Falaise: The Flawed Victory - The Destruction of Panzergruppe West, August 1944

Just four days after the monumental D-Day landings in northern France, RAF Typhoons swooped down out of the skies onto a chateau and neighbouring orchard, followed by Mitchell light bombers of the 2nd Tactical Air Force. Surprised German radio operators and staff officers caught in the open scattered in all directions as the ground shook beneath them. When the prolonged raid was finally over a German general lay dead, along with twelve fellow officers; in one fell swoop Hitler’s panzer forces in Normandy had been successfully decapitated.

Intent on resisting the D-Day landings, Panzergruppe West became an operational combat command on 8 June 1944 at Chateau La Caine; within two days it had sealed its own fate. Allied signal intercepts from four large radio trucks parked in nearby trees were its undoing, tipping off the Allies’ fighter-bombers to its exact location. On the eve of the crucial Battle for Normandy, Panzergruppe West ceased to function.

Invasion where?

In the summer of 1944 the battle-hardened German Heer, or Army, and Waffen-SS stood poised to inflict a bloody reverse on the long-anticipated Allied landings in Northern France. That invasion was imminent was beyond doubt following the Allied landings in the Mediterranean the previous year. The failure of Operation Jubilee, the British and Canadian raid on Dieppe on 19 August 1942, had firmly convinced the Germans that they could contain and defeat an Allied amphibious assault on French soil.

However, the German armed forces, or Wehrmacht, stationed in Northern France, much to the advantage of the Allies, were blighted by strategic indecision, a cumbersome chain of command and a succession of commanders, not to mention the meddling hand of Adolf Hitler. The Allied landings in French Northwest Africa in 1942 and the subsequent defeat of the Germans in Tunisia the following year, led Hitler to believe that the Allies might land in the south of France and in the Bay of Biscay.

Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, Commander-in-Chief West, or Oberbefelshaber West (OB West), expected the Allied invasion of France after the 7th, 10th and 3rd SS Panzer Divisions rolled into Vichy France on 11 November 1943 in response to the Allied landings in Africa. The sixty-nine year old von Rundstedt had commanded Army Groups during the conquest of Poland and France and then led Army Group South during the successful overrunning of Ukraine, but had been dismissed by Hitler after being forced to retreat. Back in favour in July 1942 he had been appointed C-in-C West with the responsibility for fortifying France against the expected Allied invasion.

Rundstedt reasoned the Allies would attack the Pas de Calais as this was the shortest crossing point and just four days march from the vital German industrial region of the Ruhr. The massing of the American 3rd Army and the Canadian 1st Army opposite the Pas de Calais convinced von Rundstedt as well as Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel (who took command of Army Group B stretching from the Dutch border to the Loire in February 1944), and Hitler.

The Allies deliberately blinded the Germans along the Channel by knocking out their radars, though this had to be done in such a selective manner as not to alert the Germans as to the true location of the amphibious assault. RAF Typhoon fighter-bombers played a key role in this, striking sites from Ostend to Cherbourg and the Channel Islands. To help foster the illusion that the Pas de Calais was the most likely crossing point, some radars in this area were left alone. Along the coast, out of ninety-two radar sites only eighteen were operational by the time of the invasion, and they were to be further misled by dummy invasion fleets.

The net result was that Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW – the Armed Forces High Command) gave priority to General Hans von Salmuth’s 15th Army north of the Seine. This meant Rundstedt’s better forces remained in the Pas de Calais area due to the Allies’ successful deception efforts, which had a negative effect on General Friedrich Dollmann’s 7th Army covering Normandy and Brittany. A phantom Allied 4th Army in Scotland also convinced the Germans of a threat to Norway, pinning down even more troops in Scandinavia.

A team of highly experienced Army Group and Corps-level generals surrounded Rundstedt, including Rommel, Dollmann, von Salmuth, Geyr von Schweppenburg, Josef ‘ Sepp’ Dietrich and Erich Marcks. The key players in terms of the panzer forces were Rommel and Schweppenburg; they had the casting votes on how best to deploy the panzers to counter an Allied invasion, which would ultimately result in bitter acrimony.

Hitler accepted Rundstedt’s view though Rommel suspected an attack would take place between Caen and Cherbourg, with a possible second invasion astride the Somme directed toward the port of Le Havre. Following the attack on Dieppe the Germans could not rule out another frontal assault to capture a valuable port. At the time of the Dieppe raid, Dollmann’s 7th Army HQ had noted:

Many senior German officers assessed that if the Allies had achieved a successful lodgement at Dieppe it would have heralded a full-scale invasion: though Rundstedt did not share this view. What the German commanders did not know was where the main weight of the Allied assault or schwerpunkt might fall, which meant any initial landings were likely to be considered diversionary.

Hitler did take on Rommel’s concerns for Normandy and on 6 May 1944 signalled Rundstedt that he attached great importance to Cherbourg and the Normandy coast. In response the 91st Air Landing Division was sent to the Cotentin Peninsula, the 21st Panzer Division was relocated from Brittany south of Caen and the Panzer Lehr Panzer Division was summoned from Hungary to be positioned south of Chartres. This was bad news for the Allies having selected Normandy for D-Day and Operation Overlord.

Hitler’s armoured fist

By June 1944 about one fifth of Hitler’s field army was occupying Western Europe; Rundstedt had well over half a million men guarding the European coastline, with some fifty-eight divisions stationed in France and the Low Countries. Scattered across Belgium, France and the Netherlands, these forces included ten panzer divisions and one panzergrenadier division. These represented Hitler’s armoured fist.

These forces seemed formidable, particularly for the Allied planners trying to work out the best way to overcome them, Rundstedt though was painfully aware of their shortcomings: ‘I had over 3,000 miles [4,800km] of coastline to cover, from the Italian frontier in the south to the German frontier in the north, and only sixty divisions with which to defend it. Most of them were low-grade units, and some of them were skeletons’. This meant, not even allowing for reserves, one division per fifty miles (eighty kilometres), a clear case of over-stretch. The Allies had thirty-nine divisions, 8,000 bombers and 284 warships, totalling nearly three million men, to throw at the German defences.

Rundstedt’s forces were divided into two Army Groups. Rommel’s Army Group B comprised Dollmann’s 7th Army, consisting of sixteen divisions stationed in northwestern France, and von Salmuth’s 15th Army, consisting of twenty-five divisions stationed in Belgium and northeastern France. Dollmann, a gunner by trade having served with the artillery during the First World War, became commander of 7th Army, an entirely infantry formation in 1939, which he had led into France in May the following year. There he remained with his headquarters in Le Mans, tasked to defend northern France. The infantry divisions of his command were largely ill-equipped, immobile, second-rate units. General Johannes Blaskowitz’s Army Group G consisted of General Kurt von der Chevallerie’s 1st and General Friedrich Wiese’s 19th armies, totalling seventeen divisions, stationed on the Biscay and Riviera coasts respectively.

One key armoured command was the I SS Panzer Corps, this had been created in July 1943 in Berlin Lichterfeld, though it officially came into being at Beverloo, Belgium. SS-Obergruppenführer Sepp Dietrich, former commander of the 1st SS Panzer Division, assumed control, while the SS Panzer Corps of SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser was redesignated II SS Panzer Corps. The latter had been initially created in the Netherlands in July 1942 as the SS Panzer General Kommando.

Dietrich’s command had spent much of the summer of 1943 helping seize control of northern Italy following the country’s defection to the Allies. His Corps moved to Septeuil, west of Paris in April 1944 where the 1st SS, 12th SS and Panzer Lehr Panzer Divisions as well as the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division were placed under its direction, forming part of Panzergruppe West.

Most of the panzer divisions deployed in Western Europe were refitting after heavy combat on the Eastern Front. In the north, stationed in 15th Army’s area of responsibility, were the 2nd, 19th (scheduled to return to Poland), 21st, 116th, Panzer Lehr, 1st SS and 12 SS Panzer Divisions. To the southeast in 19th Army’s area were the 9th and 2nd SS Panzer Divisions; while to the southwest with 1st Army were the 11th Panzer and 17th SS Panzergrenadier Divisions.

Organisation of the Heer and Waffen-SS panzer divisions was similar, with a panzer regiment of two battalions or abteilungen, a Sturmgeschütz and/or Panzerjäger abteilung. The nominal structure also included two panzergrenadier regiments (one motorised and one armoured), artillery, engineer, lak, medical and reconnaissance units. In reality the structure and the manpower of the units varied according to local circumstances. In Normandy the German infantry divisions’ anti-tank battalions largely consisted of towed weapons, but six Panzerjäger Battalions were also equipped with Marder self-propelled and Sturmgeschütz assault guns.

Reserve panzer units were very sparse in the summer of 1944. In the spring of the previous year just four training Reserve Panzer Divisions, the 155th, 178th, 179th and 273rd, were formed in France. Their task though was to provide replacement cadres for existing units rather than being combat formations in their own right.

Nevertheless, in March 1944, because of the worsening situation on the Eastern Front and in Italy and the expected opening of the second front, OKW began considering using the 155th, 179th and 273rd to constitute three new panzer divisions. For the combat cadres it was decided to employ those divisions used to rescue Army Group South on the Eastern Front, namely the 9th Panzer and 10th and 16th Panzergrenadier Divisions. They were instructed to be combat ready by 1 May1944, which in reality was a tall order.

General Adolf Kuntzen’s LXXXI Corps based in Rouen, on the Seine, north of Paris had the only anti-invasion experience. His HQ was responsible for 302nd Infantry Division, charged with defending Dieppe and the surrounding area, along with the 336th Infantry Division. It had fallen to Kuntzen’s corps with the assistance of the 10th Panzer Division to halt the Allies’ Dieppe raid. The LXXXI Corps’ control of an armoured division had been short-lived and by June 1944 its subordinate units consisted of the 245th and 711th Infantry Divisions and the 17th Luftwaffe Field Division. Kuntzen and his staff would play a very belated and minor role in the Normandy campaign.

Conflict in the High Command

To defeat an Allied invasion, C-in-C West favoured the ‘crust-cushion-hammer’ concept, the crust being formed by the static sea defences, the cushion by infantry reserves and the hammer by the armoured divisions held further back. Schweppenburg, commander of Panzergruppe West, agreed with Rundstedt in believing the panzer divisions should be kept inland, ready to encircle the Allies as they tried to advance on Paris. His command had been set up with responsibility for training the panzer divisions, but it was also conceived as a headquarters, subordinated to the German 7th Army, to coordinate a panzer counterattack in the event of an invasion in Normandy.

Schweppenburg was a highly experienced panzer corps commander. A First World War veteran, he had served in London in the mid-1930s as the German Military Attaché. He then commanded 3rd Panzer Division for the attack on Poland and promptly fell out with his corps commander, General Heinz Guderian; Schweppenburg had been superior to Guderian, until the latter was put in charge of Hitler’s panzer forces in 1938. During the invasion of France in 1940 he had commanded the XXIV Panzer Corps and had subsequently commanded a panzer corps with Guderian’s 2nd Panzer Army.

By April 1943 Schweppenburg, commanding the LXXXVI Corps at Dax (located at the end of the Pyrenees), found himself lumbered with the proposed Operation Gisela designed to seize the ports along the northern coast of Spain. He dubbed the plan to seize Bilbao with a division and Madrid with four others as ‘folly.’ Luckily Hitler opted not to alienate General Francisco Franco’s Spain. Schweppenburg was transferred to assume command of Panzergruppe West in October 1943, now notably full of admiration for what Guderian had achieved with the panzertruppen.

In contrast Rommel wanted the panzers well forward to deal with the Allies as soon as they waded ashore. He felt any air borne landings in the rear could be easily dealt with by those troops to hand. Rommel had made his name as a panzer leader in France and North Africa and had also orchestrated the successful seizure of northern Italy. He knew only too well how potent Allied air power could be, which is partly why he advocated keeping the panzers near the coast. He did not reckon with the power of the Allies’ naval gunner, which would greatly hamper the panzers even when they did get near the beachhead.

During the Dieppe raid the nearest German armour within striking distance belonged to the 10th Panzer Division, under General Wolfgang Fischer, stationed at Amiens 60 miles (96km) away. The 1st SS Panzer Division, under Sepp Dietrich, was 80 miles (128km) away north west of Paris. It had fallen to the 302nd Infantry Division under Generalleutnant Conrad Hasse to thwart the seaborne attack.

Ironically, the Germans afterwards noted bombastically: ‘Our rapid intervention and the powerful aspect of the panzer division made a great impression on the populace’. Although the 10th Panzer and 1st SS Panzer Divisions had gone on alert at 0625, 10th Panzer did not head north until 0900 and then it was hampered by inadequate maps and worn out vehicles. Its progress was far from proficient and the Luftwaffe was equally slow off the mark to react. Fischer arrived at Dieppe just as the survivors were surrendering at 1308 hours.

While Hitler was understandably impressed by Rommel’s proposals, it was Schweppenburg who swayed the day by personally visiting him to argue that the panzers should be held under a centralised command in the forests astride the Seine. Schweppenburg felt the greatest threat would be from an airborne landing. He was also of the view that the Allies should be allowed to penetrate inland before being counterattacked. Hitler backed von Runstedt and Schweppenburg, refusing Rommel’s request to deploy the 12th SS at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula and for Panzer Lehr to deploy to Avranches.

The conflict over this issue reached such a tempo that Rommel and Schweppenburg fell out. ‘I am an experienced tank commander,’ Rommel told Schweppenburg, ‘you and I do not see eye to eye on anything. I refuse to work with you anymore’. On a personal level, Rommel can only have felt slighted after a subordinate commander whose responsibility was ostensibly to oversee panzer training had undermined his authority. It must have further irked him that even if Panzergruppe West did become an operational command he expected it to come directly under Army Group B’s control. In the event this was not to happen.

Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery was well aware of these tensions; in April 1944 he had briefed his commanders, commenting:

This argument between Rundstedt and Schweppenburg on the one hand and Rommel on the other resulted in an unwieldy compromise, with Rommel retaining command of 2nd (beyond the Somme), 21st and 116th Panzer Divisions (beyond the Seine), and the 1st SS and 12th SS Panzer Divisions; and Panzer Lehr remaining under von Rundstedt’s authority. The reserves constituted part of Panzergruppe West. The latter attempted to avoid frittering away its panzers by getting OB West to issue an order forbidding the piecemeal diversion of elements of the panzer divisions; once the reality of the invasion set in this order was soon abandoned.

The reserves though could not be deployed without the approval of OKW. Hitler as C-in-C exercised command through his Chief of Staff, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, and Chief of Operations Staff, General Alfred Jodl. This meant that the release of C-in-C West’s reserve panzer force was unlikely to happen in a hurry.

Even the forward deployment of a single panzer division caused much debate. General Günther Blumentritt, von Rundstedt’s Chief of Staff noted:

Rommel’s intuition was to prove correct, although the ultimate issue of where the rest of the panzer divisions should be best placed was never really resolved, nor in reality could it be. It is strange, given the lessons the Germans had provided Europe about the power of massed armour, that their panzer divisions should be scattered from Bordeaux to Belgium.

Prior to D-Day it was hard for the Germans to hide their troop and panzer movements along France’s roads and railways. In particular Route Nationale 13 followed the Normandy coastline from Cherbourg in the west to Caen in the east. Before, during and after the Normandy campaign, the Allied air forces and Special Forces did all they could to interrupt the Germans’ lines of communication. In the run up to D-Day, fighter-bombers and bombers of the British 2nd Tactical Air Force and the US 9th Air Force conducted an offensive against German rolling stock across northern Europe. Carried out during the last week of May, its aim was to hamper Hitler’s ability to reinforce his armies in northwest France once Operation Overlord was underway. Between 1 March and 6 June 1944 thirty-six marshalling yards in northern France and Belgium were bombed 139 times.

Attacks on the rail bridges over the Seine and Meuse had commenced on 7 May 1944, also designed to prevent the Germans bringing up reinforcements. The initial attacks on the Seine included Mantes-Gassicourt and Oissel, but from the end of the month onwards ten rail and fourteen road bridges were targeted as a top priority. By D-Day, from Conflans to Rouen all the rail bridges across the Seine were down.

One failing of this campaign was not destroying the bridges over the Loire at Saumar and Tours. Had this been achieved it would have greatly hampered the 2nd SS Panzer Division and 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division’s move north to join the battle in Normandy.

Allied light bombers conducted low-level incendiary raids on German targets, in particular airfields and communication centres, they also carried out long-range night-time raids. During the period 1 May–5 June 1944, thirty-six Luftwaffe airfields from the Netherlands to Brittany were targeted. Similarly low-level fighter-bomber sweeps were made over occupied Europe against targets of opportunity. Over the English Channel, daylight aircraft patrols were conducted to prevent the movement of light shipping and coastal convoys.

On the ground, the French resistance also coordinated their efforts with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to hinder the German movement of reinforcements by road and rail toward Normandy once the Allied invasion was underway. In February 1944 General Charles de Gaulle created the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) under General Koenig to unite all the various resistance groups, which would bravely harass German troop movements.

Colonel Passy (Captain André Charles Lucien Dewavrin) headed de Gaulle’s Free French Intelligence Service and established a network of spies watching developments along the defences of Hitler’s so called Atlantic Wall. Dewavrin, ironically a former Assistant Professor of Fortifications at Saint-Cyr, was not particularly interested in the concrete of the German defences but rather their radar installations. The French resistance set up a transmitter network throughout Normandy, particularly the Caen area, Bayeux, Grandcamp and Ste Mére-Èglise.

Lost opportunity

Just two days before D-Day Rommel, reassured that the tides would not be suitable for an invasion, departed from his HQ at the Chateau Roche Guyon outside Paris for his home near Ulm on the Danube, leaving his Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Hans Speidel, in charge. General Dollmann was in Rennes hosting a wargame and Sepp Deitrich was in Brussels.

Sometime after 0100 on 6 June 1944, a bleary-eyed Admiral Hoffman was roused from his bed at the HQ of Chief of Operations Naval Group West in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris. Chief of Staff Hoffman found himself leafing through a series of reports from the remaining naval radar stations. Despite the Allies’ best efforts there could be no hiding the vast fleet approaching the Normandy coast and Hoffman turned to his men: ‘this can only be the invasion fleet. Signal to the Führer’s headquarters the invasion is on’.

Rundstedt recalled:

The 1st SS, 12th SS and Panzer Lehr Panzer Divisions and the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division could not be released without Hitler’s express permission. By 0600 von Rundstedt was convinced that the invasion was the real thing and his Chief of Staff, General Blumentritt, requested that the panzer reserves be released to C-in-C West.

Rather surprisingly, the German High Command were not unduly alarmed by all this activity. Most incoming information was to a large extent ignored. Berlin dithered, still half expecting an attack across the Pas de Calais. Jodl was more concerned about the situation in Italy, where Rome had just fallen to the Allies, and the anticipated summer Soviet offensive on the Eastern Front; vague reports from Normandy did not seem that serious.

On hearing the news, Rommel dutifully sped back but did not arrive until the afternoon of D-Day and was unable to exert any influence on the swift commitment of the panzers. It was not until the end of 6 June that the Germans finally began to move their panzer reserves toward the Allied bridgehead. The 2nd Panzer Division moved west from Amiens, while the 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, part of the powerful II SS Panzer Corps, would be summoned from the Eastern Front five days later.

Rundstedt later noted with regret:

Bitterly commenting on this inertia after the war Rundstedt, perhaps trying to salvage his own reputation, told his captors:

Hauptmann Helmut Ritgen of the Panzer Lehr Division knew a golden opportunity had been lost:

Panzergruppe West was directed to become a combat command, but not under Rommel’s direct authority. When Schweppenburg finally got the order, he claimed he was dismayed at the muddled arrangements:

Clearly the situation was a complete mess and the Germans were to tie themselves in dreadful knots. Schweppenburg’s Panzergruppe West staff immediately found themselves involved in resisting the Allied invasion. He recalled:

Rommel must have felt equally frustrated that the chain of command for his panzers ran via Schweppenburg to von Rundstedt. He exercised direct control for barely three days.

Pending the arrival of Panzergruppe West, as of 0400 on the 7th June, I SS Panzer Corps assumed command of 12th SS, 21st and Panzer Lehr. Dietrich became responsible for 7th Army’s armoured counterattack and was well aware that the burden of this operation would fall on the teenagers of the 12th SS.

Unfortunately the staff of I SS Panzer Corps did nothing to clarify the situation for the divisional commanders. Although the Corps ordered an attack toward Courseulles-sur-Mer, in the event Panzer Lehr drifted toward Bayeux and the 12th SS moved northwest of Caen. At the time the I SS Panzer Corps was just starting its 438-mile (700km) journey from Belgium. Schweppenburg lamented I SS Panzer Corps’ dithering:

Counterattack

On 8 June Schweppenburg found himself in command of the three Panzer Divisions, he was also given the coastal 716th Infantry Division, which he discovered (numbering just 300 men) only existed in the imagination of the higher staffs, as the rest had been swept away during the invasion. The general knew that time was of the essence:

The plan was to counterattack along the Caen-Lion-sur-Mer road.

However, 21st Panzer was tied up on the left bank of the Orne and could not be deployed as a divisional formation. The damaged bridge at Thury-Harcourt delayed Panzer Lehr and 12th SS was lacking its panzers.

In the meantime, the Germans’ coastal defence had been pierced and the way south was clear for the Allies; during the night of 7 June the British 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division took Bayeux and the following day the American 1st Infantry Division captured Tour-en-Bessin and Le Coudrai on the Bayeux–Isigny road.

Schweppenburg and his staff assessed that, despite the success at Bayeux, the British and Canadians would not launch a large-scale attack until thorough preparations had been made. In contrast it was felt the Americans were less likely to be so cautious and therefore possibly constituted a greater threat, especially if they were to push into the gap between Panzergruppe West and 7th Army.

Schweppenburg was dismissive of Rommel’s urge to strike the Allies on the beaches with the panzers. This would expose them to concentrated naval gunfire and fighter-bombers; in addition, the existing forces were insufficient for such a task and vital fuel and ammunition stocks lay too far to the rear to assist rapid deployment.

Panzergruppe West’s fears were realised at 1000 hours when the attack was launched. The 12th SS struggled to get south of Creully in the face of heavy naval bombardment; Panzer Lehr, lacking fuel, could only commit a kampfgruppe (battle group), while 21st Panzer could offer little help. Air support from the Luftwaffe was non-existent. Crucially, despite this the Germans were able to hold onto the vital roads leading to Caen.

Rommel pitched up at I SS Panzer Corps on 10 June to inform them that XLVII Panzer Corps with two panzer divisions would be committed to their left and that Panzergruppe West would assume control between the Orne and the Vire rivers. Then in the afternoon he visited Schweppenburg’s command post. Allied intelligence knew that this HQ had moved northwest of Thury-Harcourt to the Chateau at La Caine about 12 miles (20km) southwest of Caen on the 8th. Rommel narrowly missed the Allied air attack, which Schweppenburg recalls:

The irony was that Luftwaffe representatives had attended the meeting and not only could they not promise support for the proposed panzer attack toward Creully, they could not even protect Schweppenburg’s HQ from air attack. About forty Officers and men were killed in the raid, including General major Ritter von Dawans, Schweppenburg’s Chief of Staff. The I SS Panzer Corps was placed under the direct control of Dollmann’s 7th Army.

With Schweppenburg wounded and Panzergruppe West’s communications severed, the survivors were withdrawn to act as a provisional HQ and at the end of June took over the front from the River Orne to Vire. General Heinrich Eberbach claimed that there was no friction between Panzergruppe West and 7th Army, but this is difficult to believe when both formations were competing for control of the same resources.

It had not taken long for Schweppenburg to realise just how vulnerable the German Army was to Allied combined armed forces; naval gunfire, artillery and aircraft were causing excessive casualties and were a drain on morale. In particular, the panzer divisions were threatened with rapid attrition, especially as replacement units were insufficient. Schweppenburg knew that a readjustment of tactics was needed:

Such tactics were to prove highly difficult to implement in the weeks that followed.