D Day 48 hours warning and Admiral Canaris

[Linkagain]

According to Corneilus Ryans D-Day the 6th of June..Admiral Canaris did alert the german Armies in France by giving the secret password that the Allies would use to alert the French marquis....{Although he did not know where the Invasion would take place] which would have made this military information useless.. The Movie versian shows a French resistance person being killed by the SS who retrive a briefcase containing the code words....
1} How did the german Intelligence find this bit of information and not the elite Gestapo or SD?
2] Was a resistance cell turned by the "Germans"?

[Carl Schwamberger]

According to Corneilus Ryans D-Day the 6th of June..Admiral Canaris did alert the german Armies in France by giving the secret password that the Allies would use to alert the French marquis....{Although he did not know where the Invasion would take place] which would have made this military information useless..

Canaris had nothing to do with this. He'd been arrested in February 1944 on suspicion of treason. It was a local radio intelligence office in OB West (Rundsteadts command), that spotted the message & informed the local army commander, OB West, the Abwehr command in Germany. Ausland-SD

The Movie versian shows a French resistance person being killed by the SS who retrive a briefcase containing the code words....

More or less. I'd have to check the details.

1} How did the german Intelligence find this bit of information and not the elite Gestapo or SD?

The Gestapo was hardly elite in German intelligence. It had been primarily concerned with internal security and only gradually expanded. Himmler had been plotting to take over the Abwehr for several years and nailed it at the start of 1944. The functions of the Abwehr were absorbed by the Ausland-SD. Under that lot the SD and OKW continued to swallow whole the BS the Brits were feeding them via the XX Cross system and other Deception operations. So Himmlers lot did no better than Canaris men in this.

2] Was a resistance cell turned by the "Germans"?

Turned Resistance members were not directly involved in this one. However, whenever Resistance members were captured and interrogated there were gains by the assorted German security agencies rippling through the networks.

The discovery of the single message to the Resistance was not seen as a clear warning by a number of German leaders and Army intelligence officers. No other direct warnings had appeared that week, and the weather was deteriorating. Neither were the tides optimal in the German view, for the 5th thru 7th. There were no reports of the Allied invasion fleets putting to sea (they were at sea on the 4th). The Allied bombing pattern was ambiguous & there was no clear concentration on any of the potential invasion sites. No major effort by the Allies to clear the minefields guarding the coast had been detected. Neither had the radio intelligence units detected and other warnings. Allied radio traffic was not 'surging' as was expected. Resistance activity was increasing, but there was no surge as might be expected.

There had been a warning from the intelligence people over a week earlier based on circumstantial evidence & a massive alert called for the 7th Army. The had everyone sitting & sleeping in uncomfortable bunkers for a couple days. Away from their French wine and women, and comfortable beds in the French villages. Many commanders were reluctant to call another alert when bad weather was churning up the Channel waters & rain drizzling intermitantly on the countryside.

[Linkagain]

Thanks for clearing this up!

[Carl Schwamberger]

'Count Down to D Day has a detailed section on the interception of the message, naiming the intelligence officer who first read it, who he passed it to, and the reactions of the several senior commanders who received it.

By all legitimate German accounts the first clear warning that something was up came about 01:30 when the paratroops started landing. Jamming attacks on the radios and radars had started earlier, but the Allies had made frequent attacks on thos during April & May, so there was nothing unusual in that. The same for the bombing attacks that night. There was also a fake fleet displayed off Calais. The RAF used signals deception and some individual ships to trick the surface search radars into seeing a large fleet moving towards Calais in the eastern Channel. That lasted several hours. Couple of utility & patrol boats ran into the actual invasion fleet between 12:00 & 03:00, but radio jamming made them unable to get a warning to HQ. The first indication of actual invasion was when dawn revealed the Allied fleet in the Seine Bay off the Calvados & Cotientin beaches.

The 7th and 15th Armies were ordered to the highest alert level when the paratroop drops were reported, and again when the reports of a fleet approaching Calais was reported. At the low alert level of 5 June only 20 or 25 % of the Germans were manning the defenses. The rest were at their billets inland sleeping or entertaining themselves late. It took about three hours for the defenses to be manned 100%. Between 04:30 & 05:00 close to all local commanders reported their unit ready.

[Sean Oliver]

Ike's decision to "Go!' for June 6 probably was the most decisive single factor which made D-Day a success. The Germans were caught by surprise for several hours and this helped to muddle their already muddled command arrangements, and they were prevented from employing their most dangerous battlefield weapon - their skill at improvising quickly and restoring the situation.