Hitler's Gladiator by Charles Messenger

Author:Charles Messenger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

CHAPTER 7

NORMANDY

1944

For the first few months of 1944, I SS Panzer Corps consisted of just the Hitlerjugend, and it remained in Belgium. In April, however, Dietrich was delighted to see the Leibstandarte arrive once more, although it was not placed directly under his command. This division, after its desperate battles during 1943 and again in the winter 1943-44, especially during the fighting around the Cherkassy pocket in February 1944, was urgently in need of a long rest and refit, and would be non-operational for some time to come.

In the meantime, as winter gave way to spring, Dietrich became indirectly caught up in the controversy over how best to repel an Allied landing on the shores of France. It was a question of how to employ the armour. Rommel, commanding Army Group B, and responsible for actually fighting the battle on the beaches, wanted the Panzer divisions to be positioned on the coast so that they could be used to drive the invaders back into the sea before they could consolidate the beachhead. His superior, von Rundstedt, as Commander-in-Chief West, believed that the tanks should be held back, on the grounds that it was by no means clear where the Allies were intending to strike, Normandy or the Pas de Calais. In this he was supported by Hitler, who laid down that no armour could be moved without his express permission. In order to reinforce this, the Panzer divisions were placed under command of the new formed Panzer Group West under Geyr von Schweppenburg. I SS Panzer Corps was now given 2nd Panzer Division, based at Arras and 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division, which was in the Le Mans area, to add to the Hitlerjugend, leaving the Leibstandarte to carry on undisturbed with its refit. The tasks of the Corps were to be prepared for commitment in the event of enemy air landings or a surprise amphibious landing in the Antwerp-Cherbourg area – a wide brief. Dietrich himself now moved his headquarters from Brussels to the Paris area. This was partly to be more central, but also because, although he was under Geyr von Schweppenburg’s command for training, he was put under von Rundstedt’s direct operational control, and it made sense to have his headquarters close to that of High Command West. At the beginning of May, as a slight concession to Rommel, the Hitlerjugend was moved from Belgium to the Evreux area.

Dietrich, like most others on the German side, was taken by surprise when the Allied landings did eventually take place in Normandy early on 6 June 1944. He was, in fact, in Brussels, where he had been visiting Theodor Wisch and the Leibstandarte. On hearing the news, he immediately returned to Paris to receive orders from von Rundstedt. In the meantime, Kraemer and the Corps staff had already been alerted by von Rundstedt and had begun to set the deployment of the Corps to the battle area in train. Dietrich’s orders were to counter-attack from the direction of Caen and drive the Allies back into the sea.

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