Filter
Top Products
68
Close Combat
The German Forces in Normandy
As the German High Command realizes that an invasion in the West is
imminent, the number of combat divisions in France is increased from 46
in November of 1943 to 58 by June 1944. However, many of these
divisions are below full strength. Some of them have had troops siphoned
off to the war against the Soviets; others are shifted from the Eastern
Front to France to rest and refit, their ranks decimated by combat with
the Red Army. Many battalions are partially made up of Polish and
Russian prisoners, known as Osttruppen, or “Eastern troops,” most of
whom lack any desire to fight for Germany. Allied deceptions have
convinced the Germans to reinforce the Pas de Calais, which depletes the
concentration of forces in Normandy even further.
In January, 1944 German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is named head of
Army Group B, which covers the Seventh and the Fifteenth Armies in
northern France, and takes over the responsibility for defenses there.
Although construction of a fortified coastal defense system, known as the
“Atlantic Wall,” had begun in 1942, Rommel immediately begins to
strengthen it with mines, underwater obstacles, and concrete gun em-
placements. This is in keeping with his belief that the only way to repulse
Fooling the Germans with “Fortitude”
While Rommel speeded his preparations, German
forces in France increased to 55 divisions, many
of them far from Normandy. In particular, the
German Fifteenth Army remained in the Pas de
Calais to repel an invasion force that would never
strike there. This was partially due to a brilliant
Allied deception called “Operation Fortitude.” Its
deceptions took a number of forms, all intended to
divert German attention from the real invasion
preparations in the south of England to a carefully
orchestrated and entirely bogus buildup in the
southeast, opposite the Pas de Calais.
German reconnaissance aircraft were allowed
to fly over sites crammed with dummy tanks,
trucks, and landing craft made of rubber, plywood,
and canvas. Inflatable Sherman tanks that four
men could easily carry looked real enough from
the air, and the net effect was to trick the Germans
into thinking they had found the growing stockpile
for the coming invasion. Meanwhile false radio
traffic convinced them that General Patton was
preparing the fictitious “U.S. First Army Group” for
an invasion at the Pas de Calais. For a month or
more after D-Day, much of the German leadership
continued in the conviction that the invasion in
Normandy was merely a feint, and that the “real”
invasion would soon fall where they had always
known it would.
German Field Marshal
Erwin Rommel