The Valour and the Horror

In theory, the German chain of command in the west was an example of good order. Adolf Hitler served as supreme commander of the Wehrmacht, the nation's armed forces. The High Command (OKW), led by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, ran the war everywhere except in the Soviet Union. Navy Group West and the Third Air Fleet, in turn, managed Germany's naval and air forces in Western Europe, while the ground force, some 58 divisions, came under the Oberbefehlshaber West (OB West), headed by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt.

OB West controlled two army groups, Army Group G, which had charge of the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of France, and Army Group B under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who had charge of anti-invasion forces along the Channel coast as far south as the Loire River. Rommel commanded two armies: the 15th, guarding the Pas de Calais and the Normandy coast to a line just south of the Seine River with 19 divisions (5 panzer), and the 7th, with 13 divisions (1 panzer), covering the coast from the boundary with the 15th Army to the Loire River.

So logical on paper, those arrangements masked conditions in the field that were close to Byzantine.

Using the operations staff of OKW as an intermediary, Hitler exercised direct control over Rundstedt's OB West. In theory a theatre commander, Rundstedt had no authority over air force or naval units based within areas under his jurisdiction. The navy commanded most of the coastal artillery that would be called upon to repel an Allied attack, and the air force controlled the bulk of the anti-aircraft and parachute units stationed in the region. Some armour units also came under the administrative supervision of the SS (Shutzstaffel), the elite political army that answered first to Hitler and Berlin rather than to its supposed commanders in the field.

The manner in which Rommel exercised authority at Army Group B was symptomatic of the debilities afflicting the German staff. Subordinate in theory to Rundstedt, Rommel was his equal in rank. Much more forceful than Rundstedt in personality, he came to exercise far more influence than his position would normally have dictated. In addition, as a field marshal, he had the privilege of communicating directly with Hitler outside the chain of command. Thus he had the ability to undercut his superior whenever he wished.
"Their German defenders had stepped up their preparations for D-Day since the beginning of the year, when Field Marshal Erwin Rommel had been designated Inspector of Fortifications for the western front (he was also in command of Army Group B). Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt was in overall charge of German forces in France. The two men disagreed on how best to meet an Allied invasion, and their disagreement was reflected in the way the Germans deployed their troops. Rommel wanted to stop the Allies on the beaches with powerful armoured thrusts from panzer units located only a short distance away. Von Rundstedt took a more traditional German approach to defense; he wanted to keep the German armour further back, to be used in a powerful counter-attack once the Allies got ashore. Most of the German commanders (but not Rommel) also fell for the Allied ruse that Calais was to be the invasion point, not Normandy. Thus the Fifteenth army (with its panzer divisions) was to be held in reserve near Calais until Hitler himself agreed to release it, or its tanks, to be used elsewhere." (Bercuson 1995: 206)

Valour and Horror, Second World War, Canadian history, World War II, W.W.II