What was the response of Hitler after D-Day?

We always get something new.  No Hitler was not sleeping and in reality they blew it.  You had to imagine a floating port coming in.

They did  not get a recce plane over the beach until june 22 which was over two full weeks in.  their probes were just that and told them little enough.  You have to imagine the actual scale of the operation to see it.

Ports or not, the fact its that they brought everything in across those beaches for the most part.  It was also the size of the marine operation supporting it all along with ample air cargo support.

It is completely possible that having the port solution gave them the  go ahead to use the beaches.  after all those ports took a long time to initially set up and had a mixed impact.

At the same time the center of mass for the German defense was Calais.  That never really changed for a long time.

What was the response of Hitler after D-Day?

Carl Richard Archie

Jun 9

He and the High Command thought it was a diversion. In fact, they viewed it as a stupid diversion. Very simply, Normandy had TWO ports of note, Cherbourg and Le Havre. Accordingly, the Germans had heavily fortified both:

They thought the Allied invasion would happen in the vicinity of Calais.

However, late in the morning June 6th, the High Command got troubled by the SIZE of the diversion. The only tank division in the immediate vicinity was the 21st Panzer Division:

They were given a series of contradictory orders. First they were supposed to retake the bridges seized by the British commandos (Capture of the Caen canal and Orne River bridges):

By 9:00 AM, they had fully mobilized and awaited orders. At 10:30 AM, Erich Marcks ordered the 21st Panzer Division to attack the British landing zones. Edgar Feuchtinger countermanded the order. Fritz Bayerlein and Friedrich Dollmann argued about ordering the 21st Panzer to attack. Bayerlein thought exposing tanks to aircraft and artillery, in daylight, was insane; especially for a raid.

At 1430 hours Gerd von Rundstedt ordered Fritz Witt and the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend to drive towards Normandy coast, with great hesitation; quite simply, that movement would put that division out of position when the real invasion occurred.

At approximately 1600 of June 6th, the 21st Panzer Division was ordered to attack the gap between the British and Canadian landing zones. Erich Marcks is reported to said to the commander of the drive to coast:

“If we do not throw the British back into the sea, we shall have lost the war.”

The German High Command and Hitler (he had been briefed by 11:00 AM) were not convinced.

The 21st Panzer launched its attack at approximately 1630 hours. It is marked by the red 2 below:

4

The attack was repulsed and 21st retreated into Caen. Their commander’s reason for retreat was contradictory. He claimed he saw 600 Allied aircraft headed east and he was afraid of being cut off. Others claimed he was being hammered by “Jabos,” British fireflies, anti-tank artillery and naval artillery. Some claimed he had lost 70 of his 124 tanks. Others claim, he had 70 tanks left when he retreated to Caen.

The first elements of 12th SS Panzer reach the Orne River at nightfall(2200 hours) but most tanks were demobilized due to lack of fuel. Kurt Meyer, commander of that Division was not troubled:

He called the invasion “little fishes;” the real invasion was yet to come.

The next day, Panzer Lehr Division, was ordered to the coast:

About the same time, I SS Panzer Corps was ordered to mobilize and drive to Falaise(not Caen):

Shortly after, 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen, were ordered to march to Normandy; they got there on June 10th:

They were ordered to contain Allied activity in Normandy, not drive the invaders into the sea.

The post war generals all claimed their failure to act was because of this:

Utter nonsense. The High Command believed it was a raid, not an invasion. They believed the real invasion was yet to come and the Allies were being clever. After the war, they concocted the whole Hitler sleeping nonsense. The fact was, the Allied intelligence fooled them and they got caught completely off guard. The first offensive orders went out 14 hours after the invasion started (12:07 AM).

They had thought, the Allies would go after a port for the purposes of logistics. The were right but wrong. The Allies were bringing their ports with them:

Well, why did not High Command and Hitler get an assessment of size and scope of the invasion? Allied air forces had blinded them. GAF (German Air Force, Luftwaffe] and the Invasion of Normandy claims the Luftwaffe was outnumbered 40:1 over the battlefield. The first successful German recon flight was on June 22.