D-Day June 6, 1944: How did Hitler react?

Considering the pivotal nature of June 6, 1944, one might expect that Hitler responded to the arrival of Allied troops on the banks of Normandy with alarm – quite the contrary.

|
Remy de la Mauviniere/AP
The Brave, a monument dedicated to the American soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day, stands at Saint Laurent sur Mer, better known as Omaha Beach, western France, Friday, on the eve of the commemoration of the 71st anniversary of D-Day.

June 6 will forever be the anniversary of one of the most fateful days in modern history: the Allied D-Day invasion of Normandy. By day’s end American, British, and Canadian troops had breached Germany’s Atlantic Wall defenses and established a foothold in Western Europe. With Soviet armies rolling in from the east Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime was caught in a gigantic vise. Its defeat was now only a matter of time.

Considering the pivotal nature of June 6, 1944, how did Hitler react to the attack? Did he rant, did he rail? Did he move with focused calm to try and repel the invaders?

He did none of those things, at first. For D-Day’s opening act, Hitler slept.

In the early days of June Germany’s Fuhrer was at The Berghof, his residence in the Bavarian Alps. Everyone there knew an invasion was likely in the near future, but the atmosphere was not nervous, according to contemporary accounts. To the contrary it was relaxed, and in the evening, almost festive. A group of guests and military aides would gather at the complex’s Tea House and Hitler would hold forth on favorite topics, such as the great men of history, or Europe’s future.

On the evening of June 5, Hitler and his entourage watched the latest newsreels, and then talked about films and theater. They stayed up until 2 a.m., trading reminiscences. It was almost like the “good old times,” remembered key Hitler associate Joseph Goebbels.

When Goebbels left for his own quarters, a thunderstorm broke, writes British historian Ian Kershaw. German military intelligence was already picking up indications of an oncoming Allied force, and perhaps landing troops, in the Normandy region. But Hitler wasn’t told. The Fuhrer retired around 3 a.m.

German headquarters confirmed that some sort of widespread attack was in progress shortly thereafter. At sunrise, around 6 a.m., the defenders knew: Allied ships and planes were massed off the French beaches in astounding strength, and men were beginning to come ashore. It was a sight many would never forget.

But the German reaction was slow and befuddled. Was this the real thing, the main invasion? Or was it a feint, with the real force to land elsewhere, probably Calais?

“German confusion was extensive,” wrote US historian Stephen Ambrose in his book “D-Day: June 6, 1944, The Climactic Battle of World War II.”

Hitler snored on. He had previously insisted that any initial attack would be a decoy intended to divert forces to the wrong place. Given his tendency towards histrionics, no one wanted to tell Hitler what was going on until they themselves were certain.

“His adjutants now hesitated to waken him with mistaken information,” wrote Mr. Kershaw in his “Hitler: A Biography.”

Hitler was still asleep at 10 a.m. when Nazi associate and arms minister Albert Speer arrived at the Berghof. He was awakened around noon and told the news. Hitler was not angry, or vindictive – far from it. He seemed relieved. Goebbels thought the German leader looked as if a great burden had fallen from his shoulders. He had earlier said Normandy was a possible landing site, for one thing. He felt the poor weather in the area would favor the defense. He considered Allied troops far inferior to German units. For months, Allied forces had been massing in England, where the now-weakened Luftwaffe could not strike them. Now they were in reach, in range of German guns.

“The news couldn’t be better,” Hitler said when informed of the invasion, according to historian Mr. Ambrose.

But Hitler’s morning lie-in was a tremendous error. Or rather his sleep, plus the inflexibility of the German command system, significantly weakened the German response to the oncoming Allied forces.

Earlier on the morning of June 6 the top German commander in the west, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, had requested the immediate release of two reserve panzer divisions held in the area of Paris for use against the Normandy beachhead about 120 miles away. He had to ask for them because they weren’t under his command. They were controlled by Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the overall military headquarters in Germany. OKW was at first reluctant to authorize their release. What if the “invasion” was a trap?

At a lunchtime military conference Hitler finally agreed with von Rundstedt’s request. But at that point it was too late. If they had moved out in early morning, under cover of darkness, they might have reached the front. Now they had to wait out the daylight hours, lest they be destroyed by Allied aircraft, which ruled the French skies.

“The delay was crucial,” judged Kershaw in his Hitler biography.

Allied units were already beginning to move inland and link up with each other in an attempt to create a seamless beachhead. A German counter-attack failed to drive wedges between the Allied landing beaches. More panzers might have made the response effective.

Later on June 6, Hitler attended a reception near Salzburg for the new Austrian foreign minister. When he entered the room he was radiant. “It’s begun at last,” he said.

By day’s end 156,000 Allied troops had already landed in France. Six days later all beachhead sectors were connected and the Allies controlled an area about 15 miles deep at its thickest point. Two weeks later 650,000 American and British troops were in France, the point of a spear aimed at Berlin.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to D-Day June 6, 1944: How did Hitler react?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2015/0606/D-Day-June-6-1944-How-did-Hitler-react
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe