D-Day: OPERATION OVERLORD
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel In June 1944 the Third Reich’s western coast stretched 2800 miles from Norway to the Pyrenees. Cinema audiences watching the Nazis’ newsreels were told that the cliffs and beaches were superbly defended by the impregnable Atlantic Wall, but this was far from the truth. Throughout the war, the Germans’ hardest battles were fought against the Russians on the Eastern Front; the defence of France had never been a major priority. Much of the coastline was guarded by little more than poorly trained, ill-equipped troops manning inadequate defensive structures. At the end of 1943 Hitler appointed one of the most capable and energetic men under his command to inspect the more vulnerable coasts. From the days when he’d commanded a panzer division in France in 1940, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel had won a reputation for tenacity, imagination and, above all, lightning speed on the battlefield. It was in the open deserts of North Africa that he’d best been able to demonstrate his ability, until beaten by the superior resources of Montgomery at El Alamein. Rommel believed that an Allied invasion of France was inevitable, as did Hitler himself. But, unlike the Führer, Rommel feared that fighting powerful forces on two separate fronts would lead to the destruction of Germany. However, it was possible that if the Allies were quickly beaten on the beaches, a stalemate would follow. This would allow Germany to negotiate peace in the west, freeing her to tackle the Russians in the east. Germany might even persuade the Allies to join the fight against Stalin’s Red Army. To Rommel these were attractive thoughts, but he knew that if Eisenhower was allowed to advance inland, it would
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
25