OPPOSING COMMANDERS

GERMAN COMMANDERS

As Germany’s fortunes declined, Adolf Hitler played an increasingly intrusive role in directing military operations. By 1944 he gave his senior commanders very little discretion, even in minor tactical matters. This is very evident when German war planning is examined.

Generalfeldmarschall Günther Hans von Kluge took over command of OB West in early July and subsequently took over Rommel’s Heeresgruppe B command on July 17 after he was wounded in a strafing attack.

By the end of June 1944, Hitler had become disenchanted with the senior commanders in France and began wholesale changes. Oberbefehlshaber West (OB West: High Command West) was commanded through June 1944 by Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt. This theater command controlled two army groups in France, Heeresgruppe B on the invasion front in northern France and Heeresgruppe G in central and southern France. Hitler was displeased with the fall of Cherbourg and the failure of OB West to stage an effective Panzer counter-offensive in June 1944. Rundstedt was sacked on July 2, 1944 after complaining to the chief of the Wehrmacht high command, GFM Wilhelm Keitel, that he did not feel up to the increased demands being placed on him. He was replaced by Günther von Kluge, a favorite of Hitler for his leadership of the 4. Armee during the envelopment of the French armies through the Ardennes in 1940. Kluge had a distinguished record on the eastern front but was seriously injured in an automobile accident in October 1943. He was nicknamed “Clever Hans” for his political opportunism and vacillation. Like many Russian Front commanders, he arrived in France expecting to clean house of all the indolent slackers who had grown fat and lazy during the soft years of French occupation. He was shocked to discover the catastrophic tactical situation on the Normandy front. Kluge was aware of early plots against Hitler, and was privy to the July 20, 1944 plot. His leadership of OB West was short-lived. When the bomb plot against Hitler failed, the Gestapo was soon prying into Kluge’s connection with the plotters. After the Normandy front collapsed in late July 1944, he realized his days were numbered. Expecting to be arrested, Kluge committed suicide on August 18. He was replaced by Hitler’s miracle worker, the ruthless Walter Model.

Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel led Heeresgruppe B that controlled the two field armies in Normandy.

Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel was assigned to command Heeresgruppe B on the invasion front in the autumn of 1943. Rommel considerably invigorated the defense effort, and put his own stamp on the Normandy tactics. He had studied the Allied landings at Sicily and Anzio, and was convinced that if the Allied bridgeheads could not be immediately crushed within a few days of landings, the weight of Allied naval bombardment and air power would ensure their survival. Rommel was wounded by a Spitfire strafing attack while visiting forward headquarters on July 17, and he would eventually become caught up in the witch-hunt for the July 20 plotters. Kluge took over the combined OB West/Heeresgruppe B leadership.

General der Waffen-SS Paul Hausser commanded the 7. Armee in Normandy after Gen. Dollman’s death.

The 7. Armee (AOK 7) originally was commanded by Generaloberst Frederich Dollman. Through the end of June 1944, this field army controlled the French coast from the mouth of the Loire near St Nazaire, though Brittany and Normandy, all the way to the Pas-de-Calais. Dollman died of a heart attack on June 28. Rundstedt and Rommel both recommended that he be replaced by the 1. Armee commander, General der Infanterie Kurt von der Chevallerie, headquartered at the time in Bordeaux on the Atlantic coast. However, Hitler’s growing disdain for the army commanders in France led him to appoint a Russian Front veteran, General der Waffen-SS Paul Hausser. Hausser was a professional soldier who had earned the Iron Cross in World War I and retired from the Reichswehr in 1932 as a lieutenant-general. He became involved in Nazi party politics and, because of his past military background, he was involved in the formation and training of the early Waffen-SS formations. So he was sometimes called “the father of the Waffen-SS.” He led II SS-Panzer-Korps on the Russian Front in 1943 where he was wounded, losing an eye. By 1944, he was 64, 13 years older than his American opponent, Omar Bradley.

General der Infanterie Dietrich von Choltitz commanded the 84. Armee‑Korps in July 1944, and later headed the German garrison in Paris in August 1944.

The forces under 7. Armee expanded through June 1944 and so there were originally plans to expand the field army to an Armeeabteilung. Instead, Panzergruppe West, under General der Panzertruppe Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, was taken from 7. Armee’s control and made into an independent command, later becoming 5. Panzerarmee. After having made critical remarks about Hitler’s leadership, Geyr was relieved on July 4 and replaced by General der Panzertruppe Heinrich Eberbach. As a result, the sector directed by 7. Armee roughly corresponded with the American sector in Normandy while the Panzergruppe West command corresponded to the British/Canadian sector in the Caen area.

General der Flieger Eugen Meindl commanded II Fallschirmjäger Korps in the eastern sector of 7. Armee.

The two corps in Normandy under Hausser’s 7. Armee were the 84 AK (LXXXIV Armee Korps) under General Dietrich von Choltitz and II Fallschirmjäger Korps under Luftwaffe General Eugen Meindl. Choltitz had begun the war in the Polish campaign as an infantry battalion commander, rising to divisional commander in August 1942 and to corps command in December 1942. He had won the Knight’s Cross for his battalion’s performance in France in 1940. He would receive more attention later in the summer when he led the ill-fated and half-hearted defense of Paris. Meindl was a paratroop officer, and took corps command largely due to the important role of Luftwaffe paratroop divisions in this sector. Meindl had been an artillery officer in World War I, serving in mountain artillery at the outbreak of World War II. He switched from the Heer to the Luftwaffe paratroop force in 1940, and had his first combat jump in the 1940 landing at Narvik. His unit took part in the costly landings at Crete in 1942. He was decorated with the Knight’s Cross and his skilled leadership led to his appointment as a Luftwaffe corps commander in November 1943.

ALLIED COMMANDERS

General Dwight Eisenhower led the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), at the time based in Britain. Command of the Allied land forces in France was under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, commander of the 21st Army Group. During the initial fighting in Normandy, this consisted of two field armies, the First US Army and the British Second Army. It gradually expanded with the addition of the First Canadian Army and Patton’s Third US Army. In early August, it split into Bradley’s 12th Army Group controlling the US field armies and Montgomery’s 21st Army Group controlling the British and Canadian field armies. Although there would be considerable tension between Montgomery and Bradley later in 1944, there were far fewer controversies in June–July 1944 regarding tactical options.

Bradley had been a classmate of Eisenhower’s at the US Military Academy at West Point in the class of 1915. Like Eisenhower, he had not served in combat during World War I, though he had served in the Mexican Border War in 1916–17. George C. Marshall, the army chief of staff in World War II, had noted Bradley’s superior performance while an instructor at the infantry school in the early 1930s, and again while working on the General Staff in 1938 which accelerated his army career in later years. After raising the 82nd Division, Bradley served as deputy commander of II Corps under Gen. George S. Patton in North Africa in 1943. In Sicily, Bradley served as a corps commander, again under Patton’s command. Bradley and Patton had known each other from the 1920s when they had both served in Hawaii. They were a complete contrast in style and temperament: Bradley, the son of a poor Missouri sodbuster, and Patton, from a wealthy California family with a long military tradition. While Patton’s star waned after Sicily, Bradley’s rose. Patton’s decline began with an incident on Sicily where he slapped some shell-shocked soldiers for cowardice. Eisenhower had found Patton to be impetuous and difficult to control during his command of Seventh Army on Sicily. Bradley, in contrast, had proven himself to be an able and competent corps commander, if not so bold as Patton. After further impolitic outbursts to the press in England, Patton’s career went into hibernation, making Bradley the choice to lead in France.

General Omar Bradley, commander of the First US Army during the Battle of the Hedgerows, discusses plans with Maj. Gen. Troy H. Middleton, commander of VIII Corps.

In July 1944, the First US Army in Normandy had four superior corps commanders. V Corps was commanded by Maj. Gen. Leonard Gerow. He served in the Mexican punitive expedition and again in World War I. He graduated first from the 1925 class at the Infantry School Advanced Course; Bradley graduated second. Eisenhower was his subordinate in the War Plans section immediately before the war. Gerow led V Corps during the D-Day landings on Omaha Beach. The neighboring XIX Corps arrived after D-Day and was commanded by Charles H. Corlett, one of two Pacific Theater commanders brought back to Europe to impart their experience; the other was VII Corps commander Maj. Gen. J. Lawton Collins. “Cowboy Pete” Corlett led the Kiska Task Force in 1942 that was assigned to take back the Aleutian Islands in Alaska from the Japanese. He then led the 7th Division in the invasion of Kwajalein in February 1944. He found the British and American Overlord planners to be insular and unwilling to listen to his advice about amphibious operations. The European Theater had conducted extensive amphibious landings in the Mediterranean but had never faced a seriously contested landing; Corlett realized that their D-Day landing plans paid insufficient attention to German defenses. He led XIX Corps through the Normandy campaign, but was relieved for medical reasons in October 1944. He was later assigned to lead a corps in the planned invasion of Japan in 1945. “Lightning Joe” Collins, the VII Corps commander, had commanded an infantry division during the fighting on Guadalcanal. Collins’ corps had been responsible for the first major US victory in Normandy, the capture of Cherbourg in late June 1944. The VIII Corps commander, Maj. Gen. Troy Middleton had enlisted in the army in 1910 and had risen to regimental command in World War I. He had served as a divisional commander in Sicily and Italy before being given corps command.

SHAEF commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower decorates VII Corps commander Maj. Gen. “Lightning Joe” Collins with the Distinguished Service Medal on July 21, 1944 while V Corps commander Maj. Gen. Leonard Gerow looks on. Collins received his nickname from his radio call sign while commanding an infantry division on Guadalcanal in 1943. A few days later, his corps played the central role in the Operation Cobra break-out.

XIX Corps commander Maj. Gen. Charles “Cowboy Pete” Corlett (left) and 30th Division commander Maj. Gen. Leland S. Hobbs (right) seen in Britain in May 1944.