D-Day Started while Hitler was Sleeping - Which Sources?

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi ljadw,

You post, "It is not correct to determine the strength of a PzD by the number of its tanks." True, but nobody did, did they?

Yup, PzLehr lost 90 trucks, etc. However, as it had somewhere around 2,500 motor vehicles, this only represents about 4% of them.

You seem to be repeatedly saying that 4%-5% would incapacitate a full strength panzer division or armoured regiment from moving at all.

You appear to have a very low opinion of the resilience of German armoured units and formations.

Cheers,

Sid.

[ljadw]

1 2500 motor vehicles ? And if so, how many were operational ? And how many of these operational motor vehicles were going to Normandy on 6/7 June ?
2 The loss of 90 trucks was hurting PzL harshly as the division was mutilated on 6 June : its Panther battalion was on its way to Russia .
3 PzL was not a full strength Panzer division on 6 June .
4 It is also very questionable to compare the loss of trucks to the total number of motor vehicles,one should compare the loss of trucks to the available number of trucks . Trucks are motor vehicles, but motor vehicles are not only trucks .

[VanillaNuns]

What a mess - 8 pages of arguments.

From what I see, Boby and Sid (with some later clarification from Carl) are the ones with their finger on the pulse.

How? Simple.

A combination of post war testimony from all the major German military figures who survived.

1. Interrogation reports
2. Nuremberg testimony
3. Memoirs

Some are more accurate than others. But when you take the evidence from all the key figures and put it together, you get a reasonably clear picture of what happened on the day.

Look at history as if you were a lawyer preparing evidence and collecting witness testimony for a major trial.

No one really had much to gain here by being deliberately deceptive and the timelines given by Carl correspond roughly with what is being said by the major players who were there on the day.

Far too much emphasis now in the 21st century is placed on authors, websites, documentaries and movies.

Forget about "The Longest Day" and also "War and Remembrance" which also covered the day in great detail. Both productions were made primarily for entertainment value, not for historical analysis many decades later.

The history of WW2 seems to be constantly changing, and not for the better either.

Even a respectable and reputable publication like "After the Battle" (mentioned on here already) is not to the same excellent standards it was back in the 1970s to 1990s.

[ljadw]

It was in the interest of the major German military who survived to blame Hitler for the defeats and to appropriate for themselves the victories .

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi ljadw,

You post, "It was in the interest of the major German military who survived to blame Hitler for the defeats and to appropriate for themselves the victories."

That is a truism that tells us nothing about whether it actually happened, or to what degree.

Cheers,

Sid.

[ljadw]

But it tells us to be very suspicious about what people as Halder, Speidel,Blumentritt were saying after the war .
It tells us also to be very suspicious about the establishment post war historiography of WW 2, because this historiography is based on what Speidel, Blumentritt, Halder, Manstein were saying after the war .
For the majority of those who have any knowledge of D Day (most people are convinced that D Day is a rap group ) especially in the US,their only source of information is The Longest Day.And people as Blumentritt were advisers of the producer .
A lot of omissions and corrections ( in other words : falsifications ) were made in the War Diary of HG B . The reason is obvious .

[Montgomery]

Sid,

as far as I personally know from hearsay, the "Führer" was a "night owl" ("Nachteule") and "late riser" ("Langschläfer"), and definitely not an "early riser" ("Frühaufsteher").

German saying: "Der frühe Vogel fängt den Wurm!"
(There is much truth in this.)

Yes Hitler was not an early riser , it was confirmed in the newsreels filmed in Berchtesgaden , and with the interview of his maid

I don't think this is because he stays all night as naughty boy but he sleeps late as night owl as Hans said.

[Aida1]

Kriegsgeschichte der 12.SS panzer division Hitlerjugend, Hubert Meyer quotes on pp55-56 a statement by Otto Gunsche to the author that Hitler was woken up early in the morning of June 6 by Linge at the request of Schmundt who urgently wanted to speak to Hitler after a a call from Jodl. .According to Gunsche, Hitler was, against his habit, already towards 8 am in the big hall of the Berghof.

[Aida1]

But it tells us to be very suspicious about what people as Halder, Speidel,Blumentritt were saying after the war .
It tells us also to be very suspicious about the establishment post war historiography of WW 2, because this historiography is based on what Speidel, Blumentritt, Halder, Manstein were saying after the war .
For the majority of those who have any knowledge of D Day (most people are convinced that D Day is a rap group ) especially in the US,their only source of information is The Longest Day.And people as Blumentritt were advisers of the producer .
A lot of omissions and corrections ( in other words : falsifications ) were made in the War Diary of HG B . The reason is obvious .

The obvious is that you always want to do everything not having to blame Hitler for anything. Not that specifically in this context, he did anything wrong on that day. But there certainly never was any conspiracy to blame Hitler.

[Aida1]

That Allied Air Power was not incapacitating on 7 June or on 6 June,is a claim, not a reality .
The reality is that an advance by daylight would be slower and more dangerous than an advance by night .And the result would also be that the panzer units would be weaker if they left at 6.00 H than at 18.00 H .
See 21 PzD : its first units were counterattacking at 10 .00 H on 6 June ,but without any results :because of their weakness,they had to stop their attack .If 21 PzD had attacked later, it could have attacked with stronger forces .
12 SS was released at 6 June at 15 .00 H and its FIRST ELEMENTS ( NOT the division ) arrived at Caen on 7 June 9.30 H . If 12 SS had started its advance later, it could also have arrived on 7 June t 9.30 H and with stronger units . Not that this would have made any difference .
The PzD did not arrive at a definite hour,but it took them not hours,but days to arrive, to assemble ,to make the needed plans and preparations for an attack .
The units of 12 SS that arrived ,let's say on 8 June at 16.00 h ,would not arrive earlier if the first units had started their advance not at 15.00 H on 6 June,but at 12.00 H and they would not have arrived later if the first units had started later .
The faster the first units would leave and arrive, the weaker/smaller they would be .
The stronger they would arrive, the later they would arrive ,

You clearly do not know much about the movements of 12 ss. The only way 12 ss could be committed would be by being further forward from the beginning which is the real issue and not whap happened on June 6.

[Aida1]

It is important to note that 12 ss pz had already been ordered forward by OB West at 1000 am so was already moving before it was formally released in the afternoon. . Makes the discussion about the release less important.

[Aida1]

I agree with your points, but I still stick to my point that too much importance is still given to the PzD .
If they had an offensive role ( = to push back the Allies in sea ) ,they should be used very fast (which was impossible ) and concentrated (which was also impossible as tanks need space to deploy and space was not available .) Besides,the static divisions needed their help .

If pz div were stationed close enough they could counterattack quickly. That there was no space is nonsense

[Aida1]

#
And, the German plan was NOT to defeat the invasion as near as possible to the beaches : you forget something essential = TIME .
The German plan was to defeat the invasion as fast as possible and as near to the beaches as possible .

Sorry but this is factually incorrect. THE Germans did not have a single plan to defeat the allies. Some Germans had one plan and some had other ideas. However the men who did have a plan and were in a position to implement it were Rommel and Hitler, who appointed Rommel to command Army Group B. The plan was to defeat the to defeat the Allies on the beaches on D Day. This required them to have their hands on the controls on the night the allies landed. In simple terms. They made a plan that failed. They screwed up. Hence books and movies called "The Longest Day" and the question about whether Hitler was asleep when D Day started.

It was hardly Rommels plan that was implemented as the positioning of the pz div was not based on his ideas. It was a compromise between the different concepts.

[Aida1]

That Allied Air Power was not incapacitating on 7 June or on 6 June,is a claim, not a reality .
The reality is that an advance by daylight would be slower and more dangerous than an advance by night .And the result would also be that the panzer units would be weaker if they left at 6.00 H than at 18.00 H .

The reality is that allied airpower slowed down the advance of mobile division.In the context of D day It was more important that a mobile division arrived earlier with some losses than much too late.

[Sheldrake]

Kriegsgeschichte der 12.SS panzer division Hitlerjugend, Hubert Meyer quotes on pp55-56 a statement by Otto Gunsche to the author that Hitler was woken up early in the morning of June 6 by Linge at the request of Schmundt who urgently wanted to speak to Hitler after a a call from Jodl. .According to Gunsche, Hitler was, against his habit, already towards 8 am in the big hall of the Berghof.

The history of the 12 SS has a source bias. Hubert Meyer, the author, promulgates the WW2 Nazi fake history "Durchstoss" myth, that the Wehrmacht was betrayed by high placed anti Nazi staff officers: specifically Hans Speidel who misled the high command.

The quote from Gunsche is a recollection of a man some time after the event, with all the problems of old soldier's memories.

About fifteen years ago the battlefield guide and author Tim Saunders heard that Hubert Meyer was still alive and worked with an Oxford German professor to obtain what he hoped would be new primary source material on the Normandy Campaign. The results were presented at RUSI with a well informed audience. The question session started with Anthony Beevor denouncing the results as Durchstoss bollocks - though he used more polite terms.

I suspect that the German response was a function of their own doctrine and SOPs as well as individual decisions. I don't have access to my library, but from memory, the sequence and responses were as follows.

The first incidents were airborne landings reported in the hours after midnight. The decision to respond to an allied invasion rested with Hitler. However, there were standing orders for mopping up commandos which required prompt action. Fifteenth Army screamed louder than Seventh Army and the 12th SS was diverted to mop up paratroops on the coast to their north - and away from the best route to the invasion beaches. Thereafter, once the seaborne assault landings 12 SS was stuck until OKW made a decision, which took a lot longer.