The Germans in Normandy
£14.99
Richard Hargreaves
Operation Overlord - the Allied invasion of Northern France in June 1944
was the greatest combined undertaking in the history of warfare.
Up until now it has been recorded almost exclusively from the attackers'
point of view; the story from `the other side of the hill' has largely been
ignored - a situation which has long begged to be rectified.
Drawing upon letters, diaries, first-hand accounts, divisional histories,
newspaper cuttings and official documents, The Germans in Normandy paints a
vivid - and frequently horrific - picture of life for the men who held
Hitler's vaunted Atlantic Wall, men who believed in their cause, and
believed that they could defeat the Allied onslaught.
Belief in victory quickly turned to disappointment. By June 8 1944 it was
clear to every German soldier in the West that the enemy had a foothold on
the shores of France.
What ensued was a bitter struggle as towns and cities such as
Villers-Bocage, Cherbourg, St Lô, Caen and Avranches were thrust into the
front line where men such as Michael Wittman and Kurt Meyer and the ranks
of the 12th SS Panzer Division - the Hitlerjugend - were immortalized.
It all came to naught for the defenders. With the American breakout in late
July, the German line crumbled and was eventually rolled up - culminating
in the horrors of the Falaise pocket, where the core of the Wehrmacht in
Normandy was trapped, the fall of Paris and the wholesale, chaotic
withdrawal of Hitler's forces from France.
At least 60,000 German soldiers, sailors and airmen were killed in the
defence of Normandy. However odious the regime they served was, they fought
bravely, for the most part honourably, and always against overwhelming
enemy material and numerical superiority. This is their story.