Schwerpunkt: From D-Day to the Fall of the Third Reich (28 page)

I can’t help but think how ironic it is that the motto of our soldiers whom he commands is “Gott mit uns.” God really is with us and I pray for General Rommel’s recovery with all my heart. He is the only one who can lead us to victory over our enemies. I mean, of course der Führer can and does not need the help of ordinary Field Marshals to help him because he is a genius. But Herr Field Marshal Rommel is no ordinary general and even der Führer recognizes this, having awarded him so many promotions and medals. He had master minded the defenses for Caen and had defeated his enemy Montgomery even while he was absent from our headquarters.

So after the fierce battle for Caen during the first week of July, not to be confused with the fiercer battle during this past week, the city was really of no further strategic value to us but we were nevertheless ordered to continue defending it if only to keep the enemy from fortifying the area around Falaise and prevent him from driving straight on to Paris. We held the high ground just six or seven kilometers from Caen and we occupied the next town over which had tall stacks from a steel mill from which we could observe everything around us. Why we were still keeping troops around the city itself was a mystery to me and to the generals around me. It was not, however, a mystery to der Führer who ordered Caen to be held to the last man. We were just never let in on why we had to defend so dearly a bombed out city with little or no more strategic value given our holdings in the surrounding area. But our Führer is the genius and we are to do what we are told. So our troops continued to defend Caen while the Americans are hours away from breaking out of the hedgerow territories in the west. Once that happens, they will be on their own move through flat, open tank country towards Paris.

With Field Marshal Rommel so severely injured, a replacement general (if there can be such a thing) arrived in Normandy today, 20. July, but General von Kluge was unimpressed with him so he therefore decided that he himself should be put in sole charge of General Rommel’s Army Group B. I sure hope he cleared it with our Commander in Chief or I shall expect that he will shortly be answering for his temerity in Berlin. Nevertheless, with that decision made, General von Kluge moved himself into La Roche Guyon, the same fortress where General Rommel has our headquarters. He will now be my new boss.

For his first test, it seems the town of Avranches requires his immediate attention. Given that we had four divisions and a regiment positioned around Avranches, we thought we would have the amateur Americans on the run. We were defending, of course, but we were sometimes attacking as well and we received encouraging reports from the field. For once, our Luftwaffe was right where it needed to be, doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing and the Americans were suffering because of it. But then the reports came in saying the Americans had taken the town and were going house to house to find and destroy whatever defenders remained. They were also targeting every soldier who tried to leave the town and our losses mounted by the hour. General von Kluge ordered his officers to employ different tactics but by the end of the month the town was lost. The next reports from the west brought even worse new to us. The enemy tanks were finally out of the bocage. We now knew the enemy breakout was complete and there was nothing that General von Kluge, the new Commander of Army Group B, could do about it. The Americans were racing east towards the Seine and presumably to our border. Gott sei Dank that we have the impenetrable West Wall to protect us.

When it rains, doesn’t it pour! We have been closely watching Field Marshal Rommel’s condition and have not been receiving good news about his health and recovery at this point. We’ve been told it is touch and go and no one knows if he will fully recover. Then, if that were not enough, we just heard that der Führer was attacked by a bomb and he himself was almost killed! This was on 20. July. The details are exceedingly scarce and all that we have been told is that someone planted a bomb in a briefcase and set it under the table that he and some other generals were using to show map positions of us and our enemies. The briefcase with the bomb in it detonated and by another of God’s miracles, the table saved our Führer’s life. Of course, he was bruised and scraped and badly shaken but he is a hero. A genius and a hero. He knew exactly where to stand to escape death! That he survived with so few injuries truly is a miracle and proof again that God is with us. Der Führer is now searching out these traitors and I’m sure they will be dealt with quickly and fairly.

Before we heard about the attempt on der Führer’s life, I was sent to dispatch yet another letter from General von Kluge to der Führer wherein I was gratified to see that he again recognized that General Rommel’s assessment of weeks earlier was completely accurate. He was sending essentially the same message to Hitler that he and General Rommel sent earlier this month yet in this letter, General von Kluge even went so far as to seek permission to pull out from Normandy in order to reassemble our remaining troops closer to the German borders. When we received der Führer’s reply a few days later, not only was this suggested strategy disregarded, it was rendered moot because der Führer, in a bold and genius plan, decided to turn the lemons of Avranches into the lemonade of Mortain and he ordered a counterattack to be launched. He is certain that a lightening quick attack at Mortain will push the Americans into the sea. Not the sea they came in from of course, but the sea at the western end of this God forsaken country.

Der Führer has to be flush with the knowledge that he is all but invincible both in life and in strategic military planning after escaping, as he did, almost certain death by the bomb that exploded just feet from where he stood in his underground map room. I can only imagine that he thinks himself capable of almost anything now except, perhaps, walking on water. But it won’t be me who expresses any doubt of even that.

Remaining portions of the original Mulberry Harbor in Omaha Beach

Rommel placed obstacles such as these at key points along the French coastline to impede the invaders

Another hidden German gun emplacement on the Normandy Coast

The Germans fired on incoming enemy troops from well-fortified gun emplacements

Another well concealed gun emplacement with hooks for camouflage netting

La Roche Guyon, Field Marshal Rommel’s Normandy Headquarters

A C-47 transport plane with its Allied markings

A Higgins Boat: The front becomes a ramp for men, machines and vehicles