THE GERMANS KNEW the invasion was coming. They just didn’t know where or when. Their best guess was that it would come at the closest point between Britain and France—the Pas de Calais, where the gap is only twenty miles. It seemed unlikely to the German High Command that the assault would come at Normandy, some 100 miles south of Portsmouth, but they could not discount that possibility.
To accomplish this, every effort was made to create a border that could not be crossed. In November 1943, Hitler appointed Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel, “Commander, Army Group for Special Employment,” and sent him to France to prepare a report on the condition of the coastal defenses. Rommel found the defenses woefully lacking and said so in his report—a report that prompted Hitler to promote him to command Army Group B, whose area of responsibility included the northern coast of France. In addition, he was also given command of the Seventh and Fifteenth Armies.
Erwin Rommel had a conquerer’s familiarity with Normandy. In May and June 1940, at the head of his 7th Panzer Division, he had thrust all the way across Northern France to Cherbourg. After his brilliant but ultimately unsuccessful battles as commander of the Afrika Korps, Panzer Group Afrika, and Panzer Army Afrika in 1941–1943, Rommel was charged with creating the most well-fortified coastline in the world.1
Unlike Eisenhower, Rommel was not the “Supreme German Commander,” for he had a number of limitations placed on his authority and operational capabilities, not the least of which were the panzer divisions in France not being under his control. They “belonged” instead to General Leo Freiherr Geyr von Schweppenburg, head of Panzergruppe West, who guarded them jealously.
Additionally, there were severe disagreements between members of the High Command as to how the panzers should be deployed. Rommel wanted them near the coast (but out of range of naval guns) so they could be rushed to the front immediately to throw back any seaborne invasion. General Heinz Guderian, Inspector General of Panzers, did not want the armored formations concentrated near any expected landing area, for if that area turned out not to be the target, the tanks would be unable to quickly respond to the real invasion site. To Guderian, the panzers should be kept well back from the coast until the enemy’s main thrust became obvious. Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, Commander-in-Chief, West, and Rommel’s nominal superior (Rommel reported directly to OKW—Oberkommando der Wehrmacht), felt an attack on Normandy was unlikely and insisted that most of the armor be deployed near Calais.2
One thing Rommel could control was the coastal fortifications—what Hitler called the “Atlantic Wall.” In November 1943, Rommel threw himself, and everyone under him, into a frenzy of activity to improve the defenses. The Germans, using all the resources of the state’s construction arm, Organization Todt, along with conscripted and slave labor, did their best to turn every kilometer of coastline into an impregnable fortress. But, as they had learned four years earlier when their own parachute and glider forces overran heavily defended Western Europe in the span of a few days, even the best static defense was no match for a truly determined, brilliantly executed offense.
In the spring of 1944, the air of Normandy rang with the clattering of hammers nailing wooden concrete forms together, the popping noises of arc welders fusing steel rods to form the skeletons of thousands of concrete bunkers, the grinding rumble of enormous cement mixers churning out tons of concrete, and the scraping of countless shovels digging the fighting pits and trenches that were going in from Cherbourg to the Pas de Calais. Thousands of guns of all calibers were being hauled by train, truck, and horse-drawn wagon from other parts of occupied Europe and emplaced on their fields of fire overlooking the most likely invasion sites. Anti-aircraft gun positions were spread across Normandy in abundance, all ready to shoot down any Allied aircraft that might venture overhead. There were mines—millions of them—that were emplaced in the water, on the beaches, and for miles inland. Massive obstacles, many of them mined, were installed at the water’s edge to keep landing craft from reaching the beaches.
In addition to seaborne troops, Rommel was also concerned about the very real possibility that the Allies would employ glider and parachute forces. On 23 April 1944, he voiced those concerns in a letter to Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, Chief of Operations Staff, OKW: “I see the greatest danger in the enemy using every weapon he has, especially airborne troops, to break through our coastal defences over a wide front, and thus gain a foothold on the continent…. The most decisive battle of the war, and the fate of the German people itself, is at stake,” he prophesied.3
In Norman fields, where Rommel envsioned Allied gliders and parachutists landing, large and sturdy poles known as Rommelspargel (“Rommel’s Asparagus”) were planted; many were mined. And in nearly every field walled off by the formidable Norman hedgerows, the Germans set up machine-gun nests to mow down any Allied soldiers who might be lucky enough to get that far inland.
On paper, or so it seemed, Seventh Army had more than enough military might to counter any invasion: thirty-nine infantry and three armored divisions. Spread from one end of Normandy to the other was a fearsome array of German units: The 2nd Panzer Division was near Amiens, south of Calais, while the 12th SS Panzer (“Hitlerjugend”) and Panzer Lehr Divisions were stationed near Alençon, some fifty miles south of the Norman coast. The 21st Panzer Division was encamped near Caen and the 116th Panzer was at Paris, while spread across Normandy were the 352nd and 716th Infantry Divisions, and various and sundry other units.
But Rommel had one problem he seemed unable to overcome: Hitler. The Führer still clung to belief that the Allied invasion, when it came, would be directed at Calais and refused to give in to Rommel’s pleas for operational control of the panzers.4
Still, Rommel felt confident that when the Allies came—whether it was in Normandy, Brittany, or the Pas de Calais—they would not live long in Normandy.
ALEXANDRE RENAUD WAS a man with a dilemma. Besides his full-time job as the local pharmacist, the World War I veteran was also the mayor of Sainte-Mère-Église—a small, sleepy crossroads town in Normandy—thus he was expected by the occupiers to cooperate with them, and by his constituents to resist. Whenever the Germans gave him an order to do something, such as provide tools, transportation, and laborers to assist in the building of some defensive work, and he could find no one willing to perform the work, punishments would follow.
In May 1944, the Germans were demanding all sorts of things. It was obvious that the local Germans were expecting an invasion—and that Sainte-Mère-Église would likely be caught up in it. The roads through the town were filled with trucks towing artillery pieces and carrying troops in all directions. In the fields cordoned off by hedgerows, holes were being dug and large poles were being planted—“Rommelspargel” some wag called them—designed to discourage glider landings. Trenches were being dug, and anti-aircraft guns emplaced.
When Renaud spoke clandestinely with townspeople, everyone seemed to have an opinion: the Allies—if and when they attack—will cross at the Pas de Calais, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Dieppe, Boulogne, Dunquerque. Brittany will be the target. No, it will be the Cotentin. Ridiculous—the Allies will feint at Normandy but land on the Belgian coast. Few thought that Sainte-Mère-Église was in any real danger unless Allied bombers decided to target the anti-aircraft batteries that were being installed around the town. After all, air attacks had struck at the bridges at Beuzeville la Bastille and Les Moitiers en Bauptois. Someone else pointed out that leaflets were recently dropped over the area hinting at paratroop landings and showing illustrations of Allied tanks and jeeps. They also provided information on how the British and American para-troopers would be dressed, and gave instructions on what to do in the event of an invasion.
Renaud noted that the digging of trenches around Sainte-Mère-Église was almost completed, but that the Germans didn’t seem to be in any rush. “With the means of punishment at its disposal,” he said, “[the German command] could have made the work go five times as fast, and could have demanded that it should be done by June 1st.”
Throughout May, the presence of German troops increased. Renaud said, “We have seen encamped in our fields infantry, artillerymen, Aryan Germans, and also Georgians and Mongols with Asiatic features … commanded by German officers. In the latter part of May, the artillery units quarter in Gambosville [less than a mile south of Sainte Mère Église]. The officers come to see me at the Town Hall. They need spades, picks and saws immediately. The town is to be secured, and the work has to be finished in five days. I reply that there are no more spades or saws in the neighborhood and that they will have to canvass all the houses in order to find a few tools. They phone the Feldcommandantur at Saint Lô to get instructions about what punitive measures to take. He gives an evasive answer. Discouraged, they finally go to a hardware store where, after threatening to loot everything, they manage to obtain a few tools. Guns are then installed at all the town approaches; on the Carentan road, on the La Fière road, before Capdelaine, on the Ravenoville road. Then, suddenly, three days after their installation, the guns are taken away, and I am asked to provide transport immediately to haul ammunition and food to Saint Côme-du-Mont…. Sainte-Mère-Église is once again alone with its anti-aircraft unit.”5