Chapter Three

The German Planning for the Attack

On 27 October 1939 Hitler summoned General Kurt Student1, 7. Flieger- Division (behind which nomenclature the paratroop arm was concealed) to a hurried conference in Berlin. He informed Student that he had in mind the capture of a fort and three bridges in Belgium by paratroopers transported in gliders as the initial thin end of the wedge for the major attack in the West. Student requested time to think it over and eventually came to the conclusion that it could be done. Orders were then distributed as quickly as possible for the preparations to proceed. Most important of all was the strict secrecy regarding the new strategy.

The operation would begin at first light, and just a few minutes before the official beginning of the attack on Holland, Belgium and France. If successful it would enable German panzers to reach the Belgian plain very quickly, shut down the resistance of the Dyle Line and strike a hard blow at Allied forces in the region. This surprise move was an important innovation to be added to the plan for the western campaign worked out in November 1939 and which was essentially the 1914 Schlieffen Plan again. The main aim of the German attack was to break through the Belgian and French lines between Liège and Sedan, link up the ground and air units, and enable General von Rundstedt’s Army Group A to move through. This group was made up of 4. Army (General von Kluge), 12. Army (General Kleist) and 16. Army (General Buch). A major force of panzers and motorized units would be used to rupture the enemy front, and with the assistance of the Paratroop Arm encircle and destroy the Belgian Army. The occupation of Belgium would lure the British and French to the north where they could be deprived of their freedom to manouevre.

An attack at the Franco-German border had to be avoided because the French Army was concentrated there, but more importantly on account of the Maginot Line, a strongly defended line of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapons installations.

The innovative thrust which would result in the French and British forces being encircled, crippled and then wiped out was a “scything” movement, a “stab in the back” through the Belgian Ardennes. The Allies had never considered this possibility in their war games, for the region was wooded upland with narrow roads. No panzer would make much progress here. Yet the German way of thinking was unpredictable and showed a greater tendency to take risks. Although the “competent” Wehrmacht generals (including Brauchitsch and Halder) recommended essentially keeping to the Schlieffen Plan following the Mechelen incident in January 1940, Hitler preferred the innovation suggested by General von Manstein and advocated by Guderian and von Rundstedt. In this concept, the main weight of the German attack would shift to the southern flank and the breakthrough would occur where the enemy had not expected it and would therefore be weakest. The “new supplement” to the original plan had the advantage that the French and British experts believed the Germans would repeat the 1914 tactic down to the smallest detail and advance into central Belgium with their whole Army. None of them imagined that the Channel coast and not Paris would be the German objective, aimed at encircling the French and British expeditionary forces.