Schwerpunkt: From D-Day to the Fall of the Third Reich (26 page)

Based on what I could determine, the word “political” was left out because I guess General Rommel listened to General Speidel who must have told him that language would be too inflammatory. General Speidel was right to advise General Rommel not to put a target on his back since we desperately need him here to continue defending France from the enemy for however long he can. It is not up to a general to advise the Chancellor of our country on political issues. The fact that General Rommel even considered doing so has shaken me profoundly and has made me consider whether our war can be won.

But whether or not the war can be won or will be lost, the battles continue. With each new offensive launched by the enemy, our casualties mount. Our divisions are being sapped of their strength and little to no replacements have yet arrived. Enemy bombing raids are also taking a toll and soon we will be at the breaking point. We have had no air support and though I will deny ever having said this, I’ve heard that our men say if there are two or more planes in the sky, they are American. If there is one, it is the British. If there are none, it is the Luftwaffe. I am getting the idea that we are now just holding on by our fingernails. Our only hope is that der Führer heed the warnings written by General Rommel and General von Kluge and send us more troops, ammunition, supplies, vehicles, planes, bombs, tanks and whatever else the enemy is depriving us of. If we are defending against the enemy so successfully with such a shortage of ammunition and artillery, I think how much more successful we would be with all the materiel we need in our possession. I’m hopeful that our Führer anticipates this and has put strategies in place to get us what we need. Our resources cannot afford to be on the decline just when the enemy’s strength is clearly on the incline.

Panzer tanks are crucial to our success in defeating the enemy’s advances but as expected, they suffer severe damage and often times become inoperable. Their numbers are declining but whenever possible, the tanks that can be repaired are sent to our field maintenance units whose “repair shops” are hidden in the forests of France. Our mechanical engineers work miracles and they have put tanks that earlier had been severely damaged back into service. One of our generals awarded these men Iron Crosses for the outstanding work they’ve done. But for their ability and dedication to resurrecting dead Panzers, we would have been left with even fewer tanks than we actually have at our disposal. But even with these heroes working their mechanical magic, we’ve lost too many tanks and received too few replacements. Since ammunition and fuel are also in such short supply, General Rommel considered the possibility that replacements had been sent but have just never been received.

Up until now, we’ve been transporting supplies on the Seine River and so far, the enemy has not yet detected this river traffic. Getting the supplies to where they are needed, however, has been a nightmare and clearly, not enough are arriving to allow us to go on the offensive. General Rommel ordered an inspection of the supply routes in France and sent officers to examine the situation. They are to find out why it is taking so long for critical supplies to reach us, but they can undertake these inspections only when clouds are low and heavy or when it is raining. They reported that at one ammunition dump, there were two men unloading a barge while ten others stood around watching. The dump was not properly camouflaged nor were proper defensive tactics in place should the clouds have lifted and enemy aircraft appeared. As expected, it was not their fault but the fault of some other officer, or department, or crew or misplaced orders or some other excuse. I hope this is an isolated incident only and not indicative of a general malaise starting to run through our army. It is hard enough to face the enemy with brave and driven troops. It’s too bleak to consider the possibility that some men may be losing heart and I now see why Berlin sends Propaganda Ministers to the front lines to urge our men to fight with more vigor. They are there to shoot those who don’t.

But in spite of these problems, we continue to defend our territory and fight for the city of Caen to achieve what der Führer has ordered: the destruction of the beachhead attained by the enemy. We are to gain enough momentum to throw them back into the sea. This order, coming after the enemy has had more than a full month to solidify their positions, seems a bit tardy but just as with God, Hitler works in mysterious ways. One just has to trust.

By 6. July, General Rommel’s defensive strategies eventually allowed our troops to prevent the British from breaking through our lines and prevented the unification of the enemy’s front line. Though the city of Caen remains in our control, we hold it most gingerly. And since Hitler is still concerned about where the Schwerpunkt will be when the enemy launches their real invasion and fears another invasion at the Pas de Calais beaches, he ordered the 12
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SS Panzer Division to move away from Caen, further east towards Lisieux and closer to Calais. That meant that the resources we have to halt the Tommies and save the city of Caen from enemy capture fall even shorter of what General Rommel thinks we need. Also at that time, we were on high alert because that night’s tide and moon conditions were identical to those of one month ago when the first landings occurred and we were duly concerned that a second landing might occur that night. Nerves were taut and everyone on watch thought he saw another enemy flotilla approaching his sector. When dawn appeared and turned into day with no more enemy ships or paratroops spotted, we relaxed a bit but continued to watch the Pas de Calais area scrupulously.

There was no further invasion, Gott sei Dank, but the enemy launched a big offensive in the Caen sector that day, almost as if they knew our defending Panzer division had been removed from the fray. In fact, the 12
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SS Panzer Division was immediately ordered back from Lisieux to Caen but, of course, the tanks of the Hitler Jugend Division were of no immediate benefit to Caen’s defense since they were so far away and had to travel under cover of clouds and darkness to return. I cannot even calculate how much time and fuel was wasted in this endeavor but I guess if there had been another invasion yesterday, I’d have wanted some tanks there to stem the tide of even more invaders landing. Hitler is a genius. But meanwhile Caen undergoes the second and third days of a third major British attack. Soon it became obvious that we no longer had the capability to hold Caen. Our soldiers were moved outside the city where it was hoped we’d have the strength to hold the high ground around Colombelles.

With its airfield at Carpiquet, I understand that it is critical Caen remain in our control. I can’t imagine what would happen if the enemy takes that airport and uses it to bring in even more supplies! Our men know they can’t allow this to happen and they fight with such zeal and ferocity that but for the absence of enough ammunition, artillery, transportation, supplies, air cover and replacement troops, the city would never fall to the enemy. As it turned out, it was General Krause’s men who were ordered to keep this airfield at all costs. His men numbered less than one full battalion with few tanks and fewer heavy artillery, yet they held off the enemy who we later found out consisted of four infantry battalions and two tank battalions. This enemy had superior heavy artillery and they employed naval as well as aerial bombardment. It seemed the only thing they lacked was the partridge in a pear tree. In the end, the enemy was able to take the airfield in Carpiquet but not before each and every runway or surface that could be used as a runway was virtually destroyed. Battle Group Krause at least bought us some extra time.

Since Hitler’s orders are to defend Caen to the last man and we had no more heavy artillery to accomplish this objective, bitter house to house fighting ensued. The Tommies made a “good show” and it was reported that even though they made some significant progress towards capturing Caen, the initial phase of their attack failed. They bombed the city, but the bombs fell too far back and did no damage to our men or our tanks to speak of. After the bombs, we received report after report that our commanders were waiting for the anticipated onslaught but none came. Our men had their fingers on the triggers of their guns just waiting to repel the attackers but none came. We waited and then we waited some more. During this time, of course, men were moved around by General Rommel like chess pieces being moved by a Grand Master. No enemy soldiers advanced for six full hours. By then we had moved every available body and tank into position and we waited some more until finally the enemy advanced. Because the 10
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SS Panzer Division had been moved to the exact position where it needed to be, the British ran right into them. Our Panzers held firm and stopped the British from realizing their objective. General Rommel’s tactical defensive plans have been crucial to preventing the breakthrough that everyone except der Führer was worried about.

At least as of tonight, the city still remains in our hands. We tried our own counter-attack, but the British held it off and we were pushed back. When we consider that we are fighting a foe with far greater numbers of troops, far more supplies and far superior air power than we have, it is a miracle that we have defended against the advance of so dominant a foe for this long. Many of the troops defending this citadel are noncoms and soldiers who were never trained for front line action. I heard that a cook from one of the field kitchens grabbed a machine gun from a fallen comrade and discovered a strength he probably never knew he had. I hope the cook at least gets a field commendation. Or a ticket to a brothel. But for his sake, I hope he wasn’t part of the Hitler Jugend 12
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SS Panzer Division because these soldiers aren’t even old enough to visit a brothel.

After the massive bombings and the concentrated offensive, the British ceased their attacks on Caen on 10. July. After a month of fighting, just for this city, we received reports from our German officers that the city of Caen, though lying in bombed out ruins, still remains in our hands! We check-mated our enemy again, even though we were grossly outnumbered. The strategy that Herr General Rommel planned to defend the city of Caen is working for the time being and although I do not want to be considered a defeatist myself, I think it is only just a matter of time before our adversaries take control of the city. No man can be asked to do the impossible but that is precisely what General Rommel has been asked to do time and time again. Our men are outnumbered by what ratio, I don’t know. 3 to 1? 6 to 1? 9 to 1? We are outnumbered something like 5 to 1 in artillery and 10 to 1 in ammunition, and therefore, no one can expect that Caen will not eventually fall into enemy hands. Only when further reserve troops and replacement tanks arrive, and only when we receive more of our much needed ammunition, can General Rommel even have a chance to be victorious. If things continue as they are, it seems to me that we do not have a snowball’s chance in hell to defeat the English, the Americans, the Soviets, the French, the Italians, the Poles and the rest of our enemies. Well maybe the Italians. And the French.

In addition to his worry about another invasion and these further attacks to capture Caen, General Rommel has also had to worry about the Americans in the west as well. Luckily, Der Führer has the worries ranked and issues his orders accordingly. We see that enemy troops are continuing to move further south and west. I get the distinct impression that Field Marshal Rommel recognizes that he will not be able to halt the enemy advance, especially as more and more of their boats are landing with ever increasing numbers of men and material. He probably recognizes that he will have to make do with the resources he has and so he has been constantly juggling troop placements in order to keep the British enemy engaged and isolated around Caen. He is not allowed to move them away from Caen to reinforce against the Americans in the Cotentin Peninsula. Out west I think General Rommel is fighting primarily to gain time in order for der Führer to read the letter that he and General von Kluge wrote and recognize and come to grips with the fact that, barring a miracle, Germany is probably no longer able to win this war.

Well miracles do happen and miraculously during this second week of July, we just received word that Hitler has released four infantry divisions to the Normandy battlegrounds and ordered Panzer Lehr west to deal with the Americans in the Cotentin Peninsula. Der Führer must have finally concluded that the enemy was not going to be launching a second invasion.

With this infusion of four new divisions, General Rommel is now planning to divide and conquer. He ordered that we advance into the gap between the British and the Americans around Bayeux and conquer them one at a time. Since the Americans are the weaker of our two adversaries, we were hoping to move much of this new found troop strength west to attack them. General Rommel also intended to move two Panzer divisions west to support them in this counter-attack as well but then we discovered that the Americans intended to launch their own major offensive to capture St. Lo on 15. July. All of the power of the newly arrived infantry and all of the might of those two Panzer divisions were now needed for the defense of St. Lo and our hope for an offensive action around Caen appears to be all but destroyed.

While we were waiting for the extra Panzer and infantry divisions to actually arrive, we needed nothing more than to slow down the American advance. The fields of the bocage were still providing us with excellent coverage and battle plans which took into brilliant consideration the advantages of the hedgerows were devised. General Rommel ordered attack after spoiling attack. With this strategy of making the Americans fight for every piece of road they gained, they were advancing, but they were doing so centimeter by centimeter. It took the Americans two and a half days to make any real progress and by then, the vanguard of General Bayerlein’s Panzer Lehr Division had finally arrived.

When asked what took this Panzer division so long to arrive, General Bayerlein reported that it was bombed all along the way by enemy aircraft. We learned that many tanks and Panzer Lehr troops were lost during this journey and if this were not bad enough, even more were lost during the bombardment that signaled the beginning of the enemy’s attack on St. Lo which started on 17. July. I still await the orders which command our troops to lead an offensive attack of our own because unless I am wrong, we cannot win this war by simply holding ground against this enemy who probably now has about a million men in France.