied fighters and fighter-bombers swarm down upon the armored columns. Bayerlein will lose 20 or 30 vehicles before dusk. Moving through the night, he will be continually harassed by night attacks, with the enemy using flares to see. Rommel's grim predictions are coming to pass.

And on the 7th, as the march continues, his men will suffer more. Through cratered road junctions patrolled by fighters; delayed in front of a damaged bridge; along narrow roads with trees or hedgerows on each side that hinder quick dispersal. By the end of the 7th, he will have lost 40 fueling tank trucks another 70 trucks carrying men or supplies, five tanks, and some 84 halftracks, prime movers, and self-propelled guns.

12th SS will fare no better, and neither division will be ready for any kind of a counterattack until the 8th---and even then, they will still have units on the road.

All over France, supplies and men trying to get to the front will be stymied and waylaid by Allied airplanes. The air war against supply depots, bridges, road centers, and railroad marshaling yards continues. The Loire River bridges, untouched up until now (for fear that it would tip the Allies' hand on the landing location) are now hit full force. And the air war is expanded to include any and all German units moving up in columns.

On the southern coast of Brittany for example, the 275th Infantry Division is ordered to move out its mobile units against the landing area . Twelve trainloads are organized. The first five trains carrying men and supplies only have to go 120 miles by rail.

But the rail lines will be swarming with enemy aircraft, and each train in turn will be attacked. Two whole trains will be all but destroyed. The battlegroup will have to make most of the distance by road, and many units end up going on foot. The forward elements will not make it to the front until the 12th of June, and it will be a few more days before the rest of the battlegroup makes it there.

On the seas, it is no better. Attempts by the Kriegsmarine to attack the amphibious force will meet with grave results. Torpedo boats will be sunk. S-boats will either be turned back by aircraft, damaged, or sunk by surface craft. Submarines will struggle to make it to the landing area, and most will be depth-charged before they get there.

Eventually, most of the panzer divisions in France will end up on the front (where they are ground up in the material war), although some, like the 2nd Panzer, 2nd SS Panzer, and the 17th SS Panzer-Grenadier, will take too long to make it. And the relatively nearby 116th Panzer will not even be committed before the first week in July.

The ground war ends up being a "material slugfest" (as Rommel feared it might become), with the enemy staying ahead of the Germans (though barely at times). On the other hand, four factors work against the Allies: the fierce determination of the panzer units, the natural defence of those maddening cross- sections of hedgerows, the failure of Montgomery to take Caen on D-Day, and Rommel's personal direction. These elements slow the enemy down quite a bit, and send him weeks behind in his timetable.

The Luftwaffe, trying to keep its word, sends squadrons of aircraft towards the front. But many pilots are new, and they are thrown against the masses of enemy formations piecemeal. They achieve little.

German casualties in the campaign are not limited to the lower ranks. Many colonels and majors are killed. General Falley, commanding the 91st -Luftlande- Division is killed in an roadside ambush in the early morning hours of the 6th as he returns to his headquarters. Less than a week after the invasion, General Marcks' command car is strafed by Allied aircraft. Because of his artificial leg, Marcks cannot get out of the vehicle fast enough and is killed in the attack. General Dollmann eventually loses Cherbourg to the Allies and falls from grace in Hitler's eyes. Disheartened and depressed, he commits suicide shortly thereafter, but it is covered up as a heart attack.

Regarding the high command in Bavaria, four points are borne out. First, Hitler continues to believe a second landing is imminent, and keeps the 15th Army tied up at Calais for weeks, while his 7th Army continues to get slaughtered at Normandy. Second, he rushes to get the V-1 and V-2 sites finished so that they can start their "massive" retaliatory bombardment of England, erroneously hoping to force England to sue for peace. Third, he orders Rommel to start an investigation into the events of the 6th. With so many key leaders gone at the same (as it turns out) critical time, treason must be at play here. Rommel quickly sees where this fruitless investigation is leading, and, being a main perpetrator, he quietly drops it. To cover tracks though, certain points and phrases in the log book are checked and once in a while, modified. Last of all, Hitler allows life at the Berghof to continue as it has been, complete with late-night walks and talks. The events at Normandy quickly get meshed in with the other distant warfront issues. Rome has been liberated, and the Allies are moving up the Italian boot. And the Russian summer offensive which starts as expected in late June, rolls forward and in the end all but destroys an entire army group.

Rommel becomes more and more convinced as the battle in Normandy progresses that resistance is pointless. Increasingly, he opens up to Speidel's plea to join the conspirators, until July 17th. On that afternoon, his luck at dodging Allied aircraft runs out as his Horch is strafed by two British Spitfires. Mortally wounded, he spends the next few months recovering.

Three days later,. the famous assassination plot against Hitler fails, and in the resulting roundup and torture of suspects, his name as a planned leader of the new government comes up. Hitler sends two emissaries to his home with an ultimatum: commit suicide, and be buried with honors, or face a humiliating court martial and have his family scourged in the process. He chooses the former and dies by his own hand on October 14th. Speidel, also arrested, spends the rest of the war in prison.

Von Rundstedt is finally dismissed by Hitler in July, and then brought back in September. He spends the rest of the war fighting the Western Allies, oversees (but does not really direct) the Ardennes Offensive, and is captured at the end of the war.

 

Pete Margaritis. (156)

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